The recent outrage that has trailed the increase of value added tax and introduction of new policies by government agencies, like NIPOST, that could strangulate businesses bring back memories of the 20th Century when similar moves by the British colonial government led to violent uprising in some Nigerian cities.

 

The Aba women riot of 1929, Egba women tax revolt of 1947 and the Adubi war of 1918 are some of the uprisings that were fuelled by unfavourable government policies which snowballed into violent confrontations between the indigenous people and the colonial authorities.

With the absence of social media to vent their anger and protest their rejection of government policies, the people of that era took to the streets to turn their outrage into physical confrontations. While some of the confrontations produced the desired results, some ended in loss for the people and victory for the British authorities.

In June 1918, the same year the Spanish Flu swept across the world, led to lockdown of socio-economic activities and killed thousands in Nigeria and an estimated 50 million people across the world, the Egba people in modern day Abeokuta, the capital city of Ogun State went to war against the British authorities over the imposition of taxes.

Unlike other towns conquered by British authorities, Egbaland, one of the most developed cities after Lagos colony, signed an alliance with the British governor, Sir Gilbert Carter allowing it to run its affairs. The pact recognised the independence of the Egba United Government from 1893 until 1914 when the independence was lost following the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates to form Nigeria.

After the annexation of Egbaland, the British governor-general, Lord Frederick Lugard, was said to have told the Egba Council: “Your court remains the same…Your police remains the same…Your Order in Council are to be used in your courts…. you will find no difference excepting that the Alake‘s hand has been strengthened.”

As if losing the independence was not enough, the colonial authorities imposed taxes and also introduced the “indirect rule” policy of Lugard, which made the Alake (the king of Ake in Abeokuta), formerly primus inter pares (“first among equals”), the supreme traditional leader to the detriment of the other quarter chiefs.

The decision didn’t sit well with other chiefs and people of other quarters like Papalanto, Wasimi and other communities in present day Ewekoro local government area of Ogun State – the epicenter of the war.

The final trigger that sparked the war was the arrest of 70 Egba chiefs (most of them Owu) on June 7, 1918 on the order of the authorities, to forestall a breakdown of order, for refusing to pay tax and for disobeying the Alake. Rather than forestall breakdown of order, the arrest led to a full blown war.

A news report in ‘The Lagos Standard’ newspaper of June 19, 1918 read:
“The unexpected has happened in Egbaland. The people of the district of Papalanto have risen in arms against the Authorities and the position of affairs in Abeokuta. Province, as we write, is rather serious. Various rumours are afloat as to the number of tribes that have combined to put their fate to the test of arms.

“Some say that among the people that have risen are Ijebus, Egbas, Egbados and other tribes of the Yorubas but there is not the slightest doubt that the rising is one of the most serious that have ever taken place in this part of the world.”

An ultimatum ordering the rioters to lay down their arms, accept to pay taxes and obey their African leaders was not obeyed by the agitators. When the ultimatum failed, a detachment of Nigerian troops who had just returned from service in East Africa was deployed to Egbaland on June 11. On June 13, Egba rebels attacked the railway lines at Agbesi in Ewekoro with a few Britons on board, while some others attacked and destroyed the station at Wasimi also in Ewekoro where a British agent, Ashworth, was killed.

The local fighters armed with local guns exchanged fire with colonial forces at Otite, Tappona, Mokoloki and Lalako for the three weeks the violence lasted, by July 10, the rebellion had been quashed and its leaders arrested. An estimated 600 people including the British agent and the Oshile who was the sacred Chief of the Egba Oke-Ona had been killed by the time normalcy returned on July 31, 1918.

According to the account of Harry Gailey, who was an Emeritus Professor of Military History at San Jose State University, Oba Oshile was killed for opposing the rebel‘s plans and would not lend his authority to the revolt against the authorities.

Accounts of several historians also revealed that the war was a result of Lugard’s ‘Indirect Rule’ policy and the imposition of taxes which was alien to the Egbas.

Explaining the uprising, Gailey wrote:

“As later investigations indicated clearly, the British administration had managed to alienate almost every segment of Egba society…. The Ogboni and territory chiefs saw their authority slipping away….The ordinary townspeople were required for the first time to pay taxes and yet the former exactions of labour and high sanitary fees continued.”

He added: “To add to these concrete grievances was a general feeling of loss of an old way of life and many remembered with humiliation Ijemo and subsequent annexation…. (A) very large minority, remembering their proud military heritage, decided to take advantage of what appeared to be British weakness and resorted to arms to solve their problems.”

John Ausman’s account also corroborated Gailey’s account. He wrote:
“Lugard’s system met with some initial success in Benin, where total conquest and the exile of the Oba had provided him with a relatively clean slate. But in Oyo and Iseyin there was friction; in Abeokuta nearly disaster.”

Ausman added: “The process of creating a suitable traditional authority, followed by the institution of direct taxation and a means of collecting it caused growing discontent in Abeokuta Province. Soon violence broke out and the irate villagers cut the telegraph lines and railway track in several places. A District Head, one European, and a number of other people were killed in the uprising, and the inhabitants of Abeokuta were cut off from the outside world.”

However, Lugard, who had ignored advice from the Lagos elites not to introduce taxes to the hinterlands yet, never accepted that the uprising was directly related to taxation. He was said to have pointed at other possibilities including what he thought of as Egba avariciousness and the accumulation of grievances which had been kept locked in their hearts.

At the end of the three-week war, the people’s agitation was noted and imposition of the direct taxes was postponed until 1925.

According to Dr. Oluwatoyin Oduntan, the Commission of Enquiry set up to investigate the uprising said property worth over £55,000 were damaged but the losses suffered by the Egbas were not included in the figure.

The British soldiers who restrained the revolt received the Africa General Service Medal – awarded for minor wars that took place in Africa between 1900 and 1956. One of the songs sang by the Egbas during the Adubi war was popularised by legendary afrobeat singer who is also of egba descent – Fela Anikulapo-Kuti as ‘Gbagada Gbogodo’ in his album ‘Open and Close’ released in 1971. Award-winning Nigerian folk singer, Tunji Oyelana, also dedicated a song – ‘Ogun Adubi’, to the war in one of his albums released in 1972.

Abba Kyari was a polarising figure. The confirmation of his death at the early hours on Saturday, April 18, 2020, has propelled Nigerians into a fury of expression of strong opinions, many of which are not in his or his family’s favour.

Kyari, before his rise to the controversial position as the Chief of Staff to the President of Africa’s most populous nation, was a relatively unknown business executive.

While the details of his childhood remain sketchy, Kyari in his earlier years obtained a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Warwick. Around the same period, the Kanuri, Borno native bagged another degree in law from the University of Cambridge. He was called to the Nigerian Bar shortly after in 1983 after completing a mandatory year in the Nigerian Law School.

These set him in motion for even more educational degrees. In 1984, he obtained a master’s degree from the same university where he obtained his first degree in law. He would later further sharpen his pedigree by participating in Management Development courses in Switzerland and Havard, United States – between 1992 and 1994.

By this time, Kyari had been well positioned to offer his knowledge to various law, business and management organisations. On his return to Nigeria he worked with a couple of law firms before going on to hold the position as Editor at the New Africa Holdings Limited Kaduna between 1988 and 1990. He would later serve the people of Borno State as Commissioner for Forestry and Animal Resources.

