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> Our party made Saraki, he cannot disobey us —Bisi Akande

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Former interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande, reiterates his position on the crisis of confidence rocking his party as regards the leadership of the National Assembly in this interview with KATE ANI. Excerpts:
 Why did you say that through the crisis in the National Assembly, the North is attacking Yorubaland?

I didn’t say so; I said some Yoruba people are saying so. Go and read the statement I wrote.

 How did you know they were saying so?
They called and told me.

 By not supporting Senator Bukola Saraki, are you saying he is not a Yoruba man?
I support Saraki absolutely but I don’t support rebellion.

 Why do you think he is being rebellious?
The party took a position. They did a primary and somebody won. Anybody who goes against the democratic position of the party is rebellious. Don’t you see it as a rebellion? I know that Nigerians don’t know discipline anymore; everybody does things they way they like. You didn’t get there by yourself but by the grace of your party. That is why you can go to the party to say that I want to be this and they would say oh, they are many of you who want to too, come and do election. And somebody won and somebody stood by that person. Once you go against that party, you are committing rebellion. It is an act of indiscipline. I support all of them, they are my colleagues, but I don’t support indiscipline. Maybe you don’t understand what discipline is. In your place of work, if they ask you to do something and you did it the other way, it is indiscipline. They would sack you. You join a party because you want to abide by its rules and regulations. You cant say that you are going to be bound by another man’s regulation outside. I am talking about rebellion; you are talking about who are funding them. If you commit a coup d’etat, you are to be punished by death, but then you say oh, it is not an American that gave you money to do it. Is it important who gave you money to do rebellion? Rebellion is a criminal act. Indiscipline killed PDP [Peoples Democratic Party] and we don’t want rebellion to kill our party. Rebellion is the height of indiscipline.

 Nigerians were taken aback by the statement you issued…
(cuts…) It is because I don’t like indiscipline. They are all my colleagues. I want them to become president or anything they want to become, but I don’t want them to get there through indiscipline or by being rebellious. That is all I am saying for everybody to understand but in Nigeria, everybody claps for all arguments, no matter how invalid. My argument is simple: get into whatever position by discipline. Indiscipline was the reason Nigerians rejected PDP, and we don’t want it in our party.  The cardinal thing I emphasised in that statement was discipline, obedience to your party. It is our party that made Saraki. He cannot disobey our party.

What is the way forward now, what do you think your party must do to restore normalcy?
They should be disciplined. They should obey the party. That is all. I don’t know about APC, but I won’t cringe under indiscipline. If the party likes, they can cringe under indiscipline, but Bisi Akande will never cringe under indiscipline.

 Do you see Saraki and Yakubu Dogara as traitors?
Saraki and Dogara are from the old PDP. They defected to our party and they are the leaders of this rebellion. It is indiscipline that killed their old party. Can they deny that? Are they not from the old PDP? We had formed and registered our party many months before they came. It doesn’t mean that they should do what they did in PDP to us. We will reject it. The way forward is for them to be disciplined.

If you see Saraki and Dogara tomorrow, what would you tell them?
I would call them undisciplined members of my party. That is what I would tell them to their faces.

How do you think they can be disciplined?
Discipline is an act of the mind. I am a disciplined man and I have led that party before. It was through discipline that we brought that party up, not with money. We brought the party together out of difficult situations. Nobody had money then. We did it and the whole country accepted it. If anybody wants to bring indiscipline into it, those of us who are disciplined will say no. Indiscipline will kill Nigerians if we are not careful. That is why we were elected. On the threshold of a government of change, somebody started a rebellion. It is to make change impossible.

Are you satisfied with the way President Muhammadu Buhari has handled the matter so far?
I don’t know the way he has been handling it, but he is a disciplined man. That is why I support him. He submitted himself to a primary, which was done to the happiness of everybody in this country and that was why we took him as our candidate. He is a disciplined person, whichever way he handles it, I won’t query him because I know him to be disciplined.

