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The truth lie, Mohammed cannot kill (Part 2)
The truth lie, Mohammed cannot kill (Part 2) Tunde Odesola
Finally, truth flew out of the dirty White Paper, last week, encircled the powerful seat in Alausa seven times, and blessed the bony head of Johnny Walker with a poop. Singing a dirge, “Justice is the first condition for peace walk,” truth shook its little tail, and away it flew!
Truth flew back to Lekki. To continue to sing the panegyrics of the nine AK-47 victims, whose red blood was used to signpost the Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020 as a monument in memory of brutality.
Truth is blunt, it doesn’t care a hoot about the slavish godson, and his all-grabbing godfather scheming to grab the biggest cake in the land come 2023. From the aquatic splendour of Bourdillon to the House-o-Rock in Abuja, where the head herdsman resides, the wind of truth has blown, exposing the rump of the hen.
His Most Majestic Excellency, Lagos State Governor, Rt. Hon. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, knows the truth but cannot swallow its bitterness. He desires peace but dislikes its sauce, justice. He knows that with the proverbial duck, the swallowed stone ends in a piss.
In Lagos, piss splatter down on peace with no law in sight to bring pissing soldiers and policemen to justice at Lekki, and Nigeria’s foulest city rolls on in filth as honest celebrities abandon Gv Johnny Walker to walk alone on Falsehood Road.
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, knows the truth, but he curls up in the bed of fallacy; fallacy that the rain of bullets at the Lekki toll gate in October 2020, all missed their targets, like the piss of the drunk refusing to enter the targeted latrine hole.
Alhaji Lai worships in Abuja, Governor Sanwo-Olu worships in Lagos. They both serve the same omnipotence. Ironically, Mohammed and Sanwo-Olu, sired from the same political loins, today sing divergent tunes when truth came to judgment at the abattoir called Lekki Toll Gate.
When truth catches up with falsehood, egberun Lai or Sanwo-Olu can’t rescue it. Truth turns lies into foolishness in the fullness of time. Truth is a tongue twister. It is colourless.
In far away Abuja, Hadji Lai sat under the evening shade of the baobab, and sang tales by moonlight, insisting that nobody died at Lekki but Sanwo-Olu, holding aloft his dirty White Paper, contradicts Mohammed, admitting that one person died at Lekki while many others were injured.
Buoyed up by the 41-page White Paper produced through a four-member hand-picked committee that comprised officials under his authority, Sanwo-Olu debunked the submission of the retired Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel that nine persons fell to the bullets of soldiers at the LTG in October, last year.
Sanwo-Olu’s White Paper panel was headed by the Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN); with the Commissioner for Youths and Social Development, Mr. Segun Dawodu; Special Adviser, Works and Infrastructure, Mrs Aramide Adeyoye, and Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Office, Mrs. Tolani Oshodi, as members.
Departing from the path of truth set by the eclectic Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS-Related Abuses and Other Matters, inaugurated shortly after the Lekki massacre in 2020, a statement by Lagos State on December 1, 2021 said, “This recommendation is not acceptable to Lagos State Government for the following reasons: The finding of the JPI at page 288 paragraph M is that, ‘The evidence of the pathologist Prof Obafunwa that only 3 of the bodies that they conducted post mortem examination on were from Lekki and only one had gunshot injury and this was not debunked.’”
The statement continued, “The JPI’s finding of nine deaths is therefore irreconcilable with the evidence of Prof Obafunwa that only one person died of gunshot wounds at 7:43pm at LTG on October 21, 2020.”
Ehn-ehn? So, the White Paper produced by Governor Sanwo-Olu’s officials even acknowledged the submission that three dead persons were brought in dead from the LTG with one of them dying from gunshot? Where, therefore, did Alhaji Lai get his nobody-died-at-Lekki tales by moonlight from?
For the government’s White Paper panel to admit with the pathologist that only three dead bodies were brought dead from Lekki leaves so much unsaid about the other skeletons in the cupboard. Nigerians are not dumb to believe that the loyalists of a generous governor will turn around to pull down his government, kamari ni Paul wi.
In the obsession to rubbish the JPI report, the statement by the Sanwo-Olu government claimed two names were mentioned twice in the JPI’s list of victims that died at Lekki. An incorrupt primary school pupil would know that was a typographical error demanding just a subtraction of the repeated names to arrive at nine, the figure the Okuwobi panel said were killed at the LTG.