Kyari’s resume continued to grow in 1990 when he was appointed as the secretary to the board of African International Bank Limited, a subsidiary of Bank of Credit and Commerce International. He held this position until 1995.

Later in his career, he held lofty positions as an executive director and CEO at the United Bank for Africa (UBA). He journeyed on to become a director on the board of Unilever Nigeria, as well as Exxon Mobil Nigeria.

But it wasn’t until August 2015, that the man, Abba Kyari, was properly ingrained in Nigeria’s history at the behest of President Muhammadu Buhari, the nation’s equally polarising figure. Shortly after winning the trust and confidence of 15 million Nigerians in 2015, Buhari announced that Kyari would take up the role as his Chief of Staff.

Buhari and Abba Kyari have an understanding that is beyond many political office holders.

Although rumours circulated that Kyari’s appointment as CoS was because of his relationship with Buhari as a longtime friend and former classmate, the Chief of Staff said during a cross-examination on the President’s certificate saga that they were never classmates in school nor was he ever a member of the military.

All was well in Aso Rock until 2018, when reports of a possible power tussle between Kyari and his principal’s wife, Aisha Buhari began to make news rounds. Kyari was also identified by some ministers, Head of Civil Service, and the National Security Adviser as wielding “too much power” around Buhari. None of the claims have been substantiated, apart from some subliminal outbursts by Aisha on social media about some “cabal with powers” that surrounds her husband.

In 2018, while extolling Buhari for his achievements in his first term, Kyari said “The poor beneficiaries of this budget, Mr President, they have no lobby groups, they don’t speak with the Financial Times, they have no voice, they have no face. That is why people are saying you have not done anything. But you have taken millions of people out of poverty, Mr President.”

Such was Kyari’s loyalty to the President.

The media reports and outbursts about the CoS’ unusual power in Aso Rock did nothing to affect Buhari’s relationship with Kyari, who was immediately reappointed after the former was reelected to continue as President in 2019.

The ship being rocked by Kyari’s alleged power and influence in Aso Rock appeared to have been steadied in Buhari’s second term until the Chief of Staff tested positive for Covid-19 on March 24, 2020 following a trip to Germany to broker a deal. He was immediately flown to Lagos for treatment.

Kyari, in a statement following the diagnosis, said “I have made my own care arrangements to avoid further burdening the public health system, which faces so many pressures. Like many others that will also test positive, I have not experienced high fever or other symptoms associated with this new virus and have been working from home. I hope to be back at my desk very soon.”

This hopeful expression of recovery was not to be, however, as on the midnight of Friday, April 17 2020, Kyari, born on September 23, 1952, was announced to have passed from complications from the virus. He died at the First Cardiology Consultants Hospital, Lagos on April 17 2020.

Presidency, apart from announcing Kyari’s death, is yet to expressly address the loss. President Buhari is also yet to issue any personal statement.

Aisha Buhari has joined many other prominent Nigerians in mourning the deceased, writing on her Twitter on Saturday, “I pray that Allah (SWT) will forgive his shortcomings, grant him Al-Jannatul Firdausi and give the family the fortitude and patience to bear the loss, Ameen.”

Abba Kyari’s burial rites on Saturday, April 18, 2020.
Abba Kyari was buried at the military cemetery in Abuja’s Gudu neighbourhood on Saturday, April 18 2020, according to Islamic rites. The burial rites were attended by several well wishers including family and government officials, despite calls by the NCDC for all Nigerians to strictly adhere to social distancing to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

Whilst President Buhari silently mourns the passing of a loyalist, the country waits to see who’ll become his new right-hand man for the rest of his tenure.

Adebayo Faleti was a man of many firsts: Africa’s first stage play director, Africa’s first film editor, the first librarian with the first television station in Africa (WNTV/WNBS now NTA) and first Yoruba presenter on television and radio. He was an actor, poet, journalist and film director. Over an illustrious career that saw him write classic movies like the Tunde Kelani-directed Thunderbolt: Magun and direct many stage plays, Faleti was a true pioneer and exponent of Yoruba culture. He died at the University Teaching Hospital, Ibadan in July 2017 at the age of 95.

Born on December 26, 1921 to very poor parents, Adebayo Faleti could barely complete his primary education. For his secondary education, he started the Oyo Youth Theatre Group in 1949 with some friends and they worked stages till he had enough money to pay for an education. 10 years later, in 1959, he joined the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service (WNBS) now known as NTA Ibadan – the first TV station in Africa – as a film editor and a librarian.

Over the rest of his career Faleti wrote Yoruba novels and several Yoruba poems, directed and produced several Yoruba stage plays and translated Nigeria’s national anthem from English to Yoruba. He also translated speeches by various Nigerian heads of state and political figures including Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, Obafemi Awolowo and Bola Ige.

In a 2017 opinion piece, Tunji Olaopa, executive vice-chairman of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP), said, “If according to Matthew Arnold, the British poet and critic, culture refers to ‘acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit’, then Alagba Adebayo Faleti’s existence and oeuvre did a lot in that regard. He cannot be left to the ravages of time and national forgetfulness.”
Adebayo Faleti was also the recipient of many awards including the national honour of Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR). He wrote, starred and produced heavily cultural movies like Basorun Gaa and wrote others like the classic Thunderbolt: Magun. Also, he starred in some similar movies – Tunde Kelani’s Saworoide readily comes to mind.

Alongside peers like Akinwunmi Isola, Hubert Ogunde, Duro Ladipo and Babs Fafunwa, Faleti’s contributions to the propagation of Yoruba culture and art are immense and stretch across generations. If culture is the collective template that moulds a people’s perception of identity and capabilities, then Faleti’s existence was proof of the nobility in forging cultural connections for ourselves and the world around us.

Adebayo Faleti once said of his career: “Hard work pays but it does not pay immediately. For example, as a young worker in broadcasting, I didn’t waste time that there was no official job to do. I kept on writing plays, novels and anything whether I will get them published or not. I’ve discovered that work written over ten years can fetch huge money. That is the essence of hard work.”

The word ‘Penkelemes’ will always resonate with members of the political class in Southwest Nigeria and other parts of the country. Everyone with good knowledge of Nigeria’s political history will confirm they know the word. They might even chuckle or laugh, in confirmation of the back story of how the word came to be.

The originator of ‘Penkelemes’, a Yorubanisation of the phrase, “peculiar mess” was Adegoke Adelabu, a popular Yoruba politician who, although politically and economically savvy, was poorly understood and died unaccomplished.

Despite his progressive and ideological politics and nationalism credentials which stood him out as an opposition leader in the politics of Southwest Nigeria and at the national level in the 1950s, historians have not been very kind to Adelabu. Records examined by Neusroom show a pattern of selective recognition – crediting and honouring the legacies and memories of politicians who aligned with the Obafemi Awolowo’s ruling Action Group while ignoring opposition leaders like Adelabu.

