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Tinubu, Yusuph Olaniyonu and hunger protest

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2 years ago

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Stop, CBN! The baby is in the bathwater
Tunde Odesola

Tinubu, Yusuph Olaniyonu and hunger protest

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, August 9, 2024)

Returning home from work on a humid evening in 2016, I asked my children their thoughts about visiting America. They took their gaze away from the TV, searched my eyes for seriousness, smiled doubtfully and returned their gaze to the TV, exhibiting an air of ‘we have outgrown your pranks, this old man’. America ko, Africa ni.

“OK, guys,” I said deadpan, “We’re going to the US Embassy next week.” That should break the ice, so I thought, as I watched their faces light up suddenly, all speaking about the same time.

A voice said, “Let’s go there, Baba T!” Another, whose legs couldn’t reach the pedals of a car, said, “I’ll drive all of you to Lagos.” Yet another said, “I will issue all of you visas, you don’t need to go to the embassy.” Laughter. Voices. “You all don’t need visas to America when I’ll fly the plane,” a voice said. They all laughed at their father.

How many children does this man have, you must be wondering. Don’t wander too far; destined is the head that picks the choicest meat from the pot – orí la fí ń mú eran lawo. Shoot your shot at the orange tree – none, one, two or more oranges may drop. I shot my shot and more than one orange dropped into my arms. I’m not an eku eda, the proliferating house rat. My wife and I wanted two, God multiplied the two. Anyway, I admit children are gifts from God, lest any man should boast about his testosterone.

So, to Lagos we went from Osogbo, spending the night at grandpa’s house in Lagos and heading to the embassy a day after. I needn’t apply for a visa because I had one and had just returned from the US the year before. It was my Gang I needed visas for.

We went through security protocols at the embassy and in less than five minutes we were out of the embassy with visas in the kitty.

Weeks later, I booked tickets for my Gang and I but I didn’t inform them until a couple of days before departure. I always enjoy surprises and suspense.

On the way to the airport, my children were still suspicious of me, thinking the ‘US trip’ was one of my jokes. They were probably looking for me to burst out laughing, saying, “America ko, Africa ni, let’s return home, jare! I was only kidding you guys.”

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They struggled to bottle their excitement when we headed towards the plane, pinching themselves to wake up from the dream. They burst into stifled joy when the plane taxied off the tarmac, airborne. They locked hands, whispered silently among themselves as excited children do, and prayed not to be woken from dreamland. It was their first time on a plane.

We landed in America to the cold embrace of winter. Way into our vacation, my younger brother, Niyi, and a family friend, Benjamin Orusara and his wife, Sola, advised me to leave the kids behind to continue their schooling in the US. “Leave them? How? How much is school fees here,” I asked. “It’s free and compulsory for elementary, middle and high schools,” they told me. They added that it’s a jailable offence for parents or guardians not to send their children or wards to school in America. It was easy to reach a decision because their mother was already holidaying in the US, ahead of our visit.

So, I requested their report cards to be sent to me from Nigeria. Report cards sent, we all headed to the registration centre. This was before the commencement of the academic year. The only questions the registration officials asked were their names, ages and addresses, nothing more. The officials knew they were new to the country but it didn’t matter. Education was all that mattered.

The registration officials were surprised to see the quantity and quality of subjects my children had done in Nigeria, hinting that the subjects were high for their ages. They said I could move them up to their next classes to match up with their level of knowledge but I said they should continue in the classes fit for their ages.

First day in school, my Gang returned home with personalised laptops with their names ingrained on them along with books and other learning materials. You surely can’t get that in any public back home in Nigeria. They also brought home chargers for their laptops and syllabi. If your parents can’t afford stationeries, you don’t have to worry, there are papers, erasers, calculators, pencils, pens, markers, crayons, photocopiers and printers, textbooks, highlighters, lab coats, goggles etc in class for students to use.

In middle school, Nigeria’s equivalent of primary school, pupils in the school club called Green Power built a race car which they used in competing in a car race involving other primary schools. It’s not a pangolo or cardboard car. It’s a real car with big tyres and engines akin to Formula One cars. One of my Gang members was a member of the club and I witnessed one such competition as a parent. The Green Power club is also available in High School, where they build more sophisticated cars and gadgets.