But the president said he could work with anyone, why is the APC still insisting that they don’t want Saraki and Dogara?
He didn’t say that. He said anybody who gets anywhere could have done it the way the party wanted. That is what he said. Go and read it again. He said constitutionally, they might have won, but it would have been better for them to have won the way the party said; that it would be better they won it as disciplined people. That is what Buhari was saying. You cut off that part of it, and only hold on to him saying he can work with anybody. Are you trying to say that he can work with madmen if possible? What Saraki and Dogara committed against APC is a rebellion. We had founded APC before they came to our party. You won’t see any ACN, CPC or ANPP member of the APC committing a rebellion, but PDP was known for indiscipline and it is only anybody who has the blood of the PDP in him in our party that can commit an act of indiscipline. They committed a rebellion against the party that put them in the National Assembly. So, their primary duty and loyalty should be to the APC that put them in office, not to now begin to argue that they entered the position constitutionally.  There is what we call spirit of the constitution. These people never believed in change. That is the essence of what I wrote in my statement. The only reason I put some flesh to it doesn’t change my attitude; that I don’t want people who are undisciplined to be in my political party.

 Nigerians voted for change but what is being witnessed in the National Assembly is almost a replica of what was seen during PDP’s years in government. As one of the founding leaders of the APC, are you disappointed?

I am very disappointed and embarrassed about it all. There will be more of that action if they remain undisciplined. Any member of APC is expected to be disciplined. Some people have called for the removal of the national chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, because those people you described as rebels seem more powerful than him.

Do you think Odigie-Oyegun is doing enough to bring the situation under control?
I will not clamour for anybody to be removed. Oyegun is having a rebellion on his hands. He is mature enough to handle it. The party will give him time to handle it. But if he allows it to protract, he may have a crisis on his hands. As a matter of fact, he already has a crisis on his hands. Oyegun is not the cause of the rebellion, I think – unless he is part of it. I don’t know. He is my friend. I was one of the people who fought for Oyegun to become the national chairman to succeed me. When people are confused, they will ask for anything. People are calling for his head because he has a crisis on his hands.

What advice would you give northern leaders to give their representatives at the National Assembly, who are the arrowheads in the crisis in the National Assembly?
If they want change, they must reject undisciplined members. They must recall their undisciplined members.

 The APC governors are coming on to be as powerful as the PDP governors in their party. Would they not constitute a problem for the party in future, now that they are forming a cabal of governors?
Give me an example of an APC governor who is more powerful than the party so that I can answer your question. They are all obedient to the party. I don’t know what you see outside, but inside, all APC governors are disciplined. None of them is rebellious yet.