He was an intellectually gifted politician, unwavering nationalist and progressive. Adegoke Adelabu was born to Sanusi Ashinyanbi and Awujola Adelabu, an Ibadan Muslim family in 1915. According to an American Emeritus Professor of Political Science,

Richard L. Sklar, Adelabiu’s father was a relatively prosperous weaver and trader, and Adelabu was educated through the secondary school level in CMS Schools in Ibadan as well as the Government College, Ibadan where he displayed his exceptional brilliance. He won a scholarship from the United Africa Company (UAC) to study commerce at Yaba Higher College in 1936 but abandoned the scholarship six months later to work as an African produce manager for UAC.

When he left school, he worked for the next 10 years, first for the UAC, later as an inspector in the Government Cooperative Department. In 1946 he delved into private business, and engaged in produce buying, motor transport, and merchandising, in addition to journalism and later politics.

Despite the abrupt termination of his education, Adelabu read widely and had a good command of the English language that distinguished him among the politicians of the time and endeared him to the heart of many supporters who grew fond of his oratory skills, and with it, he swept them off their feet.
“In national politics he was a radical but in local politics he was too astute and ambitious not to appear as a conservative and a traditionalist. Throughout Nigeria he was admired for his militant nationalism,” American Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Richard L. Sklar wrote in his 1963 ‘Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation.’

Dr Reuben Abati described Adelabu as a man “who spoke English in a manner that fascinated and confounded his audience.”
He, along with the youth wing of the Ibadan Progressive Union and the Egbe Omo Ibile formed the Ibadan People’s Party to challenge and terminate the dominance of the old guards of the Ibadan Progressive Union.

In the 1951 election, Adelabu’s IPP won all six seats in the Western Regional Assembly and he aligned with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) which was home to Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, Nigeria’s first President.
This was his formal launch into politics and he began promoting his political ideologies, increasing his support base among the people of Ibadan who loved him because he was the idiosyncratic personification of their traditional values.

Adelabu deferred to public opinion and rarely crossed the narrow views of the petty chiefs, “later, when he became the political boss of Ibadan, he seemed to respect principle less than he loved power. In the pursuit of power he cavalierly abandoned the most elementary rules of good administration and frequently resorted to political jobbery,” Sklar writes in Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation.

He would later become a member of the Western House of Assembly, where, in his usual manner of confounding his audience with his oratory prowess, Adelabu used the phrase ‘peculiar mess’ to describe the opposition in his speech. A section of the audience who did not understand what he meant translated the phrase as “penkelemesi”. The word has become part of the Yoruba lexicon.

As a populist, Adelabu identified more with the commoners – farmers, traders, artisans, and he inspired thousands of them with his politics and oratory prowess. In the federal election of November 1954, only four candidates were required, Adelabu and three of his nominees won and he was appointed Federal Minister of Social Services, an office he held concurrently with the chairmanship of the Ibadan District Council.

In June 1955 Adelabu was removed as Ibadan District Council Chairman for accepting a remunerative post at its disposal in violation of the law. The following month he was re-elected and restored to the position. He was that popular.

In August he was convicted for contempt of the Ibadan Native Court and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, but the conviction was reversed on appeal to the Regional High Court.

In his description of Adelabu’s politics Owei Lakemfa wrote: “Adelabu stirred the masses (the Mekunu) with his pro-poor rhetoric and a populism which saw them pour to his home and take rides with him in his cars. The only other politician like him, was his ideological friend and fellow NCNC stalwart, Mallam Aminu Kano who moved the Talakawa in Kano.”

In January 1956, Adelabu was compelled to resign as Chairman of the Ibadan District Council and as a Minister following the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Administration of the Council which indicted him.

During his political career, Adelabu survived 18 ‘political trials’ in five years, and, according to Time Magazine, the only punishment he received for these trials were a few chiding words from presiding judges. This made the people believe he possessed powers that protected him from the law and his political stature grew steadily. At the Ibadan National Convention of NCNC in May 1955 he was elected first Vice-President of the party.

“Probably no politician in Nigeria has ever had organizational power in a local sphere comparable to that of Adelabu in Ibadan in 1954-1958. The nearest approximation to his rule of the Mabolaje was the control exercised by Herbert Macaulay over the Nigeria National Democratic Party of Lagos,” Sklar wrote.

In his 1952 book ‘Africa in Ebullition,’ Adelabu explained why he stood in the opposite direction when in the 1940s and 50s many politicians were cross carpeting to the Action Group which was more popular as a Yoruba ethnic party.

“I believe it is the first time in the long history of legislatures that members openly desert their parties for no differences of opinion or principle, but an insult on the maturity of our race,” Adelabu wrote. “Nigeria is dearer to my heart. She is my mother, the author of my beginning…If my child dies and I live long enough I may bear another. If my mother dies, I shall go through life as a wandering orphan.”

He defended radical nationalism as the only effective means to implement the “cosmological imperative” of self-government for Nigeria and condemned tribalism and cultural isolationism as the chief impediments to Nigerian unity. He also declared himself both a “radical socialist” and “a conscientious, convinced and incurable democrat.”

In a 2015 interview , his only surviving son Nurudeen Adelabu said his father was the pillar of the opposition at the time Awolowo was the Premier of Western Region.
“He put Awolowo and his Action Group on their toes with constructive criticisms as the opposition leader in the Western Region House of Assembly.

He is still regarded as a hugely successful politician of his time because of his hard work to ensure that governance was felt at the grass roots,” Nurudeen said.
“If there is no criticism, the government will shirk its responsibilities. My father provided the necessary ingredients needed to make the Western Region breathe at the time.”

On Thursday, March 20, 1958, Adelabu was returning to Ibadan after a trip to Lagos when his car sideswiped another and crashed into a ditch around the Sagamu axis of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, killing Adelabu and two of his relatives, only the driver, Adelabu’s Syrian friend survived in the car, while occupants of the other vehicle sustained injuries.

His sudden death threw Ibadan town in mourning. While some believed his death was an accident, thousands of his followers suspected foul play and went to town with the belief that his political opponents in Awolowo’s Action Group killed him with diabolical powers to have their way. With this narrative, they went on a rampage destroying lives and property in Ibadan.

A newspaper reported that “grief-maddened crowds” surged through the streets looting shops and destroying property Time Magazine’s report – ‘Nigeria: End of a Charmed Life,’ of Monday, April 14, 1958 also revealed that: “A hundred thousand mourners gathered for his funeral, and the rumour spread among them that their leader’s death had been caused by Ibeju witch doctors using a lethal juju so powerful and selective that it killed Adelabu but preserved the lives of the occupants of the car that had crashed with his.”

The report added: “Thousands of fanatics ranged the streets, beating up political opponents of the Ibadan People’s Party, burning their houses, setting fire to cars parked in the streets. A tribal chieftain and his family were chopped to death because they showed insufficient grief at the passing of Adelabu.”

According to Time, in 10 days, 20 casualties had been reported in the violence with many hospitalised, “when the mob ran out of political opponents, it turned its fury on government tax collectors.”

Awolowo, who described as “wicked and utterly false” the rumor that Adelabu’s death had been caused by diabolical power, ordered in federal police reinforcements, who used tear gas and gunfire to break up the raging mobs, killing two and arresting 296 of the rioters.