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The middle school also owns an 18-wheeler trailer used by its music band to convey musical equipment to music shows and competitions. Imagine!

On a calm weekend in 2019, my Gang told me to take them out to a skating park called Insanity. It wasn’t their first time at the park, more so, they had been skating way back in Osogbo. So, I felt no worries about taking them to the park. But going by the name of the park, I should have known better. A terrible fall and everything went insane.

Blood splattered everywhere on the rink, the mouth was badly impacted, and teeth were missing. It was unsightly. I gathered my boy in my arms, took him to the bathroom, and washed him up, but the blood didn’t stop. My Gang was in disarray.

But Prof, as his nickname goes, showed uncommon courage and stoicism. He didn’t cry, he was calm and coherent, holding rolls and rolls of paper towels to his bleeding mouth.

I should’ve called 911 and accident and emergency rescue officials, firefighters and the police would have flooded the premises in less than five minutes.

At that time, I didn’t know there was a Fire Service Department directly opposite the skating park which was beside the county’s police station. I was a confused J-J-C. When my wife saw the injury, she went berserk.

I called my church shepherd, Pastor Peter Oyediran, a registered nurse. He told me to bring Prof to the city hospital. Like a deer escaping from the ambush of lions, I throttled down to the hospital, mindful that I stood being pulled over and fined for speeding. May God bless Pastor Oyediran, who despite just getting off work when I called him, still came to the hospital with us.

The city hospital, which is equivalent to Nigeria’s General Hospital, was like a skyscraper made of green glass and gold. As we stepped feet on the premises, courteous and well-dressed medical officials took over. They put Prof on a stretcher and wheeled him away after getting his name, age and my phone number.

They put him on a bed in an examination room fitted with the best gadgets known to medicine. One by one, they explained to me that they were going to run a comprehensive check to see if there was any damage to his eyes, ears, brain, nose, skull etc before zeroing down on the primary place of trauma, the mouth. They said damage to any organ in the skull might need to be treated first.

I breathe the breath which dying Nollywood actors on sickbeds breathe to signify the end of life – uhnnnnnn, thinking if I was sold, the money I would fetch wouldn’t be enough to offset the hospital bills.

Doctors, nurses and various medical officials were smiling at me as they explained in detail each procedure they were doing. Before carrying out any procedure, they explained to Prof, too and got his consent just as they got mine. I was smiling the kind of smile kidnap victims smile when kidnappers cracked a joke.

As treatment was ongoing, two medical officials came to me and gave me a form to fill out. The form was a feedback mechanism designed to know what the patient or patient’s parent feels about the quality of medicare provided by the hospital.

Investigations completed, Prof was given the all-clear, leaving us with the teeth and mouth – which were treated. The hospital then referred us to a children’s dental hospital.

Before leaving the county hospital after more than two hours, I lumbered to the reception to collect the medical bill which I expected to send me into bankruptcy and slavery. The receptionist flashed me a smile and asked Prof how he was doing. I wrinkled my face in a smile, thinking ‘iku de!’. She said, “You can go.” I asked, “Go where?” thinking payment was done at another department. “You can go home, it’s free.”

I turned to Prof, “Let’s go, boy.” Alas, I found my voice. We made our way to the parking lot, with me praying for the receptionist not to call us back, saying, ‘I’m sorry, it’s a case of mistaken identity. You guys need to pay.’

We went back home and I fell on my face, thanking God. Prof later got treatment from the periodontist, who referred us to a private endodontist, whom we also visited for treatment. His teeth are now properly healed.

A few days ago, a former Editor of ThisDay newspaper and former Ogun State Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Yusuph Olaniyonu, wrote an article titled, “At 58, God has given me a second chance,” in which he narrated how an elective surgery in a government hospital nearly sent him to an early grave.

Olaniyonu wrote, “It all started on 19 February (2024) when I drove myself into a government hospital in Abuja for an elective surgery. The surgery itself was meant to last for a few minutes and I should return home not later than two days thereafter. That was what I was told. But that was not what happened.