You are a father to all in Yorubaland, where do you want to see the Yoruba race in the next 20 years?
I am a father to all in Nigeria. In 20 years, I want Nigeria to be like Europe, America, all developed places in Asia and all over the world.
>
 Everyone seems to be heaping blame on Senator Bola Tinubu, saying that he is trying to impose leaders on the National Assembly, why?
You know that in Nigeria, all agents of change are in trouble. Many people don’t think in this country. Tinubu is a classical thinker. When he introduced change, everyone didn’t understand him and they made a lot of noise. To answer your question, I don’t know why they are blaming him. It is from his brain that the idea of merging came. He is a strong agent of change. He worked for it, funded it and did everything to see change come. It is envy, nothing else. All brilliant people are hated, particularly in a developing society like Nigeria, where the only thing that everybody knows is corruption. If you hear them scream Tinubu, ask them about the fault of this man. They won’t tell you a reason. They might say that he is becoming too powerful but if you are becoming too big in your work, what can anybody do about that? They can only hate and envy you. Tinubu is hated by lazy minds.
>
Does President Buhari’s delay in appointing ministers have to do with the level of his comfort at present with the National Assembly?
Oh, no. How can that be? Jonathan succeeded himself as president in 2008. He was president for about two years before he contested election in 2011. When he became president again, he succeeded himself. In six weeks, he never appointed a minister. Why are Nigerians impatient? Because the majority of Nigerians are corrupt, they want ministers they would run to, to steal money. Why are they impatient? What has Buhari done wrong? He came in just a month ago. He succeeded a rotten government. Jonathan who succeeded himself never appointed ministers for the first six weeks of coming to office. He succeeded himself. But Buhari succeeded a rotten government. Nigeria is in decay. Look at the issue of NNPC. They realised eight point something trillion naira within a period but they paid into the treasury, only four point something trillion naira. The remaining, they never accounted for. Is that not a rot that can delay appointment of ministers? What makes
> appointment of ministers more important than looking into what happened in that sector? If Jonathan, who succeeded himself, was unable to appoint ministers within the first six weeks of coming into office, what is wrong if President Buhari waits for six months to appoint his men in a rotten and decadent arrangement? He needs time and I support that he take his time.
>
> The PDP released a statement that Nigerians should pray for President Buhari as he seems overwhelmed by all things at hand?
> I don’t want to comment on whatever PDP says because that party is in trouble and they can’t say anything sensible anymore. They threw Nigeria into this mess and it is this mess that is holding the hands of President Buhari from appointing ministers.
>
> Nigerians are saying they are yet to see the change President Buhari promised, what is going on?
> Nigerians don’t have a magician as president. They have a human in Buhari as president. Since Buhari became president, he has been working on security. He has been going to all places, including neighbouring countries, to solicit for their support. He went to South Africa and rallied all African leaders to support our cause. He is going to America, and he has got the promise of England, all within one month. He has moved the operation of the military to another place. He is not a magician. He is still trying to clear the rot that the PDP’s administration left behind. In the area of economy, you must make the money before thinking of how to spend it. He has set up a committee to look into the operation of NNPC and it will take some time before you can make enough money to start doing other jobs. There are orders in what you expect a president to do but because numerous people in the country do not understand these orders, it is your duty in the press
> to help us teach them that there are orders and you have to do one before you can solve the other.
>
> What have been the responses from your party men, especially Senator Tinubu, since you issued that statement?
> I have not seen Tinubu but friends have been calling me and were happy that they saw someone who can come out to confront the truth. Some may be afraid of voicing their opinions because they see those people as rich and powerful, but Bisi Akande will talk. I will talk. At my age, I shouldn’t be afraid to die. I must be ready to talk. But the only thing I don’t tolerate is indiscipline. I want everybody to go high in life. Where I can’t reach, I want all of them to reach, but I don’t want them to do it by rebellion. I want them to do it with decorum and discipline. It is fraudulent to use the platform of a party to become a senator and thereafter say that the party is unimportant; that there is a regulation in the Senate or House of Representatives, which commands what you should do. That is fraudulent and I don’t like fraud in any form. Tell them.
>
> What do you think Saraki and Dogara should do, apologise?
> I don’t know. He (Saraki) should learn to be disciplined. He is old enough to know what discipline means. It is an act of the mind. Saraki knows very well that I am much disciplined and he should learn how to be disciplined. He should not short-change his association.
>
> Dogara’s deputy is your boy in Osun State…
> An undisciplined person is not my boy. I know [Yusuf Sulaimon] Lasun but now that he has become undisciplined, he is on his own. Any of my children that is not disciplined, I disown them. I thank God that I don’t have many and they are all disciplined.
>
> What about Ike Ekweremadu, a PDP man being Saraki’s deputy?
> Imagine! How can you want a position and you sell one? Okay, there are two of them, take one to assist my people, and so they did.
>
> What is the implication of that?
> There is no secret in our party anymore because anything we want the National Assembly to do for us would pass through him. He will preside over it and it makes our majority useless. It is an attempt to destroy the party but we will resist that.
>
> What is your take on Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola’s inability to pay civil servants their salaries?
> Well, it is unfortunate that Osun State – don’t say Aregbesola; Aregbesola owes nobody any money – owes workers salaries. This happened because the source of income dried up. In a bank, the workers make the money with which they are paid. In the newspaper industry, the workers make the money with which they get paid. In government, because government functions as a social liability, it is very difficult to make the workers make the money with which they will be paid. In Nigeria, most states are not viable. Osun is one of the states that are not viable in the country. I have been a governor there before, so, I know that the state is not viable. So, because Osun State is not viable, it has to wait for federal allocation before it can do anything. If there is no federal allocation from tomorrow, the whole place would close down; there won’t be workers, a governor, commissioners or anything. Osun exists at the mercy of federal funding and the moment
> money refuses to come from the federation, the state would be in trouble. It is not Osun alone; some states owe 11 months, three months and so on. It varies from state to state. There is nothing the governor can do about it. Unless there is money, there won’t be payment.
>
> But workers are dying. There have been reported cases of workers turning into corporate beggars or even starving to death?
> Dying? If you are a farmer – you employ yourself – and due to lack of rain, you can’t produce in a year, and you can’t tolerate it and you don’t have support from anywhere, you will die? The employer won’t kill himself. What can the employer do? Osun State is the employer, not Aregbesola. He is merely symbolic because he is the governor. Aregbesola came at a wrong time when the state was soaking in debt. He was trying to rearrange the debt because he inherited a big debt and it is a debt from the bank. You know, if you borrow N100 from the bank and you have to pay 20 per cent, it means, in five years, it becomes N200. I think he inherited a debt of about N18 billion, if I can remember. I heard it was money intended to build a stadium and he rearranged it with the bank. The rearrangement means saying, ‘okay, don’t let me pay immediately, help me push it forward a bit and when the day comes, they would start taking their money.’ He
> inherited the debt and there is nothing he can do about it. He won’t run into the bush. When I was governor, people asked me to come and borrow N300 million to repair a water project. I said no; that I couldn’t borrow such money. I repaired the water project with less than a million naira and water was flowing.
>
> Senator Ben Murray Bruce donated his wardrobe allowance to some Osun workers to alleviate their suffering but Governor Aregbesola was not happy with it…
> Ben [Murray] Bruce was being mischievous. He was at the centre of the PDP which collapsed in debt. He was inside the rot of PDP that collapsed in a mess. How much is his wardrobe allowance that he is donating? To whom did he give it to.