Still rummaging the haystack to invalidate the bloodbath at Lekki, Sanwo-Olu’s government said, “Furthermore, the person listed as No. 46, Nathaniel Solomon, who testified as a witness and petitioned the JPI in respect of his brother, whom he said alleged died at LTG, was himself listed as having died at LTG on 20th October 2020. Remarkably, Nathaniel Solomon’s deceased brother (Abuta Solomon) was then also listed as No. 2 on the list of persons who died at LTG.”
This admission by the Lagos State Government puts the lie to Alhaji Lai’s annoying claim that no family of the deceased showed up to complain about the death of their member. The listing of the deceased’s brother among the dead was another typographic error that doesn’t vitiate the fact that Abuta Solomon died from bullet(s) fired at the toll gate – as acknowledged by the White Paper.
Meanwhile, a group of grieving women reportedly stormed the Ikoyi residence of the Lagos Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat, four days ago, to protest the death of their children at the LTG.
In its recommendation, the JPI revealed that one Olamilekan Sanusi testified that he was mistaken for dead, and packed with corpses in a vehicle. It’s the truth of Sanusi and six other victims of gunshots, who were awarded N15m each, that Lai Mohammed and Sanwo-Olu want interred.
The family of a dead victim, Nathaniel Solomon, was awarded N25m by the panel even as two amputees, Lucky Philemon and Olalekan Faleye, were awarded N15m each just as others that sustained various degrees of injury were also awarded millions of naira.
A mother, Adesola, who lost her 32-year-old son to a gunshot wound at the toll gate, told CNN that her son (name withheld), died in her arms after sustaining a gunshot injury to the chest. Standing by her son’s tomb one year after, a weeping Adesola told CNN her son, who had two children, was buried according to Muslim rites, the day after he was shot.
Fearing for her dear live, Adesola (not real name) refused to show her face on camera as she recalled seeing a dead protester in the gutter at the LTG, where she had gone to look for her son, whose chest was pierced by a bullet that exited through his back.
Adesola’s plight was replicated in many families who lost loved ones during the nationwide #ENDSARS protests. Felicia Ogunniyi, the mother of an 18-year-old, Kemisola, has an unpalatable tale to tell. She had sent her daughter on an errand when she was apprehended by soldiers on a raid. She was handed over to the police and charged with being part of the group that burnt down the All Progressives Congress secretariat in Akure. Kemisola, who gave birth to a baby boy in prison last June, has been released on humanitarian grounds, but thousands of protesters remain behind bars nationwide while state governments including Lagos offer olive branches in one hand, and whips of falsehood in the other hand, calling for a peace walk but closing the door on justice.
The wind has exposed the rump of the hen. It’s now clear why the police didn’t preserve, secure and investigate the crime scene shortly after the massacre.
Conscience is an open wound…
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Twitter: @tunde_odesola
U.S. Courtroom Shock: Funke Ashekun, Husband Collapse as MFM Wins
Had FFK Faced Mehdi Hassan, Nigeria Would Have Spoken With Fire
By Mohammed Bello Doka
In politics, timing is everything. In diplomacy, character is everything. And in moments of national importance, leadership must be entrusted to individuals who possess not only experience but courage, intellect and an unshakable commitment to the nation they represent.
It is for this reason that the appointment of Chief Femi Fani-Kayode as Nigeria’s Ambassador to a foreign nation stands out as one of the most consequential diplomatic decisions in recent years.
Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, better known in the South as “FFK” and in the North as “Sadauki”, is one of the most brilliant, experienced, accomplished, vocal, respected, educated, profound, intellectual, patriotic, disciplined, well-read, historically literate, versatile, forceful, persuasive, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, charming, eloquent, courageous and resilient men in Nigerian politics and he has paid his dues and proved his worth over the last 35 years in politics and political discourse.
In each role he has played he has excelled and succeeded even when he was in opposition.
His friends value him as a great and loyal defender and his traducers and political adversaries fear and respect him because when he goes to war he is utterly relentless, takes no prisoners and literally spits fire.
How I wish it was him that was interviewed by Mehdi Hassan of Al Jazeera and not the young and inexperienced Daniel Bwala because he would have not only humbled Hassan but also done Nigeria proud.