“Since that fateful Monday morning, I have gone into and out of the surgical theatre nine times for six major operations and three minor procedures. I have spent six days in the Intensive Care Unit, surviving on oxygen and relieving myself through catheters. I have become totally dependent on others for the performance of even such personal functions as cleaning myself. I have lost 20 kilogrammes in five months and was reduced to a mere sack of bones. I have lost the use of my limbs and, like a toddler, I had to learn to walk again. I have spent millions of naira and thousands of dollars of my own and other people’s money. I have travelled hundreds of kilometres to find help. I have reached the very bottom of despair itself, and I had made plans for my own burial. But somehow, I am still alive.”

Like countless Nigerians who have been sent to untimely deaths, Olaniyonu was almost killed by a consultant urologist who misdiagnosed and mistreated a disease as common as a non-malignant prostate. Only heavens know what Mr Consultant would be teaching medical students and how many patients he had maimed and killed.

It was to Egypt Olaniyonu ran, where friendly and dedicated medical staff retied the thread of his life which hung in the balance, contrary to the unfriendly and shoddy treatment he received back home after paying exorbitant fees. Nigeria would have lost Olaniyonu, one of the nation’s finest journalists, to professional sloppiness, and nothing would have happened.

There is too much blood on the hands of the country’s medical professionals and it’s high time cases of negligence were brought to book.

Alhaji Olaniyonu, this case should not be papered over, please. The consultant urologist must be brought to book. If you, as a journalist and lawyer, do not ensure justice, who else would? Is it the uncountable okada riders and poor accident victims that would?

Alhaji, just imagine yourself in a bamboo casket, wrapped in white cloth, tied up, and lowered into a grave. From the grave, look at your beautiful wife, Odunayo, and your sons, Oladapo, Oladipo and Oladepo, all wearing black, and doing dust-to-dust. Is that how all your earthly ‘là á là, kò ó kò, jà án jà án’ would’ve come to an end through the shoddiness of one consultant?

I agree that humans came from God and unto Him we shall return – inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un – but the Quranic injunction does not say anyone should be sent to an early grave by sloppiness.

I brought out the educational and medical architectures available to a fresh immigrant family like mine in the US to show that our beloved country, Nigeria, is nowhere on the map of countries where leadership works democracy to provide abundant life for the good of the majority.

There’s nothing that fuels the ongoing national protest against bad governance than the glaring fact that a majority of the Nigerian populace has been reduced to slaves and scavengers in a country, whose resources have perpetually been cornered by subsequent leaderships that are richer than the Nigerian state.

I think the ongoing protest against hunger should continue because the Bola Tinubu administration understands the badness and goodness of protest. Tinubu himself led many protests against bad governance in the past. He knows protest is a landmine that could lead to anywhere and anything.

Nigerians don’t expect Tinubu to turn Nigeria into the US or Egypt but he should please leave it the way General Muhammadu Buhari left it in the throes of death, Nigeria should not die in Tinubu’s hands, please.

Asiwaju, you claim to be the builder of modern Lagos, have the building materials you used in building Lagos finished ni?

Please, do something, omo Olodo Ide, Nigeria is collapsing.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

Tinubu, Yusuph Olaniyonu and hunger protest

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Why Atiku’s subsidy gambit rattles Tinubu, By Farooq Kperogi

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2 days ago

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August 22, 2026

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

Why Atiku’s subsidy gambit rattles Tinubu, By Farooq Kperogi

Atiku Abubakar may finally have discovered the issue that can draw political blood from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. And I am enjoying seeing the president and his inner circle squirm in discomfort like cats stranded on a hot zinc roof.

On Thursday, barely a day after official campaigns began for the 2027 presidential election, Atiku pledged to restore petrol subsidies if Nigerians elect him president. That pledge, more than anything he has done lately to dislodge Tinubu, is the clearest signal yet that he is prepared to wrest power from the president.

Before now, Atiku expended money, time and energy excavating Tinubu’s past, much of which Nigerians already know. Tinubu’s 1993 civil forfeiture of $460,000 to the US government in a case that grew out of a heroin-trafficking investigation has been public knowledge for years. It was Sahara Reporters that first reported it on September 15, 2008. Fresh FBI or DEA papers are unlikely to suddenly alter electoral attitudes.