Sahara weekly online is published by First Sahara weekly international. contact saharaweekly@yahoo.com

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Retired, Not Tired: Buratai’s Fitness Routine Sparks Motivation Nationwide

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Retired, Not Tired: Buratai’s Fitness Routine Sparks Motivation Nationwide

 

After years of distinguished service at the helm of the Nigerian Army, Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusufu Buratai (rtd) is redefining what life after uniform looks like—with energy, discipline, and a commitment to personal wellness.

 

Recent photos of the former Chief of Army Staff in the gym, widely shared on social media, show a man who has swapped combat boots for training shoes but not his signature resolve. Relaxed yet resolute, Buratai continues to lead by example—this time, in the pursuit of health and balance.

In a caption accompanying the viral images, Buratai emphasized that his workout routine isn’t just about staying fit—it’s about celebrating a life of service with renewed purpose. “This gym walk-out is about more than exercise; it’s about enjoying the fruits of a long, honorable career,” he wrote.

The message has struck a chord. Admirers across the country have commended his discipline and positivity, lauding his transition from top military leadership to a model of healthy living in retirement. For many, Buratai is not just a retired general—he’s now a wellness ambassador.

His journey offers a powerful reminder: retirement isn’t the end, but the beginning of a new chapter—one where growth, self-care, and inner peace can thrive.

Retired, Not Tired: Buratai’s Fitness Routine Sparks Motivation Nationwide

Photos and full message available on his verified Facebook page:
Read more here

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16hgxtnhXu/

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TRUMP, MALEMA, RAMAPHOSA AND THE OVAL OFFICE GRILL by Chief Femi Fani-Kayode

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THE ISRAEL OF SHAITAN

TRUMP, MALEMA, RAMAPHOSA AND THE OVAL OFFICE GRILL by Chief Femi Fani-Kayode

It was quite a show at the Oval office in the White House a few days ago when South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with American President Donald J. Trump to discuss bilateral issues and world affairs.

 

It began with Trump’s unsubstantiated and frankly asinine allegation that the white Boers of South Africa are being subjected to mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

 

This is not only false but also painfully absurd.

 

Sadly it did not stop there. Trump went on to assert that Julius Malema, the inspirational charismatic and colourful M.P. and leader and founder of the South African Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), is a hate-filled black supremacist and racist and a cold-blooded murderer and ruthless terrorist whose intention it is to kill every white person in South Africa.

Needless to say these allegations are baseless and false. The Americans are attempting to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it. It is nothing but yet another well-crafted but unsubstantiated mendacity.