Before his death at 43, Adelabu lived in a large two-storied building of mud and cement in Oke-Oluokun, Kudeti area of Ibadan with his 12 wives and 15 children who were placed on scholarship by Azikwe after Adelabu’s death.

One of his grandchildren, Adebayo Adelabu, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) contested for Oyo State governor in 2019 as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (ACP) and campaigned with his father’s ‘Penkelemes’ moniker. He lost the election to the PDP’s candidate Engr. Seyi Makinde.

Long before the present crop of African models began to gain prominence and recognition on the global stage, Agbani Darego had walked the walk. The highly decorated model and beauty queen gained global acclaim after winning the Miss World in 2001. She was the first indigenous African to wear the crown.

Born in Lagos on December 22, 1982, her full name is Ibiagbanidokibubo Asenite Darego. She hails from Abonnema in Rivers State where she is the sixth of eight children. Her father, Asenite Sikibo Darego was a customs officer while her mother, Inaewo Darego owned a rice trading business that saw her travelling often. At the age of two, the family relocated to Portharcourt where Agbani grew up in the D-line area. Inaewo eventually opened a clothing boutique where she sold clothes she bought on her trips. And it was by flipping through the pages of foreign magazines in the boutique that Agbani was introduced to a semblance of what will later become her passion.

At ten, she was sent off to a boarding school at the Federal Government Girls’ Secondary School, Abuloma, to shield her from her mother who was becoming very sick with breast cancer. Her mother died two years later while she was away. She was hurt when she realized she had been sent away because of her mother’s health condition. “I wasn’t too happy at first, but it prepared me for my life now,” she told Julia Llewellyn Smith in an interview. “I learned to be on my own. It makes you independent.”

She began nursing a dream of becoming a model in her teens, but her conservative father dismissed the career plan. Being ‘too’ tall and lanky at six feet, he believed she didn’t have a chance. Despite her father’s disapproval, she started out by auditioning for the M-Net Face of Africa modelling contest. She was rejected in her first attempt.

“I went for the casting for the Mnet Face of Africa, I did not make it to the competition, I got cut off before the competition but that was where I actually ran into the pageant manager for MBGN and she convinced me to go for the pageant,” she said during her 17th Miss World anniversary in 2018.

Due to the setback, she chose to study Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Port-Harcourt as a backup plan. By then, her father was already in full support of her passion for modelling. She entered “The Face of Africa” modelling contest in 1998 and finished as the runner-up.

She deferred her admission and began pursuing modeling agencies in Lagos, and also entering pageants. Her big break came in January 2001 when she entered the “Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria” contest. She won and was automatically eligible to represent Nigeria in the Miss World pageant later that year. She was also a contestant at Miss Universe where she became the first Nigerian to place among the top 10 semi-finalists, coming in at seventh overall.

In November 2001 she beat 90 other contestants to become Miss World. Her victory was monumental as she was the first Nigerian to win the Miss World crown. But more importantly, she was the first black woman from Africa to win it as well. Three other African winners such as Penelope Coelen (1958) and Anneline Kriel (1974) from South Africa, are of European descent, while Antigone Costanda, who represented Egypt in 1954 is of Greek heritage.

Agbani was elated with her triumph as she was granted a national honour — Member of the Federal Republic, MFR and celebrated for days. Reminiscing about the honour, she told Mail Online, “There were receptions in every city. I met presidents, royalty and film stars and received standing ovations from people I’d never even dreamed of meeting.”

She dedicated her crown to her mother and chose to become a patron of a breast-cancer awareness program. She also invested some of her cash prize in buying a parcel of land back home.

Following her victory as Miss World, she was signed by the London and Paris branches of Next Model Management. She was also offered a three-year contract with L’Oréal, making her the second Black model to accomplish such a feat after Vanessa Williams.

Due to growing demands on her schedule, she dropped out of the University of Portharcourt and moved to New York to take up a contract with Next Model Management and Ford Models. She later enrolled at New York University where she studied Psychology. She graduated in 2012, the same year that her father died.

Over the span of her career, she has featured in both local and international magazines like Elle, Marie Claire, Essence, Allure, Cosmopolitan, Complete Fashion, TW Magazine among others. She has also modelled for many international brands, including Avon, Christian Dior, Sephora, Target, and Macy’s, while working with designers like Oscar de la Renta, Marc Bouwer, Tommy Hillfiger, Ralph Lauren, and Gianfranco Ferre.

She has been a judge on numerous pageant and modelling competitions including Miss World 2014, Elite Model Look Nigeria 2012 and 2014, Miss England 2002 and Mr. Scotland 2002.

In 2013, she launched her own fashion label AD by Agbani Darego, which stocks jeans, dresses, sunglasses and bags.

She got married to her longtime boyfriend, Ishaya Danjuma, the son of Retired General Theophilus Danjuma in a ceremony held in Marrakesh in April 2017. They both have a son born in September 2018.

Seven decades — that’s all the years that the former governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi needed to achieve all he’s known for today. In fact, that’s all he asked for.

“I normally tell God that if I clock 70 years of age, that would be enough. My father died two months to his 70th birthday, so I used to say even if I make it to 70, that would be okay. Now that I am 70 and enjoying life, I tell God, ‘Seventy is small’…” he said in a chat on Splash FM a few months ago.

The outspoken politician who would later be referred to as ‘Constituted Authority’ by young Nigerians was for the most part of his life, a purpose-driven and accomplished professional who has been described as an astute administrator.

Born on December 16, 1949, to Alhaji Gani Ajimobi, a tailor who rose to become a councillor in the old Western region and Alhaja Dkirat Abeje Ajimobi, a renowned trader in Ibadan, young Ajimobi started out by attending Saint Patrick’s Primary School, Oke-Padre in Ibadan. He completed his primary education at Ibadan City Council Primary School, Aperin before proceeding to Lagelu Grammar School for his secondary education.

Ajimobi would go on to study Business Administration and Finance at the State University of New York, Buffalo, New York, USA. He later enrolled for an MBA in Operations Research and Marketing with a concentration in Finance at Governors State University, University Park, Illinois. After completing his studies, he returned to Nigeria and started a career in the oil and gas industry.

He spent 26 years working through the ranks and becoming the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the National Oil and Chemical Marketing Company, a subsidiary of Shell Petroleum, Nigeria.

Before joining politics in 2002, he was regarded as one of the leading executives in the country.

However, his foray into politics seemed to give him a new identity that cast a shadow on his previous accomplishments. Beginning from 2003 when he became the Senator representing Oyo South Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Ajimobi gradually became a controversial figure. This new image was solidified during his tenure as the governor of Oyo state between 2011 and 2019. He ruffled many feathers and always said his mind without biting his lips.

It was during this period that he became infamous among young Nigerians following a protest at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH). The school had been shut down for over eight months and the students were drawn to anger which sparked a protest in 2017. While addressing the students, Ajimobi said that the government lacked funds, and the students hurled insults at him, which provoked the then governor.

“If you come here shouting at me, I am not going to talk to you. If you came here to start a fight, do go ahead. This government will not tolerate any nonsense from anybody,” he said.

“You have no respect for constituted authority. This is not the first time schools are getting shut. If your school was shut down for eight months, so what?”

“What we’re saying is that some of you should have little respect for constituted authority, no matter what. Whether I pay salaries or… this is the constituted authority for Oyo.”