The Chicago State University expedition was even less politically useful. Tinubu genuinely attended and graduated from CSU in 1979. Caleb Westberg, the university’s registrar, said so under oath. He agreed that the photocopy Tinubu submitted to INEC did not look like the 1979 samples shown to him, but CSU’s diploma templates changed over the years and the BBC found that Tinubu’s copy resembled replacement diplomas from the 1990s. Westberg also said the missing portion of the university logo could have been cut off during photocopying because American diplomas are unusually large and aren’t intended to be photocopied.

In America, diplomas are largely ceremonial documents that people frame and hang on walls. Transcripts are the official records routinely used to verify attendance and graduation. Atiku’s legal expedition ironically helped establish that Tinubu has a CSU transcript and graduated with honors.

The BBC Global Disinformation Team found no evidence for the claim that Tinubu forged the CSU diploma he submitted to INEC. The report, in fact, won “Fact-Check of the Year by a Working Journalist” at the 2024 African Fact-Checking Awards in Accra. In other words, Atiku spent enormous political energy helping to settle a question whose answer was electorally barren.

Tinubu understood this and mostly ignored the attacks. More importantly, Atiku offered little policy distance from Tinubu on the economic question that has tormented Nigerians since May 2023. He had promised during the last election to remove petrol subsidies within his first 100 days in office. On the most consequential economic policy of the Tinubu presidency, Atiku was traveling on the same ideological road.

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That changed this week. Atiku asked the question millions of Nigerians have been asking: where is the money supposedly saved from subsidy removal? He then promised a new subsidy structure that would privilege locally refined petrol, give qualifying Nigerian refineries crude at preferential prices, impose a fixed annual spending ceiling, trace subsidized crude to actual domestic production and punish diversion. His formulation is that “the subsidy will follow the barrel.”

That is a more serious proposal than the Presidency’s caricature of it. And Tinubu suddenly found his voice. He personally dismissed Atiku’s pledge as a demonstration of “serious ignorance” of governance and the economy. Atiku’s previous assaults on Tinubu’s character produced studied presidential indifference. But his challenge to the economic orthodoxy that has pauperized Nigerians produced presidential irritation. That means he struck a raw nerve.

If Atiku’s proposal demonstrates ignorance, what does Tinubu’s policy demonstrate? Any honest person knows the answer: cruelty. Between ignorance and cruelty, which is more benign? You be the judge.

The anti-subsidy theology that Tinubu and his neoliberal choristers recite has always rested on a false premise. Subsidy simply means government assistance. Every functional society subsidizes something its people need for survival and economic productivity. Governments subsidize food, agriculture, housing, healthcare, transportation or energy according to the peculiarities of their societies.

For Nigeria, petrol occupies a uniquely central place because it doubles as an infrastructural substitute. People buy petrol because public electricity is unreliable. Small businesses generate their own power. Goods move mostly by road. Workers commute in vehicles powered by fuel. Farmers, artisans, traders and manufacturers absorb fuel costs and pass them on through prices.

A petrol subsidy therefore travels through the economy. Its removal travels through the economy too, only in the opposite direction. It raises transportation costs, production costs, food prices and the cost of nearly everything that depends on movement or power.

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I warned about this exactly one month before Tinubu was inaugurated. In my April 29, 2023 column titled “Six Agenda Items for Tinubu’s Success,” I warned that any policy that caused an arbitrary and unbearable increase in petrol prices without a corresponding improvement in incomes and living conditions would sink Tinubu. That warning was elementary commonsense.

The subsidy removal has since wreaked havoc on the economy, deepened poverty, killed businesses, murdered hope, hollowed out the middle class and democratized misery. Reuters now describes the aftermath of Tinubu’s reforms as the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation. Nearly 80 percent of Nigerians in a recent voter tracker said the country was headed in the wrong direction.

The government’s answer is always the same sterile, tired, intentionally dishonest incantation: temporary pains will yield permanent gains. But we have heard that sermon before.

Ibrahim Babangida’s Structural Adjustment Program came with the same vocabulary of sacrifice, deregulation, currency devaluation, subsidy withdrawal and deferred prosperity. Nigerians were told to endure pain today for abundance tomorrow. By the time Babangida left in 1993, manufacturing had been battered, purchasing power had collapsed and social misery had spread. The promised gains vanished into the ether.

Only living people can enjoy future gains. A government that starves people in installments cannot redeem itself with a hypothetical prosperity scheduled for an undefined tomorrow.

