REMINISCENCE: MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH OBASANJO

Oluṣẹgun Mathew Okikiọla Arẹmu Ọbasanjọ, GCFR , a soldier, farmer and politician. He is the Balogun of the Owu Lineage and the Ekerin Balogun of the Egba clan of Yorubaland. He was President of federal Republic of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007.

Obasanjo, like 2face means different things to divers of people, some may talk good about him, while some may talk bad about him. In Political arena that is no go area because politics in Nigeria is a bitter game. ‘To ba o pa, tio ba buu lese’. Meanwhile that is beyond the scope of this write-up.

My first encounter with this African great man dated back to 1986, when i went to his house in Abeokuta in order to sign my Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA) form purchased for me then by General Martin Luther Agwai (then Major). At that time, i really love to be a soldier because some of my friends were already graduated from the NDA, while some were still there, and i really want to belong.

On getting to his house at Abeokuta, I met some soldiers at the gate and told them i would like to see the ‘General’, that is how he was called then; the soldier told me that General is not around but will soon be back and to my surprise, i was allowed to pass through the gate and ushered straight to rendezvous area where i sat down waiting for his arrival.

I was there for almost 3 hours! Along the line, Baba Iyabo’s chef came to me and requested if i would like to eat, without wasting much time i said in affirmative, yes. Within minutes, i was served with hot Rice and fresh Fish stew! The chef told me that General will soon be home and i should exercise some patience.

Around 5pm, General Obasanjo came in with about four of his friends, i could only recognised Chief Onolapo Soleye; he walked straight to me, greeted me and he went to his living room with his friends. The chef went in to see them, minutes later; he started to dish their food. What baffled me was that, they were eating the same Rice and Fish stew i already eat from! What a humble and simple life.

By the time they finished their food the time has been well spent and the chef politely told me that Baba would not be able to see me that night and i should try to meet-up with him at his farm in Ota, second day. To be sincere, i was very pleased.

On second day, very early in the morning I was at Obasanjo Farm in Ota, because i was looking for something! Eni to ba fe gba nka lowo e ma ngun! I signed an appointment form with his secretary, I decided  familiarising myself with the environment by looking at the photographs on the wall, at around 11am on that morning, while i was at the far end of the lobby, Baba Iyabo has already entered his office!

On my appointment form, i wrote my name, hometown and the purpose of my visit. To my surprise, General came out of his office, calling ‘Baba-Ijebu’, without known he was referring to me! I went straight to him, greeted him, and then told him that i was at Abeokuta yesterday bla bla bla..he apologised , then signed my form, crack jokes and gave me 500 naira.

That is Baba Iyabo for you, a typical African man to the core.

SANUSI LAMIDO SANUSI: ALLAH CHOOSES WHO WILL BE THE EMIR

“I grew up under the care of late Ado Bayero. I am more close to the late emir than my father who was outside the country.

The late emir trained me; my first wife with whom I spent over 25 years with, is his daughter. “We shared the same bed with his son, Turakin Kano,  Alhaji Nasiru Ado Bayero for over 10 years.

Therefore we are calling on those people from outside the palace to stop interfering on the things that they didn’t understand.”

He added: “The Kano Emir Palace is one united family. Therefore I'm assuring the governor that all these riots and protests are not from our house, none of our relatives is behind these things and none of our relatives will sponsor such thing or be happy because of it.

Because the way we grew up we all knew that all princes nurture the ambition of becoming emir one day but its Allah who chooses who will be the emir.

“The day an emir is selected all the princes are paying their allegiance to him. This is our tradition as nobody from the royal family is behind these riots.”

AZUKA JEBOSE MOLOKWU : IS BACK FOR HIGHEST BIDDER !

Azuka Jebose Molokwu , a lover of freedom of press ,is an old hand in the journalism profession, unarguably one of the best entertainment journalist, had a chat with ‘YES INTERNATIONAL’ ! Lagos based soft sell magazine where he revealed why, what, when etc .you guys need to know about him. Enjoy…

According to Azuka, he said: ‘I never left journalism. You go through changes in life, so I have branches – from print journalism to electronic media to social media. But the last I did was the broadcast media and social media. I’m always effectively changing’.

He went further to say that the broadcast media is very intriguing, it’s very entertaining. Unlike in those days when ‘we had to chase buses because transportation was not there, salaries were not regularly paid, but we did the job you know! We went after the information. It didn’t come to us through different channels like it does now on our social media, however he caution that ‘ the information on the social media is at times conflicting, so you have to be very careful as to where you are getting it from. You have to be cautious of people that encroach on the territory of journalism simply because they could write or because they have privileged information that you may not have. So, your work is very much at stake when you rely on social media’.