The exchange earned him the nickname, ‘constituted authority’ and from then onwards, he lost favour with the most vibrant section of the society — the youths.

This was followed by other trails of drama including a mass coronation of 21 traditional rulers and sidelining the Olubadan of Ibadan in August 2017. Many regarded the move as an affront to traditional institutions. These controversies ended up making the rest of his second tenure a watershed.

By the time his tenure was over in 2019, he planned to go back to the senate and have his chosen candidate, Bayo Adelabu replace him as the Oyo governor. He lost out the bid for the senate and his candidate, who all contestants in APC stepped down for also lost the governorship race to Seyi Makinde of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Following the vote of no confidence, Ajimobi maintained a low profile until he was appointed the Deputy National Chairman (South) by the APC in March 2020. He was on the verge of being appointed the Acting National Chairman of the party in June 2020 following the sack of Adams Oshiomhole.

This was not to be as he died on June 25 at a government-approved private COVID-19 care facility – First Cardiologist and Cardiovascular Consultant Hospital, Lagos after exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19.

Tributes have been pouring in for the ex-governor who was buried yesterday, June 27, in Ibadan. Leading the way after his death was announced, the APC national leader, Bola Tinubu mourned him as an outstanding statesman and one of Nigeria’s most able politicians.

“The pain we feel at his passing is beyond what words can describe. This good and excellent man has left us but his energy, activism and commitment to Nigeria and its people shall always be with us,” he wrote in a statement.

“He died at a time his leadership and experience as an astute administrator is needed. He was a leader who served the people of Oyo State and Nigeria with passion and a total commitment to progressive ideals,” the Governor of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu shared on Twitter.

Ajimobi is survived by his wife, Florence Ajimobi who he got married to in 1980 and five children.

Commuters and residents around Onike area in Yaba, Lagos must be familiar with the 9ft bronze cast image of a man in an academic robe standing on a 4ft marble base pedestal at Onike roundabout. The man died 36 years ago but his status as an engineering genius remains indelible.

He is Professor Ayodele Oluwatumininu Awojobi with several nicknames like ‘Dead Easy’, ‘The Akoka Giant’, and ‘Macbeth’, the mechanical engineering genius who designed a bi-directional Armoured vehicle which can be moved forward and backward without turning it round and named it Autonov 1. He also single handedly converted a car from right hand to left hand and was a renowned activist.

While it is a fact that there are usually more innovations and genius works coming out of the western world, there is a slim chance that such could be seen in Nigeria and Africa, especially in the 1970s.

In the midst of depressing perception about Nigeria and its citizens recently spreading across the world, some Nigerians who have made great exploits are not getting the deserved mentions and are hardly remembered.

Professor was much more than an engineering genius, he was an explorer who didn’t limit himself to the field of engineering. He explored the world of art and as far back as over four decades ago his excellence had made a mockery of the popular belief that science students and experts will get drowned in the world of arts if they dip their feet in their field.

He shattered glass ceilings and blazed the trail in engineering and had impeccable credentials of excellence beyond the field of engineering.

Born March 12, 1937 in Oshodi-Isolo local government area of Lagos. His father, who hailed from Ikorodu, was a stationmaster with the Nigerian Railway Corporation while his mother was a trader.

After his primary education at St. Peter’s Faji Primary School, Ajele, Lagos, like many other great men of his time, the legendary CMS Grammar School was the place to be for his secondary education. It was at CMS Grammar School that Awojobi started displaying that he was one of the rising stars to watch out for in Nigeria and Africa.

Describing how Awojobi dazed all with his brilliance at CMS Grammar School, a former governor of Lagos, Babatunde Fashola, in 2009 said: “Professor Awojobi was a true genius. It is on record that in his final year in secondary school in 1955, he played the role of Macbeth in one of the books of Williams Shakespeare. He memorized the whole textbook and was familiar with all the lines that during rehearsals he assisted other actors with their lines”.

After proving his ingenuity to colleagues and staff at CMS Grammar School, Awojobi worked briefly at the Federal Government Secretariat, Broad Street, in Lagos before he left for the Nigeria College of Arts, Science and Technology Ibadan and a similar school in Zaria.Again, he was outstanding and won a federal government scholarship to study at postgraduate at the Imperial College of Science and Technology of the University of London where he bagged a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering.

Such a brilliant man would no doubt have opportunities falling at his feet while he was in London. Opportunities that would have earned him more global recognition, but he chose to return home.

When he returned to Nigeria in 1966, Awojobi joined the University of Lagos as lecturer grade one in the department of mechanical engineering. His career experienced a meteoric rise – by 1971 he was already an Associate Professor, three years later he became a Professor and Head of Department (HOD) of Mechanical Engineering in 1974 at the age of 37, setting a new record as the youngest UNILAG lecturer to become a professor.

In the 1970s he made a novel design in the field of engineering. He redesigned a Leyland Jeep, a regular motor vehicle engine which he named ‘Autonov 1’ to be able to run in both the forward and backward directions, utilising all four pre-existing gears in whichever direction. A second steering wheel was introduced at the back, with a central revolving chair to effect the driver’s switch-over position.

The purpose of designing the Autonov 1 was to provide a way out of a difficult situation. He was said to have imagined that his invention would be useful in a situation when a vehicle drives forward into a cul-de-sac and needs to make a fast, backward retreat especially in cases of emergency evacuation procedures or war-time situations. Sadly, a patent for the invention was never obtained before his death.

He played active roles in Nigeria’s political development as a political activist, advocate and social reformer. He formed a political movement called the National Association for the Survival of the 1979 Constitution.

Just like his days at CMS Grammar School, as a University lecturer, Awojobi proved again that he is a master of all and without formal education and training as a lawyer, the erudite professor appeared in court to personally defend his several human rights related lawsuits.

Shaibu Hussein who described Awojobi as a ‘one man constitutional vigilante’ wrote “The distinguished professor was reputed to have appeared in the law court more times than some lawyers do in their lifetime.”

Hussein added: “The Akoka giant distinguished himself as a brilliant scholar, a great scientist, an intellectual and a diligent and inspiring teacher whose widely acclaimed brilliance illuminated many minds and certainly left an indelible mark on many who are today eminent scholars and practicing engineers.”

Awojobi had plans to dip his feet into the murky waters of politics, at least to prove wrong the notion that criticism is easy but critics always fail when given the opportunity to serve, but death came knocking too early.

In an interview on NTA, in 1981, Awojobi had said: “At the age of 65, I will have built the infrastructure. There would be very few illiterates in Nigeria when I mount the soapbox. Then, I will go into proper politics.” He couldn’t achieve the dream, he died on September 22, 1984 at 47.

He was a man of many names – The Giant of Akoka, Macbeth and Professor Dead Easy. His activism at UNILAG earned him the moniker – ‘The Giant of Akoka’, while he was called “Professor Dead Easy” because he was said to have simplified difficult mathematical problems as a lecturer. His oldest alias was earned in 1955 when he memorised the book Macbeth for a stage play during his days at CMS Grammar School.

Awojobi also moderated a quiz show – ‘Mastermind’, on national television in the 1970s where weekly contestants take turns in isolation to provide answers to questions.