Tinubu’s most frequently advertised dividend of subsidy removal is that states now receive more money and can pay salaries and pensions. That is useful to salary earners, pensioners and the relatives who depend on them. Every Nigerian with a functioning brain cell knows that formal salary and pension earners constitute only a small fraction of Nigeria’s population. The wellbeing of state treasuries is a poor substitute for the wellbeing of the vast majority of citizens.

What kind of economic triumph makes governors more solvent while making citizens poorer? Government has improved the liquidity of public treasuries by draining the liquidity of household economies.

Atiku has finally opened a policy flank that Tinubu cannot wave away with moral insults, ethnic mobilization or tales of macroeconomic “reform.”

Nonetheless, Atiku’s conversion deserves scrutiny. He promised in 2023 to remove the same subsidy he now wants to restore in a redesigned form. I disagreed with him then. A politician who changes his mind after observing the destructive consequences of a policy can reasonably plead that evidence changed his assumptions. Nigerians also have abundant reasons to distrust politicians who discover compassion during campaigns.

They campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Tinubu, after all, told Nigerians during the 2023 campaign that if he failed to give them electricity and returned for a second term, they should not vote for him, although he inserted an escape clause about giving “adequate reasons” for failure. Muhammadu Buhari promised a paradise of security, prosperity and integrity before power exposed the hollowness of his promises.

Atiku therefore has work to do. He must keep explaining the cost of his subsidy plan, its funding source, its legal path under the Petroleum Industry Act, its anti-corruption safeguards and the mechanisms that will ensure cheaper energy reaches households and industries. He should put these commitments in language that can be measured and used against him if he wins.

In spite of my well-justified distrust of the promises of politicians, including Atiku who supervised a ruinous privation program when he was vice president, I can’t help but concede that this is the first truly useful political argument of the 2027 campaign.

Policy contrast is finally replacing pointless and unproductive character assassination. Nigerians already know that Tinubu has a morally complicated past, but they live every day with something more immediate: the extortionate price of food, transport, electricity, medicine and survival.

Atiku has finally moved the contest from Tinubu’s old files in America to Nigerian kitchens, markets, factories and motor parks. That is where Tinubu is most vulnerable. Tinubu can survive old scandals, but the mass hunger his “reforms” have created is a more formidable opponent than impotent darts thrown at his character.

Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based professor of journalism.

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Onaiyekan: Is Tinubu insensitive to Nigerians’ plight? By Bolanle BOLAWOLE

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2 weeks ago

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August 9, 2026

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Onaiyekan: Is Tinubu insensitive to Nigerians’ plight? By Bolanle BOLAWOLE

turnpot@gmail.com 0705 263 1058

(Published in the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune edition of Sunday, 9 August 2026).

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) recently held a closed-door meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu after which one of the bishops, John Onaiyekan, Bishop Emeritus of Abuja, went public with the contents of the meeting. The public was aghast when the president was reported as saying that hunger has been in the land before he was born!

But is it a lie? It is not! Tinubu reportedly asked the church leaders to feed the people if they – the church leaders – actually knew the people were hungry! Is it not a fact that many church leaders and denominations today behave like the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus Christ’s era – whom the Lord described as “serpents and generation of vipers”! – who “bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers”? As many as eight times, Jesus said unto them: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” He also repeatedly called them “fools and blind guides.” (See Matthew 23: 1 – end).

How many of the Catholic bishops who confronted Tinubu with the case of hungry Nigerians do not have hungry parishioners under their watch? How many of the hungry do they feed? Are they themselves among hungry Nigerians? How many of them, having two coats, give one to the naked (Luke 3:11)? How many follow the example of the Fathers (Acts 4: 32 – 37) or the Marxian doctrine of “From each according to his ability and to each according to his need”?

Despite the hardship in the land, which the Bishops went to Tinubu to complain about, are Church leaders not demanding tithes, vows, first fruit, and all manner of offerings – love offering, sacrificial offering, seed offering, thanksgiving offering, etc. from the same suffering masses? Before our very eyes, are they not building cathedrals worth billions of Naira, driving expensive cars, flying private jets, and living life to the hilt? Are they not?