He played Bwala’s present role in the Presidential Villa 23 years ago as President Olusegun Obasanjo’s spokesman and not only brought the then President’s domestic enemies to their knees but also had a series of very hot exchanges with foreign Government officials like America’s Under-Secreatary of State for Africa Jendaye Fraser and the White House over the Charles Taylor issue and Liberia.
Tinubu decision to appoint him as an Ambassador for our nation was a wise one because he will fight for and protect the interests of Nigeria and the Nigerian community whetever he goes and will never sell his soul or bow to foreign imperialist interests.
His appointment is not about just rewarding loyalty for the key role he played in Tinubu’s presidentiel campaign organisation as Director of New Media and Special Operations in 2023 and the staunch support he has given the President over the last three years but also about putting a square peg in a square hole.
If you want to put Nigeria first Sadauki is the one to do it.
If he runs the Nigerian Mission in the country that he is sent to in the same way he ran the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Aviation when he was Minister to each of them one after the other twenty years ago he will do very well and both our nation and whichever nation he is posted to itself will benefit from his efforts.
History teaches that diplomacy is most effective when nations deploy individuals who possess both intellect and courage.
As the American statesman Henry Kissinger once noted, “Diplomacy is the art of restraining power.”
To do so successfully requires deep historical awareness and strategic clarity—qualities that have long defined Fani-Kayode’s political career.
Sending a politically seasoned voice like FFK to any nation that is a key partner to Nigeria signals that Bola Ahmed Tinubu intends to strengthen Nigeria’s diplomatic posture with confidence.
Throughout more than three decades in the political arena, Fani-Kayode has remained one of the most resilient and outspoken figures in Nigerian public life despite numerous challenges which would have broken and destroyed lesser men.
Regardless of all that was thrown at him he continues to pull through and come out victorious which is why many refer to him as the “Akanda Eledumare” and the “Ayanfe Oluwa” which mean “the strange one of God” and “the beloved of the Lord”.
There appears to be a divine dimension to his life that makes him unstoppable and irrepressible even though his enemies are legion.
One wonders what sets him apart and makes him so different.
There is no doubt that his education played a part in it and this set him apart from most.
He never went to school in Nigeria but was educated from the age of eight in England starting off at Holmewood House School in Kent, one of the UK’s best and most famous Preparatory schools, after which he attended the famous Harrow School just outside London which is, together with Eton College, an institution that is the exclusive preserve of high society in the UK, one of the two best private schools in that country where only the ruling elite, the rich, the well-to-do, the famous and only a tiny proportion of those in British high society can afford or even qualify to attend.
No less than eight British Prime Ministers, including the great Sir Winston Churchill, and countless British cabinet ministers attended Harrow and so did many leaders, diplomats and top politicians from many foreign countries.
After finishing at Harrow he attended some of the top universities in the world, including London University (SOAS) and Cambridge University (Pembroke College) where he did so well.
As a matter of fact his great grandfather, Rev. Emmanuel Adelabi Kayode, attended Furrough Bay College which at that time was part of Durham University and graduated with an MA (Hons.) in Theology in 1893. His grandfather Justice Adedapo Kayode attended Cambridge University (Selwyn College) where he studied law and graduated in 1922. His father Chief Remilekun Fani-Kayode attended Cambridge University (Downing College) where he studied law and graduated in 1943. Sadauki himself graduated in law at Cambridge University (Pembroke College) in 1984 whilst his daughter Folake Fani-Kayode graduated from Durham University in 2009.
No African family has an uninterrupted streak of 116 years of Oxbridge-level university graduates except for the Fani-Kayode’s which is something that both his family and every patriotic Nigerian should be proud of.
It therefore makes perfect sense that a man from such a distinguished pedigree and intimidating lineage and that has such an extraordinary intellectual heritage should represent Nigeria on the international stage.
There is also his role in the debate on Gaza which made him a hero in the eyes of millions of people in the Global South both amongst Christians and Muslims.
He spoke out consistently about what he described as the genocide being committed against the Palestinians and he was prepared to put his life and career on the line for this cause even though most Nigerian leaders and politicians refused to say what he was saying publicly out of fear of the Zionist lobby and the Jewish state.