Prof Akin Oyebode speaking at a memorial lecture for Awojobi in 2008 described him as a full man and half, that special breed of humans who appear only once in a century.

“Death could only take away great men but it will not take away their good works,” Oyebode, a professor of law said.

Though Awojobi’s legacy and genius status has not gotten the deserved recognition, his novel contribution to engineering deserves commendation and honour.

A former Minister of Health, Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, also said at the memorial lecture in 2008 that it took so long to recognise the works of Awojobi mainly because he was a Nigerian.

“Nigeria is a giant killer. When one dies, he dies with his dream and ideals, then he is buried and forgotten, unlike in other parts of the world where a man’s worth is appreciated long after his earthly journey,” Adelusi-Adeluyi lamented.

Respite came for the late engineering genius in 2009, when ex-governor Babatunde Fashola erected a 9ft bronze cast of Awojobi’s image on a 4ft marble base pedestal at Onike roundabout. The choice of Onike, according to the state government, is to ensure that the monument is situated around UNILAG and a deliberate attempt to encourage all students passing through the route to aspire to greater heights.

The Prof Ayodele Awojobi Design Competition (PAADC) has also been initiated in 2017 by UNILAG Engineering Society to spark ingenuity and creativity among undergraduates across the country.

Alimotu Pelewura, you may not have heard about her, but the British colonial officials in Nigeria during her time cannot forget her in a hurry, if any of them is still alive.

This is the story of a woman whose activism and rare courage set a new standard for Lagos market women and gave them another level of confidence and a voice in the political discourse of the state.

Born 1865 into a polygamous Awori family in Lagos, Alimotu was the elder of the two children of her mother. A fish seller with no record of formal education, Alimotu took after her mother who was also a fish trader. Just like the prayer of every parent, she became more successful in the trade and was more influential than her tutor and mother.

She founded the Lagos Market Women’s Association in the mid 1920s and served as the president until her death in 1951. Alimotu Pelewura used the LMWA platform to rally market women to challenge some of the policies of the British colonial government – the relocation of Ereko market and direct taxation of women.

She was arrested and detained in the mid 1930s following a protest she led against the relocation of the Ereko market to Oluwole in Lagos Island. Pelewura and some Ereko market women attempted to physically block any relocation action by authorities and this led to her detention. The market women in Lagos rallied in her support and she and other women detained by the authorities were released.

She also led a protest against the price control plan popularly known as the Pullen scheme named after its director, Captain A.P. Pullen, a British officer. In solidarity with the ongoing strike in 1945, Pelewura instructed market women to reduce the price of market goods to support the striking workers.

Pelewura was a strong political ally of Herbert Macaulay. She was an executive member of the Nigerian Union of Young Democrats and worked with Nigerian National Democratic Party. Pelewura was also a member of the Nigerian Women’s Party founded by Oyinkan Abayomi.

She was appointed as the women’s representative on Oba’s ‘Ilu Council’, an advisory group set up to advise the Oba of Lagos. In 1947 she was conferred with the Erelu title by the Oba of Lagos.

The popular Pelewura market in Lagos Island is named after the fish seller who wrote her name in gold through her rare courage.

Pelewura was succeeded as the leader of the market women by one of her protege, the late Alhaja Abibatu Mogaji who also wielded political and commercial influence during her time. Mogaji’s son, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, was the governor of Lagos State for eight years and a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The joy of every accomplished father is to have his children take up after him, but Seyi Tinubu, the CEO and Cofounder of Loatsad Promomedia has a different way of making his father proud. Born on 13th October 1985, to Bunmi Oshonaike and the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Seyi seems to be steering clear of politics.

By the sheer circumstance of his birth, Seyi had the means to attend some of the best schools at home and abroad. He began his education at St. Saviour’s School Lagos before moving over to the UK where he studied at the Holmewood School, London, and Milton Abbey, Dorset, UK.

He received an LLB from the University of Buckingham, United Kingdom, in 2011, and was called to the bar in 2013. To further cement his legal career, he returned to his alma mater and acquired Masters in Law, (LLM). But once he was through with his legal education, Seyi decided not to practice as a lawyer, instead, he chose the path of entrepreneurship as a media practitioner.

In an interview with The Business Year, he stated that although he studied Law in university, he wanted to break away from the norm and do something that will be innovative and improve Nigeria as a whole. He figured out that the best way to achieve this was by helping businesses get ultimate exposure through outdoor and digital advertising.

This idea led him to co-found an outdoor advertising company, Loatsad Promomedia, which engages in outdoor and digital advertising services. It wasn’t long before the company was endorsed to practice in Lagos with the mandate of the Lagos State Advertising Agency (LASAA). In 2019, Loatsad acquired E-motion Advertising, which was founded by Nigerian ace entrepreneur, Sim Shagaya. The acquisition and consolidation of the two advertising companies only point to the fact that Seyi is planning to be around for the long run.

Talking about what keeps him going on the path to greatness, he once wrote on his LinkedIn page: “I always go over the ideas I have, always had and those I gathered over the years; and I recollect what it is that has led me to where I am today. Some of them have either materialized and some may have not, but I never let this discourage me”

Despite having easy access to the corridors of power, Seyi is calculative and focused on building a life of his own. He got married in August 2016 to his Lebanese-Nigerian heartthrob, Layal Holm at a 19th-century Villa Erba in Lake Como, Italy. Layal is also an entrepreneur who founded Tots Toys, a children’s educational toyshop. Together they founded the Noella Foundation which aims at driving change through entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainable ideas. The couple welcomed their first daughter, Amira in 2017, and are expecting their second child.

In November 2019, Seyi was lauded as a dutiful son after he unveiled his biological mother, Bunmi Oshonaike by treating her to a resounding 60th birthday celebration. It was gathered that Seyi is the love child of Bunmi, an A-list air hostess of her day and Bola Tinubu.

His choice of not joining the rest of the family in partisan politics has raised a lot of questions about where this leaves his father’s legacy. Tinubu’s family is close to what you will call the Nigerian version of the Clintons or Bush’s of America. At least on the state level.

Having ruled Lagos for eight years and is a key political player on the national level, Tinubu has been seen as a godfather to many politicians in Lagos and around the country. It was for this reason that the Emir of Borgu, Haliru Dantoro gave him the unusual title; ‘Jagaban’, which loosely means the leader of warriors. His wife, Oluremi Tinubu has gone from being a woman leader in Lagos to becoming a Senator at the National Assembly for eight years.

As Tinubu climbed to the zenith of politics in Nigeria, it was expected that one of the next-generation of Tinubu men would rise to continue his legacy. But sadly, in October 2017, Tinubu lost his first son, Babajide Tinubu to a sudden heart attack in London. The political stalwart seemed to have been robbed of a possible heir, but there was hope. He still had another son that could step into his shoes — Seyi Tinubu.

However, Seyi has demonstrated over time that politics might not be in his purview. Early last year, rumours propelled by a group that identifies itself as the Free Lagos Movement, alleged that Tinubu was preparing Seyi as the next governor of Lagos in 2023. But the rumour didn’t hold for long as he was visibly detached from the political circle and instead remained well invested in building his media business.