However, this is an uncomfortable truth no one wants to hear! I should know because I am involved – if you know what I mean! Without speaking for Tinubu – because I, too, have my own grievances! – this must have been what he hinted at but which, understandably, was interpreted as an act of insensitivity. But since I, too, was born, up to date, I make bold to say that notable Nigerian musicians one after the other have complained of hard times. It is as if there has never been a time when things were okay in this country – except when we look back! Better times are usually behind us. No matter how bad a government might have been, succeeding governments always appear worse! That has been the narrative!

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It appears to me that Tinubu loves to be audacious once in a while. Like when he made his “O lu’le” speech at Abeokuta, detailing how the then President Muhammadu Buhari contested election thrice but failed until he, Tinubu, came to the rescue. The icing on the case at the occasion was his angry reference to Gov. Dapo Abiodun, as “eleyi”, meaning “this one!” Consider as well his wandering off-script “subsidy is gone” statement in his very first speech and on his very first day as President and Commander-in-Chief!

Tinubu possesses enough knowledge of the media to guess what kind of headlines his statements can attract. In the case of the Catholic bishops, maybe he thought he was safe behind the iron curtain of confidentiality – until one of the bishops chose to tear the veil, forcing the Presidency to respond.

Presidential response to Onaiyekan

The response by Temitope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media and Publicity, compelled this intervention lest we, again, throw the baby away with the bath water. Often, once we have pitched our tents for or against, we fail to see the merits in opposing advocacies – all to the chagrin of our collective good. Let’s hear from Ajayi:

“There is something fundamentally inappropriate about Cardinal John Onaiyekan granting a television interview to offer his own account and interpretation of what transpired during the private meeting between the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria and President Bola Tinubu. It is, in my view, an abuse of clerical privilege.

“The bishops requested an audience with the president. He granted the audience graciously. They presented, as was their right, a catalogue of the country’s economic, social, and security challenges as they saw them. Except for their grudging acknowledgement of the benefits of NELFUND, they were dismissive of the other great things done by the administration. The bishops were notably acerbic in their submission, but the president listened to them patiently and responded.

“That should ordinarily have been where the matter rested. None of the issues raised by the bishops is beyond scrutiny or rebuttal. Their assessment is neither scripture nor an article of faith. It is a perspective, and perspectives can be challenged with facts and evidence.

“President Tinubu did exactly that, responding point by point to the issues they raised. On the bishops’ demand for the return of schools to their owners, the President was surprised that such an issue could be tabled before him, as it is a matter for the states to resolve, in line with our Constitution. So, he asked the bishops to take the matter to the governors and reminded them he returned mission schools in Lagos State (to their original owners) when he was (the) governor.

“The President argued that the bishops’ characterization of the country’s current condition was incomplete and, in several respects, inaccurate. He pointed to measurable progress on the economic, social, and security fronts. He did not pretend that Nigeria’s problems had disappeared. He acknowledged that significant economic and security challenges remain. His point was that the country has emerged from ‘a dark tunnel’, that his administration has laid the foundations for recovery and that the next phase is to ensure the greatest number of Nigerians feels the gains.

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“What the clerics often overlook in these interventions is that governing a country is fundamentally different from shepherding a church. In a democracy, every interest group, including the Catholic Church, has every right to demand more from (the) government. That is part of democratic engagement. But the president of a nation of more than 200 million people is required to make difficult choices every single day. Those choices involve competing interests, limited resources, and imperfect options…There is no president…who can wave a magic wand and make Nigeria’s accumulated problems disappear overnight.

“It is easy to compile a list of national problems. It is far more difficult to acknowledge the disasters that have been averted. Whatever anyone thinks of President Tinubu’s policies, it is impossible to ignore the fiscal crisis he inherited and the measures taken to pull the country away from the edge of a financial cliff. Even the bishops themselves should recognize that one tangible consequence has been the restoration of greater fiscal stability across many states.

“Countless civil servants and pensioners who, for years, endured unpaid salaries and pensions are now receiving them more regularly. That was certainly not the reality in many states from around 2014. Even about four years ago, 27 state governments struggled to meet even their most basic obligations. Many of those civil servants and pensioners are themselves parishioners in Catholic churches. They know, from lived experience rather than official pronouncements, that there has been real relief in the regular payment of salaries and pensions. While this does not erase the discomfort many Nigerians still face, it is wrong to dismiss or ignore those improvements casually.