 

Even though Malema is very vocal and highly controversial he does not strike me as a hater of whites but rather as a hater of injustice, oppression, persecution and institutional racism.

 

He is a man with a social conscience who speaks for the poor, the weak, the vulnerable and the oppressed and who has constituted himself into a major thorn in the flesh of the political establishment and the ruling elites in South Africa both white and black.

 

He is very eloquent, well-informed, well-read and quick off the mark and these qualities, coupled with his obvious courage and strength, make him a formidable adversary which every person of class, rank or privilege in his country has every reason to be wary of.

 

He also speaks a good deal of sense and his passion for truth, justice and equity for the black majority population of South Africa and commitment to the emancipation of the African continent from the forces of imperialism and neo-colonialism cannot be denied.

 

To millions of South Africans Malema is a deeply courageous, insightful and profound man and possibly the greatest post-Mandela hero and rising star that their nation has ever known.

 

To add to this millions of Africans (including Nigerians and Zimbabweans) who live in South Africa regard him as a loyal and trusted friend who has always spoken up for them and sought to protect them from the rabid xenophobia that most black South Africans suffer from and who has a strong and commendable Nkrumaist Pan-African vision.

For Trump and his White House to attempt to disparage such a man that brings so much to the table and that has done so much to restore the self-respect and dignity of black South Africans and Africans all over the world simply because he sang an old outdated, pre-independence, apartheied-era, anti-Boer war song at his political party rally is uncharitable and unkind.

 

To turn down the lights of the Oval office, watch a film on him on television for four good minutes and make him the centre of discussion at a bilateral meeting between the Presidents of two of the most respected nations on earth only proves the fact that he is no longer only an African phenomenon but also a global brand and a rallying point for blacks from all over the world.

To that extent Trump has inadvertently elevated his profile rather than diminish it.

 

Like in the case of the Biblical Joseph, what Trump meant for evil, God meant for good.

Yet perhaps the most shameful thing that Trump did on that day was not what he attempted to do to Malema but rather the following.

 

He presented a picture to Ramaphosa and his delegation of what was purportedly “1000 white South African graves with white crosses on them of white South African farmers” that were supposedly “dispossessed of their land by black terrorists” and “murdered in cold blood”.

Contrary to the American Presidents assertions it was later confirmed that the picture was NOT of the graves of white farmers in South Africa but rather of a burial ground in a completely different country called Congo!

 

One wonders how the President of the most powerful nation on earth could make such an egregious and monumental blunder and indulge in such deceit and doublepeak all in an attempt to humiliate the South African President.

 

Sadly it didn’t stop there. Trump literally ambushed Ramaphosa, lectured him, bullied him, spoke down to him, accused his Government and people of heinous crimes, kept interrupting him when he attempted to speak, mocked his role as a peacemaker in the Ukraine/Russia conflict and sought to utterly humiliate him.

To behave in this unacceptable manner and indulge in such mendacious falsehood is below any President let alone the most powerful one in the world.

 

I see the hand of Elon Musk, who himself is a South African and who has not hidden his contempt and disdain for the ANC-led South African Government and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu, whose Government has been accused by South Africa of genocide and indeed taken to the International Court of Justice and to the International Criminal Court both at the Hague, in all this.

 

Both must have thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle!

 

Yet the truth is that even if his predominately white right-wing MAGA base in America may have been excited and thrilled by his proverbial lynching and carpeting of a helpless and whimpering black President at the Oval office it has also alienated a lot of black and particularly African Trumpers like yours truly who have always refused to regard Trump as a racist but rather as a man who was specially chosen, prepared, raised and anointed by God to destroy the American Deep State, to terminate the Godless agenda of the globalists, to stop the wars of the world, to put God at the centre of affairs when it comes to politics and governance, to re-establish and re-instill the Christian virtues and values that America was built on, to break the back of the unholy, Luciferean trinity and anti-Christ philosophy of Obama, Clinton and Biden in world affairs and American politics.

I sincerely hope that we do not end up regretting our support for him but if he continues in this way that support shall undoubtedly dwindle.

Why do I day this? Consider the following.