But there are no guarantees that Seyi Tinubu will not delve into politics later on. His father, Tinubu did not join politics until his early 40s. This was after an illustrious career of working for the likes of Arthur Andersen, Deloitte and rising to become an executive at Mobil Oil Nigeria.

Perhaps Seyi will never follow the political legacy of his father, but if he expands his horizon wide enough, he’ll most likely build another angle to his father’s influence using a totally unexpected industry, OOH — seeing that Tinubu already has big plays in broadcast media through TVC and print media through The Nation newspaper.

For more than 30 years, Adebayo Odusami, the bulky DJ, promoter, events and talent manager, who could best be described as the man who had the formula of the Nigerian entertainment industry in the palm of his hands, was instrumental to discovering and nurturing several talents who became world class music artistes.

For many years Howie was the go-to talent scout; working with labels and multinational brands to discover, refine, and promote many crude talents from all over the country.

He was a DJ and promising promoter, but he ended up a record label owner who used every resource in his reach to empower young talents at a time when getting traditional record deals and distraction was near impossible.

Bayo Odusami was born in April 1967. Although he identified more as a Lagos boy all his life, his parents were from Ijebu in Ogun State.

The history of many Nigerian artistes is incomplete without the mention of the role Howie T played in their careers. A ”passion for good music and promotion of talent,” led him into floating a record label.

The CEO of Storm 360, Obi Asika, says Odusami, who died on Friday August 8, 2020, after a long battle with stroke according to family sources, was foundational to the story and growth of Nigerian pop culture.

“Howie was a gentle giant with a booming laugh and an eye for talent, he discovered PSquare in an award show and called me incessantly and several others to tell us about these superstars he found at a talent show,” Asika wrote.

The roll call of artists who were beneficiaries of Howie’s skills and experience in both the business and the art of showbiz is endless. He was the first to manage Paul and Peter Okoye under the group name P-Square from the moment the singing duo won the Benson and Hedges Talent Hunt in 2001. And he held them by the hands into stardom.

P-Square lived in his Ilupeju home, and he ended up establishing a record label Timbuktu music, when no label would sign them. “There are certain people in life that your story or journey is incomplete without, Howie T is one of such people,” Peter Okoye of the P-Square said in an Instagram post.

In a career spanning over three decades, Howie T promoted, discovered or managed dozens of other music artistes like Akon, Shank, Sound Sultan, Faze of the defunct Plantashun Boiz, Skuki (the music duo composed of two brothers), Black Solo, Skales, Aramide, Elizabeth Deega, and many more.

When he floated a new record label – Baseline Music in 2014, it was home to Seun Oni aka Saeon, Producer – Mr. Chido, Aramide and Skales. Baseline was a partnership with billionaire businessman Segun Adebutu (MD of Petrolex Oil and Gas and son of Kessington Adebutu, popularly called Baba Ijebu) and Howie’s long term partner Dipo Abdul with whom he also owned an experiential marketing agency KISS events.

“My Story has always been around up and coming and I think that’s my calling. It’s a great source of fulfillment for me,” he said in an interview in 2007.

Beyond scouting and nurturing talents, Howie also became the go-to guy for concerts and tours. From being the first music promoter to take a Hip Hop group to Togo on Tour in 1993, he took P-Square on a tour of different parts of the world during the time he managed the duo.

If there is one Nigerian music brand that benefited immensely from Howie’s endowment as an entertainment empresario, it definitely was P-Square He played a significant role in their music success from talent hunt participant to world class talents.

From managing the Benson and Hedges talent hunt where they emerged winners in 2001, Howie’s Timbuktu Music released their debut album ‘Last Nite’ in 2002 after their endless search for a record label yielded no result.

“Howie was extremely hard working and wanted the absolute best for the twins,” said the founder of Africa Movie Academy Awards, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, who was on the management team of Timbuktu Records.

Anyiam-Osigwe told Neusroom that the relationship between Howie and P-Square was beyond record label boss and artiste level, he related with them like members of his family. Bearing testament to Anyiam-Osigwe’s words, Sound Sultan, who was also under the management of Howie T, said the late showbiz icon was a workaholic, always on the move, restless and a music enthusiast.

“He contributed a lot to the level at which show organising is done and transparency in talent hunt organisation, believe me. He opened up everything, every resource in his capacity to the artistes, he was a fan of the artistes,” Sultan told Neusroom.

Howie chose his career path quite early. As a teenager, entertainment was his calling. But success didn’t come easy. His first show was a flop, he told Nigerian Entertainment Today founder Ayeni Adekunle a few days to his 40th birthday in April 2007. But he grew into a formidable events promoter and manager with commanding leadership in running the best shows in the country.

“It was in 1985 when I was just 18. I had only seven people in attendance,” Howie recounted with nostalgia. “DJ Jimmy JATT was the DJ. But I kept going on because of the love of entertainment. I’m happy it paid off eventually.”

It definitely paid off looking at the list of stars he held by the hand to climb the ladder. Howie was known in the late 1980s and 90s, as one of the top DJs who rocked the top night clubs in Lagos. He was a full time DJ at Enter the Dragon (Western House, Lagos), Sunrise Nite Club, Victoria Island, Lagos; and Club Towers, V.I, Lagos. He later managed Pyramid Nite Club partly owned by Nollywood actress Ibinabo Fiberesima.

He was known, too, in the early 2000s, as the bulky talent manager who successfully managed Paul and Peter Okoye without leaving room for the kind of rancour that later broke the duo apart. He also managed several artistes, co-founded KISS Events with partner Dipo Abdul in 2005, and a record label – Baseline Music in 2014.

Many who could not find any striking connection between his name and his moniker, have been trying to unravel the mystery behind how Adebayo Odusami became known as Howie T. Dipo Abdul his long term friend and business partner told Neusroom that Bayo “gave himself the name in his earlier days as a young man!”

At the early days of his showbiz career he had adopted Howard Thompson as his nickname and later shortened it to Howie T. Howard Thompson was an American movie reporter and film critic for The New York Times for more than four decades. Like Howie, Thompson also suffered a stroke in 1996 before dying of pneumonia in March 2002, aged 82.

Since lifting P-Square, Sound Sultan and other A-list artistes like to stardom in the early 2000s, Howie T never looked back and upward his showbiz career went until a stroke slowed him down four years ago.

“In 1988 I had the first ever talent hunt show called Rap Attack and on my Panel was Lanre Ijaola, Edi Lawani, and some guys from Classique Magazine. Then in 1991 I was the DJ for the Children of Africa Concert in Lagos,” Howie said in a rare 2007 interview.

“In 1992 myself, Jimmy JATT and GMG went to Togo for the Africa DJ Championships. Then 1993 I was the first promoter to take a Hip Hop Group to Togo on Tour and it was a huge success. The group was called Solid Grove, the members were Ernest Asuzu and two other guys called Tokunbo, and Micheal,” he added.

The CEO of Black House Media (BHM), Ayeni Adekunle and Abdul who were his friends also confirmed that Howie was never afraid of hard work! Ayeni said Howie gave entertainment his best as a DJ and manager of artistes, events and clubs.

“His hard work, passion and dedication paid off and he found favour with people in business and also in his private life,” he added.