“So when President Tinubu reminded the bishops of these facts during the meeting, he was not, as Cardinal Onaiyekan later suggested, being aloof or dismissive. He was presenting evidence to support his argument that the country is not standing still. A disagreement over facts should not be interpreted as arrogance. The same applies to security. The bishops declared that Nigeria is bleeding. The President thinks otherwise. President Tinubu did not deny the seriousness of the security situation. Rather, he acknowledged the challenges while outlining the gains recorded by the Armed Forces and intelligence agencies across different theatres of operation…

“Cardinal Onaiyekan’s Arise News interview also reflected a familiar error that many ideological and professional critics make. They often assume that only critics speak truth to power while everyone around a leader is either unwilling or incapable of doing so. It is an attractive narrative, but it is rarely true. What truth does anyone really need to tell President Tinubu that he does not already know? As president, he has multiple channels for feeling the pulse of the country…

“The Catholic Bishops discharged what they considered their moral obligation by presenting their concerns to the president. President Tinubu, for his part, accorded them respect by granting them an audience and responding to every issue they raised. That exchange reflected the civility expected in a constitutional democracy.

“Reciprocity should have dictated that the confidentiality and dignity of that engagement be preserved. As such, it was inappropriate for one of the participants to emerge almost immediately on national television to provide his own version of what was essentially a private conversation with the president…” That was Temitope Ajayi, SSA to the President for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Obligations of confidentiality

I asked Google: Is it appropriate to divulge the specifics of a closed-door meeting without the other party’s consent or prior knowledge? Google: “No, it is generally inappropriate and a breach of professional trust to divulge the details of a closed-door meeting without the other party’s consent or prior agreement. Why it is inappropriate: Breaches trust: Closed-door meetings imply an expectation of privacy and confidentiality so participants can speak freely. Damages relationships: Revealing private discussions destroys mutual respect and makes future cooperation difficult. Distorts context: Sharing only one side of a private conversation often misleads the public or other stakeholders who were not in the room.”

Again, I asked: Was Onaiyekan mandated by the CBCN to address the media after their meeting with President Tinubu? Google: “There is no official indication or report that Cardinal John Onaiyekan was specifically mandated or designated by the CBCN to grant media interviews or brief the press following their meeting with President Bola Tinubu…”

Then I asked: Is Onaiyekan the official leader of CBCN? Google: “No, Cardinal John Onaiyekan is not the current leader of CBCN; he is the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja and previously served as CBCN president from 2000 to 2006.” The current president of CBCN is Most Rev. Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Kaduna.

Answering another question, Google described Onaiyekan as “a forthright and consistent critic of President Bola Tinubu’s electoral legitimacy and economic policies…” Arising from the above, we can see that Onaiyekan and Tinubu are no strangers to one another but are “old customers”, so to say!

Neither here, nor there

That said, Onaiyekun enjoys freedom of speech as enshrined in our Constitution, regardless how acerbic or far from the truth those views may be. Tinubu, too, has the right of reply which his being a sitting president does not deny him. Achebe said “Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too. If one says ‘No’ to the other, let his wing break.” China’s revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong, put it this way: “Let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” Scriptures cap it all in Proverbs 11: 14 thus: “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.”

Tinubu’s man described the president meeting with the bishops as a privilege; no, it wasn’t! It was their right – and the president’s duty. There is nothing “gracious” in it; it is an obligation duly discharged.

Onaiyekan, however, ought to know that closed-door meetings should be accorded the confidentiality they deserve. To break this important rule is to burn bridges and destroy trust. As journalists, we do not rush to press with information gotten from such sources; we store them to be discretely leveraged in future.

That Onaiyekan was not specifically mandated by the CBCN to speak on its behalf makes his case worse. If it was so important for the bishops to speak, why not their president?

It is not everyone that understands the nuances of Nigeria’s prebendal politics. Femi Adesina, media adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, said they were flying with Buhari when news of Tinubu’s “O lu’le” atomic bomb dropped on Buhari at Abeokuta reached them. Who was detailed by Buhari’s kinsmen on the same flight to break the news to Buhari? Adesina! Why him? And, now, why Onaiyekan? Dirty jobs reserved for who?