Azuka who describe himself as a fearless journalist added that ‘A journalist should be fearless. They should be ready to risk their lives, put it on the line regardless of the end result’ He went further to describe the  good old days, journalists  were bold, they  didn’t sell out but went out for the news and they took on the authorities. ‘We performed our duties as responsible journalists, and added that the ‘greatest mistake any journalist can make is to compromise. Compromise your attitude, your position or be biased and also do things because of the privileged position you have to hurt someone; to go out and be negative’

He said the best interview that he conducted was actually with ‘ Chief Obafemi Awolowo  at Oba Oyekan’s palace at an event where the old man  slapped me on the head and said, “You never give up! Do you?” And I said no! And that of Lagos lawyer Tunji Braithwaite. ‘We chased this man for weeks and finally we were able to knock on his door and he said “You are very resilient, I wish I had a son like you”. While the best story he ever wrote was about Abami Eda, Fela kuti with the headline “Don’t forget I’m a prisoner “on Punch stable.

‘ No, no! I don’t have any regret because as I’m looking back now, I have gained a lot. So, I don’t have any regret. If I had regrets, I would have returned. But I missed some of the happenstances when I left, because I knew I could have been a part of it. But when I left, I didn't leave completely. I make sure, occasionally, I was relevant. I remained in contact with the profession, so I don’t regret it. Never regret anything you do in life,’ he added.

 This ‘big boy’ in journalism said that he is staging a comeback into journalism and ‘I go for the highest bidder. I’m ready to do media politics and branding, so I’m available for the highest bidders and I can guarantee them the best.’ On a last note, he said: ‘A good journalist must be able to be articulate; he must be well informed about whatever subject he is pursing or writing on. He must be dedicated to the job and he must be informed.'



culled:YES INTERNATIONAL

TOUCHES NOT MY ANOINTING: A PASTOR SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR BANK ROBBERY IN AKURE

The bible said touches not my anointing and do my prophets no harm. Yes i believe so but how can we now deal with a situation whereby a pastor is a leader of a robbery gang?

This is strange but true. Justice David Kolawole of an Akure High Court has sentenced one Pastor Adeniyi Mathew and three others, Evangelist Akeem Benjamin, Comos Obi and Sherif Ogunleye, to death for their involvement in a bank robbery which took place in 2005 in the state.

The men were found guilty of participating in a midnight robbery at the branch of a commercial bank inAkure where N26 million was stolen. Justice David Kolawole found them guilty of a two-count charge of conspiracy to commit robbery and armed robbery.

2015 ELECTION: POLITICS OF 'AMALA & GBEGIRI'

See dem coming, political rouges. ‘Only in Nigeria... If this were to happened in a civilized and advanced country, both Jonathan and the PDP criminals who imported the rice to bribe the electorates would have been arrested , locked up and keys thrown in Lagos lagoon, said Tokunbo AremoOdua.

You are really on point brother; it is only in Nigeria you will see political gladiators distributing: rice, vegetable oil, salt, wrapper cloth etc to the electorates in order to bribe and buy their votes! Immediately after the election, all the elected office holders will vanish from their respective consistency, and they become a thing god.

 Recently an election was conducted in Europe, we did not see elaborate campaigns, what we see are fliers, posters, hand bills, with occasional press released based on political party ideology ,not a single ‘can coke’ was sheared for people! Those are the people that really have the interest of their people at heart and were ready to deliver on their promises.

Whom do I blame? Of course the electorates who mortgage their children future for 10 kilo of rice! While the political gladiators smiles to their various banks, send their children to the best colleges in abroad couples with good medical facilities funded with stolen tax payers money!

However, i will not advise you guys not to collect this largesse, but vote wisely or else you in future do not complain about poor roads, electricity problems, and lack of good health care facilities, poor educational funding, and most importantly the security of lives and properties.

The Peoples’ Democratic Party ( PDP) have started the campaign strategy with a customised rice decked with their logo and GEL picture, as one of my friend put it, some sycophants will surely come out to defend their masters for no reason or start deceiving people that the picture of the bags of rice was photo shopped

I think it is the right time we wake up from slumber in Nigeria.

IRRESPONSIBLE CLAMPDOWN ON NEWSPAPERS BY NIGERIAN MILLITARY

It was gathered that Nigerian military has, since Friday last week laid siege to the roads to assault vendors, many of them were also beaten up.