First it was “let us grab Greenland, Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal and rename the Gulf of Persia”, then it was “let us turn Gaza into an American Riviera”, then it was “let us wage a tariff war against the nations of the world”, then it was “let us alienate and abandon our European allies”, then it was “let us provoke China”, then it was “let us go to the three richest nations in the Middle East and compel their Kings to invest trillions of dollars in America and even give us a new presidentiel jet”, then it was “let us bring the little African leader who leads a country with the largest and most properous economy on his continent to the Oval office, humiliate him before the world and bully him into leaving our white brothers in South Africa alone” and the latest is “let us stop foreign students from attending Harvard University because the authorities of that school have refused to bring to an end the pro-Palestinian
demonstrations that are taking place on campus”.

These actions are increasingly troubling and whether we have hitherto admired, loved and prayed for Trump or not we cannot support a confirmed bully and racist. That would be ungodly.

We cannot support a man that finds it difficult to empathise with the suffering of others or that is fast losing his humanity. That would be incorrigible.

 

Trump needs to retrace his steps, divest himself of these glaring and obvious symptoms of meglomania, obsessive vanity and extreeme narcissim and get real.

 

God did not deliver him from the hands of his enemies and make him President to do this sort of nonsense but rather to make America great again and to make the world a better and safer place. If he fails to do this God will leave him, remove him and replace him with another.

Back to the episode at the White House.

 

Cyril Ramaphosa’s responses to the grilling were equally embarrassing and frankly disappointing.

 

Most western commentators have described his disposition, body language and reaction as “weak”, “cowardly” and “cringeworthy” and I am constrained to concur.

 

No President should bow and tremble before another no matter how rich and powerful the latter may be.

 

In the African context Nelson Mandela would not have done so and neither would Murtala Mohammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, Jerry Rawlings, Thomas Sankara, Ahmed Ben Bella, Muammar Ghadafi, Patrice Lumumba, Gamal Nasser, Sani Abacha, Ibrahim Babangida, Kwame Nkrumah, Muhammadu Buhari, Robert Mugabe, Samora Machel or Ibrahim Traore.

 

This ritual of inviting foreign leaders to the Oval office like King Hussein of Jordan (who literally had to bow and lick Trumps posterior), President Vlodomer Zelensky of Ukraine (who was insulted, rubbished, humiliated and finally thrown out) and now Cyril Ramaphosa (who was forced to watch an embarrassing scene about his country on television) and belittling and denigrating them must stop.

 

The humiliation of the South African President particularly was painful for me to watch because of the frightful history of his country and the terrible atrocities and apartheid system that the white Afrikaaner Boers subjected the black Africans to for hundreds of years.

 

They went through all that and now they have to suffer this in the hands of yet another white man.

 

This same white minority that oppressed and enslaved them in their own land for hundreds of years control 80% of the economy and own 90% of the land in their country today despite the fact that they only constitute 8% of the population.

These are the people that Trump is claiming are being subjected to genocide and is offering asylum in America.

 

These are people that in the main and in the past have regarded black Africans as being “no better than animals”.

 

These are people that practised apartheid and that described black people as the biblical “hewers of the wood and drawers of the water”.

These are the people that once regarded a black man as being a quarter of a human being and that not only refused to have legal inter racial sex or marriages but compelled black people to live in shanty towns that were little better than concentration camps and subjected them to pass laws much in the sane way as the Israelis are subjecting the Palestinians to such inhumanity and degradation today.

If a Nigerian leader had been treated like this at the Oval office and I was in the room believe me all hell would have broken loose and Trump, his VP, his Ministers, his team and the American White House Press Corps would not only have got more than they dished out and bargained for but they would have been given a curt history lesson about the past and present atrocities of their nation and a thorough and precise lecture about the matter at hand.

I am a Trump supporter but in all matters my nation and continent must come first.

I despise the way he bullied Ramaphosa and I hope and pray that if he or any other foreign leader tries this with any Nigerian leader that I am in the room.

The days of talking down to African Presidents are long over.