* Former editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-chief of The Westerner news magazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.

 

Onaiyekan: Is Tinubu insensitive to Nigerians’ plight? By Bolanle BOLAWOLE

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Opinion

WHO WILL SPEAK FOR WASILAT? WHEN TRADITION BECOMES HUMILIATION, JUSTICE MUST SPEAK

Published

3 weeks ago

on

August 4, 2026

By

TikToker undergoes cleansing after filming Oloolu procession in Ibadan

WHO WILL SPEAK FOR WASILAT? WHEN TRADITION BECOMES HUMILIATION, JUSTICE MUST SPEAK

A young Nigerian lady, Wasilat, has become the centre of a disturbing controversy that should concern every defender of human rights, justice, and the rule of law.
According to her own account during a live interview on Lagelu FM, she did not film the Olóòlù masquerade itself. She said she only recorded the gathering of people and later uploaded the video to TikTok. She further stated that she was advised to remove the video, and she complied.

If her account is true, the events that followed should alarm every conscientious citizen.
She alleged that she was arrested the following day by followers of the olóòlù and later detained by the police. Images that circulated widely on social media appeared to show her publicly humiliated—made to wear a red wrapper, adorned with ritual objects, compelled to carry a live She-goat, and having her head shaved in public while being filmed. She also stated that these rituals were arranged between her mother and those involved while she was in detention not with her own consent.

Whether one believes in the spiritual significance of the Olóòlù tradition is beside the point.

The questions are:

1- Can any Nigerian be deprived of liberty, publicly humiliated, or compelled to participate in rituals against their will simply because of a traditional belief?

2- If the belief is that any woman who sees Olóòlù will automatically suffer supernatural consequences, why would human beings need to arrest, detain, and punish the alleged offender the next day?

3- If the supernatural claim is true, why was human intervention necessary?

4- If it is not true, then what justification exists for the alleged humiliation?

These are legitimate questions. They are not attacks on culture. They are questions about justice.
Nigeria is governed by law, not fear.
The Constitution guarantees the dignity of every human person. It protects personal liberty. It protects freedom of conscience. It prohibits degrading treatment.
No tradition, however ancient, should become a licence for intimidation, coercion, or public disgrace.
Culture deserves respect.
Human dignity deserves greater respect.
If Wasilat’s account is accurate, then what happened to her represents far more than a disagreement over tradition. It raises concerns about arbitrary arrest, coercion, degrading treatment, invasion of privacy, and possible violations of her constitutional rights.

Even more troubling is the public circulation of images depicting her alleged humiliation. In the digital age, such images can haunt a victim for years, affecting education, employment, mental well-being, and social acceptance.
Justice cannot remain silent.
Today it is Wasilat.
Tomorrow it could be another young woman.
The silence of good people is often the greatest ally of injustice.
This is therefore a call—not for violence, not for hatred against any cultural group—but for lawful action.
We call upon human rights organisations, the legal community, civil society organisations, women’s rights advocates, youth groups, and all lovers of justice to demand an impartial investigation into these allegations.
Let the truth be established.

If Wasilat’s rights were violated, those responsible should be held accountable in accordance with the law.
If public officials participated in or enabled unlawful conduct, they too should answer before the law.
No Nigerian should be subjected to degrading treatment in the name of culture.
No woman should be publicly humiliated because of superstition.
No citizen should lose her dignity because others choose fear over justice.
A society is judged not by how it treats the powerful, but by how it protects the vulnerable.
Justice delayed encourages injustice.

Justice denied encourages oppression.
Justice done restores confidence in both culture and the law.
Today, let us ask one simple question:
If this happened to your daughter, your sister, your wife, or your mother, would you remain silent?
If your answer is “No,” then now is the time to speak—not with anger, but with courage; not with violence, but with justice; not with vengeance, but with the unwavering conviction that every Nigerian deserves dignity, liberty, and equal protection under the law.
Justice for Wasilat is justice for every Nigerian woman.

Almudeer Ajiginni
Director, The City of knowledge /SSA to National chairman PCRC
4/8/2026.

 

WHO WILL SPEAK FOR WASILAT? WHEN TRADITION BECOMES HUMILIATION, JUSTICE MUST SPEAK

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