In Niger State, armed soldiers laid siege to the distribution centres, impounding copies of some newspapers and stopping the distribution of The Nation, Daily Trust and Leadership.

 It was also gathered that “Soldiers were at the centres in Ibadan, Warri and Makurdi. We are still expecting reports from other parts of the country

An activist-lawyer, Mr Morakinyo Ogele, threatened to sue the army if it does not explain within seven days why the newspapers are being seized.

He said seizure of newspaper and invasion of distributing centres by the military personnel is not only barbaric, but a pose danger to democratic cultures as well as amount to a breach to section 39 of the 1999 Constitution.

“It is unconstitutional for the military to impound and disrupt the distribution of a newspaper, thus denying people from receiving information as stipulated by Constitution.

“The most worrisome of this unconstitutional act is that the Federal Government has not condemned the illegal act of the military, which suggests they are acting on the script of the government.

“The military authority should come out and inform whether journalists or editors are a security risk to justify their action.

“In a decent society where rule of law is in full operation, soldiers are only to defend citizens and not to breach the Constitution. Our army should learn how to respect people’s opinion as stop harassing the media.

“The Nigerian Army is hereby put on notice to explain within seven days why they are impounding newspapers; otherwise I will initiate court action against military authorities at the law court,” Ogele said.

Vanguard For Justice and Good Governance (VAJAG) spokesperson, Mr. Kingsley Alaranse, said: “They (the military) need to be told in unmistakable terms, or better still advised to go back to the school of history, in order to be properly tutored on how not to muffle or gag the media. No one, no matter how powerful, even more than the former Idi-Amin of Uganda, can win the battle against the media because it is the soul of any country and fourth estate of the realm.”

Major General Chris Olukolade, the Director of Defence Information, has said the onslaught was launched after security agencies received "intelligence reports indicating movement of material with grave security implications across the country, using the channel of newsprint related consignments.

President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors,(NGE) Mr. Femi Adeshina in a press statement titled 'We bear liberty, not arms' insisted "It is a throwback to the days of military repression, which we thought we had long put behind us as a country. We reject the label of bearer of arms, or any other form of ordnance, to do mischief against our own country. If the siege arose out of the need to call the dog a bad name in order to hang it, Nigerian editors roundly and soundly reject such negative profiling.

"The explanation from the military is unacceptable. In fact, it goes a long way to reinforce the apocryphal belief quite commonplace among security agencies that they are much more patriotic than anybody else. Apparently, they had been itching to open a battlefront with the country's ever-irrepressible media, and thus hid behind a smokescreen to deal a lethal blow at the economic jugular of newspapers. The media do not bear arms, rather we bear information, which sheds light on darkness, no matter how seemingly impenetrable the darkness is.

"Information sets free. It emancipates from shackles. It develops the mind, and helps people to make independent, rational judgments. Let no one accuse the media of any flimsy and nebulous security breach, and hide under that umbrella to traumatize us. Count the media out of anything not designed for the cohesion and general good of our country", he said.

NATIVE DOCTOR DUPED 2 MEN OF' N22 MILLION NAIRA' AND GAVE THEM ACID TO DRINK

Jamiu Alao, 45.a native doctor, resident of Ijebu-Ode in Ogun State is said to have fraudulently obtained N22.1 million from 2 men after he promised them spiritual protection but  he eventually gave them acid to drink in the guise of a potent potion.

Cpl. Innocent Odugbo, who is prosecuting the case, told the court that Alao committed the offences with others still at large sometime in April at Mayfair Estate, Ajah in Lekki.
According to him, the native doctor initially collected the sum of N3million from one Mr. Raimi Oluwaseyi, while on April 8 at Ijabi Quarters, Ijebu-Ode, also collected 116,000 dollars (N19.1million) from Oluwaseyi and one King David Orji on the pretext of protecting them spiritually.

“The native doctor gave the complainants a substance to drink for spiritual protection and directed that it should be consumed at a residence in Lagos.
“Orji and Oluwaseyi drank the substance which turned out to be an acid,’’ Odugbo said

Odugbo, narrated that the complainants had to travel abroad to seek  urgent medical attention for internal injuries they received. The Magistrate, Mrs O. Olanipekun, granted the native doctor bail in the sum of N500, 000 with two sureties in like sum. The case was adjourned to June 30 for mention.

NB: The question  now is what type of protection these guys are looking for that cost such huge amount of money? They too need to be investigated. Period.