His sense of patriotism is unquestionable and nothing reflects this better than his series of essays written against Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the British Opposition Conservative Party and his write up against one Ben Llewelyn-Jones, who at that time was the Deputy British High Commissioner to Nigeria, when the former consistently sought to insult and denigrate Nigeria and the Nigerian people and the latter attempted to interfere in our internal affairs by making statements in support of Peter Obi and his Obidients in the 2023 presidential elections.
Sadauki successfully put them both in their place and when American Senator Ted Cruz, President Donald Trump, Congressman Tim Riley and other American politicians began to peddle the false narrative and fake gospel of Christian genocide and persecution in Nigeria Sadauki, a devout Christian himself, rose to the challenge and more than any other Nigerian wrote about the issue in a series of essays pointing out the fact that as many Muslims were being killed as Christians by the terrorists in our country and that Christians were not being persecuted by our Government and are in fact faring better when it comes to positions in the security apparatus and governance under Tinubu than they did in the previous administration.
He also spoke out boldly against President Trump and his administration when they accused the Government of South Africa of indulging in genocide against the white minority population in their country and pointed out the fact that South Africa, like Brazil, was a shining example of a successful multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation that was treating its white minority population with the greatest respect. Few Africans said a word to defend South Africa at the time even though they knew that Trump was wrong but Sadauki did so without thinking twice.
He is clearly a strong Pan-Africanist and a believer in the importance of the African Union, African solidarity, the BRICS coalition and the Global South alliance comprising of China, Russia, South Africa, India, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other emerging world powers.
This is commendable and it reflects his courage and disdain for those that display ignorance, disdain and contempt for our nation and people and that seek to denigrate and misrepresent us.
Sadauki is not the type that bows and quivers before Westerners like so many other Nigerian leaders and politicians but rather takes pride in his Nigerian culture, race, heritage and identity and is prepared to defend us and speak for us no matter whose ox is gored and who is involved.
In an increasingly competitive global environment, Nigeria requires diplomats capable not only of negotiation but also of defending national interests with conviction.
If the energy, eloquence and intellectual fire that have defined Fani-Kayode’s political life accompany him to the country to which he has been posted, his tenure may well become one of the most consequential chapters in Nigeria’s modern diplomatic engagements.
I wish him well and I thank God that he is back in the saddle of public office after so many years.
What more could any of us ask of this great and noble son of Nigeria?
This is undoubtedly the quality of personnel and leaders that we need on the international stage.
I hope and pray that in his endeavours and during the course of his work he meets with Mehdi Hassan in a debate and prove to him and the rest of the world that Nigeria still has men that can not only match them but that can also remove their trousers in any verbal encounter. Bwala put us to shame but FFK can redeem us before the eyes of the world.
(Mohammed Bello Doka, the author of this essay, is the publisher of Abuja Network News and can be reached via [email protected])
Sunday Igboho Hails IBD Dende’s Exceptional Generosity and Loyalty
By Adeyemi Obadimu
A prominent Yoruba nation activist, Sunday Igboho, has publicly commended renowned businessman and philanthropist, Ibrahim Egungbohun, popularly known as IBD Dende, for what he described as extraordinary generosity and unwavering support during one of the most challenging periods of his life.
Speaking about his experience following his release from detention in the Benin Republic, Igboho disclosed that IBD Dende reached out to him immediately to inquire about his welfare and next destination. According to him, when he explained that he was planning to travel to Germany and that the cost of flight tickets for himself and his wife amounted to ₦6 million, Dende requested his bank details.
In a remarkable show of goodwill, Igboho revealed that Dende transferred ₦20 million to his account far above the stated travel expenses with the reassurance that the extra funds could assist with other pressing needs.
Igboho further recounted that upon his eventual return to Nigeria, despite ongoing financial restrictions, IBD Dende was the first person he met. At that meeting, the businessman reportedly provided an additional ₦10 million to enable him host visitors and manage immediate responsibilities, particularly as his bank account remains frozen.
The activist also expressed profound gratitude to former Oyo State Governor, Rasheed Ladoja, whom he credited for resolving issues between him and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Describing Dende as a man of rare loyalty and compassion, Igboho stated that anyone who harbours ill feelings toward the businessman “is under a curse,” emphasizing the depth of gratitude he holds for the support he received.
The development has sparked conversations across social and political circles, further highlighting IBD Dende’s reputation as a philanthropist and influential figure known for standing by associates in difficult times.
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