 

More importantly the days of cowardly, weak, subservient, spineless, grovelling, corrupt, compromised and ignorant African lichspittles and
quislings who call themselves leaders but who lack self-esteem, self-respect and pride in their people and who have no shame or dignity, who are hopelessly compromised, who have no knowledge of world affairs or world history, who are pawns of the neo-colonialists and imperialists and who have sold their soul and destiny of their nation to the western powers are long over.

This fact can be confirmed by what can best be described as the “Traore spirit” that is blowing into all the nooks and corners of our continent today.

As much as I love and support Trump his attitude and policy on Africa and Gaza leaves much to be desired.

He needs to do better and he must understand that the Palestinians and the Africans, though facing challenges, are far more resilient than his people ever were and come from a far older and greater civilisation than his country ever did.

 

We may not have their money and power but we have God.

 

Their time is now but tomorrow belongs to us. That God that put them up there and established their hegemony and empire shall remember us.

 

We too shall rise and at that time all men shall say that the rejected stone has become the corner stone, that the Lord uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wisdom of the wise and that in truth all things are possible with God.

 

(Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, a former Minister of Aviation and a former Minister of Culture and Tourism)

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Power, Protocol, and Papal Grace: The Inside Story of How It All Went Down in Rome By Bianca Ojukwu

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Power, Protocol, and Papal Grace: The Inside Story of How It All Went Down in Rome By Bianca Ojukwu

There’s something about the Vatican that strips away titles and trappings. In the shadows of St. Peter’s Basilica, under the searing Roman sun, global leaders, power players, and everyday pilgrims become equals—bound by reverence and ritual.

Power, Protocol, and Papal Grace: The Inside Story of How It All Went Down in Rome By Bianca Ojukwu

I should know. I was there.

On my last trip to the Vatican—during the funeral of Pope Francis just weeks earlier—I had witnessed something unforgettable. As President Donald Trump arrived and a crowd of dignitaries swarmed to greet him, a sharply-dressed, no-nonsense priest cut through the noise with a firm:

Scusi. This is St. Peter’s Basilica, not the White House. Kindly take your seats.

Boom. Order restored. And a reminder: here, no one upstages the moment.

So when I returned for the Installation Mass of Pope Leo XIV, I knew I’d be witnessing not just history, but human theater—with the Nigerian delegation right in the mix.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, leading the delegation, arrived in good time—early enough to soak in the atmosphere, greet dignitaries, and observe the ancient rites. As we settled into the square, I spotted Peter Obi and Kayode Fayemi, former governors and political heavyweights, already seated. After the President had taken his place, I went over to greet them—and in a rare gesture of statesmanship, they chose to accompany me to pay their respects to the President.

What followed was a surprisingly warm and humorous exchange. Far from the icy tensions back home, Tinubu welcomed them with ease, smiling, laughing, and trading quips like old friends reunited at a family function. They soon returned to their seats—but that moment, however brief, spoke volumes about what’s possible in Nigerian politics when the ego is set aside.

But Rome doesn’t care who you are. The sun showed no favoritism. Under the blazing Vatican heat, everyone—presidents, pilgrims, priests—sat exposed. The square is merciless. People faint. They’re carried off in stretchers. It’s part of the experience.

One man, seated directly in front of me, collapsed mid-Mass. Paramedics were far off, and panic briefly rippled through the crowd—until Seyi Tinubu, the President’s son, leapt into action. He darted to the vestibule and returned with a cold bottle of water that was used to revive the man before medics arrived.

Meanwhile, the President—stoic and composed—sat through the entire three-hour liturgy, standing and kneeling as required, skipping only Communion. Afterward, he lingered. He chatted with Nigerian priests, seminarians, posed for selfies, and shared laughs, showing none of the fatigue one might expect.

And oh—that suit.

Tailored to perfection, the President’s power suit turned heads across the square. The cut, the stride, the confidence—it was presidential flair meeting ecclesiastical ceremony. He walked up to greet the new pontiff with grace and gravitas.

So yes, Vatican ’25 wasn’t just a religious event—it was a convergence of power, humility, diplomacy, and humanity.

From protocol to personal moments, this was history not just witnessed, but lived.

And for those of us lucky enough to be there, one thing is clear:
In Rome, you don’t just attend a Mass. You become part of a moment that echoes through eternity.

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