Abdul said: Howie was “always ready to do whatever was necessary to achieve the desired result! He will do what he believed to be right for his event or artiste and he was never afraid to say no to clients or artistes.”

As a DJ Howie T was a crowd puller. As an event manager and concert promoter he had a knack for organising the best shows and as a talent scout, he had the eagle eye for spotting the best.

“Howie was a gentle giant with a booming laugh and an eye for talent, he discovered PSquare in an award show and called me incessantly and several others to tell us about these superstars he found at a talent show,” Asika who said Howie was his friend for more than 30 years said after his passing last week.

“He was right of course. When it came to his ear and eye he was almost always right.”

Howie, who is survived by his wife Motunrayo and their two children, got married at 36, on April 26, 2003.

Tributes:
Since his death on Friday August 7, 2020 friends, associates, and artistes have continued to share fond memories of Howie T and also pay tributes to him. Some of them also spoke to Neusroom correspondent:

The CEO of Black House Media (BHM), Ayeni Adekunle, said Howie will forever be remembered, not only by the many talents whose careers he helped build and whom he promoted to stardom, but also by many who worked with him in showbiz.

“Howie’s remarkable contributions to the development of showbiz in Nigeria from the late 80s into the early 2000s helped shape the careers of many talents who went on to become the best music acts to come out of Nigeria,” Ayeni, who says Howie’s company was an early BHM client, said.

Anyiam-Osigwe, who said Howie T was like a family member to her, described him as a man with a big heart, always trying to be happy and jovial.

She told Neusroom that when Howie discovered P-Square, “we collaborated to launch Timbuktu records so that he could push the superstars, Howie was extremely hard working and wanted the absolute best for the twins.”

He liked anything and everything entertainment and his passion for the growth of his artistes was unmatched.

Reflecting on how he used his influence as a former DJ to push the works of his artistes, Anyiam-Osigwe said: “Howie T had an immense level of goodwill and put it to use for the boys.”

“I can remember when we wanted to launch the first album the work he put on, the pressures for the right PR machinery for the talents and then Greg (Fiberesima) shot the video for ‘senorita’ using our film studio PMO Global,” she recalled.

For Dipo Abdul, Howie’s business partner, his energy and appetite for life are his most memorable attributes about Howie.

“Bayo was very passionate about entertainment and entertainers! He was quite pioneering, always looking for how to make things bigger and better!” Abdul told Neusroom.

He also described Howie as an explorer who was always willing to try new things and new ways of doing things, very passionate and only concerned about the big picture! He brought this passion to everything he did as a record label boss, talent manager, events manager, DJ and promoter.

Placing Howie side by side with today’s show promoters and talent managers, Abdul said “Howie was never afraid of hard work! Always ready to do whatever was necessary to achieve the desired result! He will do what he believed to be right for his event or artiste.”

Sound Sultan who also attested to this said Howie “contributed a lot to the level at which show organising is done and transparency in talent hunt organisation.

Sultan, who was one of Howie’s groomsmen when he got married in 2003, described April 26, 2003 when Howie walked down the aisle at 36, as his most memorable moment of him.

“I was very happy for him,” he reminisced. “He was a great man, always willing to share his knowledge with anyone.”

“Howie opened up everything every resource in his capacity to the artistes and he was a fan of the artistes.”

his latest cases of violence against women and unprosecuted killings across the country brings back the ugly memory of the gruesome murder of Captain Hadiza Lantana Oboh in 1998. 22 years after her murder, none of her killers have been prosecuted.

Late Oboh was the first and only female pilot of the Nigerian Airways’ (now defunct) in its over four decades of operation before it was grounded in 2003.

She was a young and promising pilot who was murdered in the most inhumane manner and hidden in a septic tank by those she hired as domestic staff to protect her home and assist her. Her death revalidates the popular Yoruba adage that says “Bi ikú ilé ò pani, t’òde ò lè pani”, which means it will be impossible for death to strike if it has no insider conspirator to aid its mission.

She was a victim of greed, jealousy and even after her unfortunate death, the society, which owed her just one debt of ensuring she gets justice, failed her. Her killers, though arrested, jumped bail and were never seen up till now, 22 years after the heinous crime.

Oboh’s story and other past events have shown that Nigerians who are enraged over the increasing cases of rape and killings of young women without justice have a good reason to be angry. The Nigerian justice system has a way of silencing the victim while the evil ones walk freely.

While many accounts said she was murdered on February 8, 1988, other platforms claimed she was murdered on January 10, 1998 after returning from one of her trips.

Before her death, Oboh was reputed to have checked out as a Flight Officer (F/O) aboard a Boeing 737 of the Nigeria Airways in 1984 and by 1989, she was already a well-established pilot rsing to become Senior Flight Officer and was a shining light in the industry throughout the 1990s.

Although information about her private life are scanty, Oboh was born in 1959 and was a flourishing pilot. She was single and lived alone with her domestic staff at her residence in Bourdillon, Ikoyi, Lagos. Her domestic staff identified simply as Abdullahi who was the chief plotter of her death could be said to be the custodian of the house due to the nature of Oboh’s job as a regular traveller. Abdullahi had initially been fired but was re-employed to take over from Peter Eche (hire after him) who took permission to travel to his village in Makurdi, Benue State. Like Abdullahi, Peter also lived in the ‘boys’ quarters’ apartment designated for domestic staff.

The Murder:

On her arrival from one of her trips on the day she was killed, Oboh was said to be in the kitchen preparing food when tragedy struck. Just like many victims of rape whose attackers are mostly close relatives, the men Oboh entrusted her life with – Abdullahi the security guard, Itoro Akpan her driver, and Peter conspired to kill her and loot her belongings.

Abdullahi was said to have pounced on her with a rope which he used to strangle her before slitting her throat. Thereafter, they dumped her corpse in the septic tank which they immediately covered.

The Looting and arrest:

After killing Oboh, the three men started living in opulence, looting and selling her belongings, they vacated the ‘boys’ quarters’ and started living in her apartment. Every visitor who checked on Oboh was turned back at the gate with one message “madam is not around’. It was not the era of social media and mobile phones, only few people had cellular that time, so they could not contact Oboh to know her whereabouts, they had assumed she had embarked on her usual trips outside the country as a pilot.

A police officer who observed some unusual movement in the house launched an investigation into the activities of the domestic staff. Peter, Itoro, and one Denise Osama (who received the loots) were arrested except Abdullahi who initially vanished but was later arrested after a manhunt. The men were being investigated for theft and illegal removal of property before police discovered that they had killed Oboh and dumped her remains in a septic tank.

While the four suspects were standing trial for conspiracy, armed robbery and murder before a Chief Magistrates’ Court in Lagos, a High Court was said to have ordered the release of two suspects on bail with two guarantors.

Following widespread outrage, like we are witnessing now, the Ministry of Justice advised that the suspect be rearrainged for murder, armed robbery and conspiracy. Attempts to re-arrest the suspects who had been granted bail was futile, they absconded, their guarantors were also said to have submitted pseudo names and fictitious addresses to the court to secure their bail.

The case went under the drain without any trace of the suspects. 22 years after, the judicial system is yet to honour the memory of the dead with the only debt it owed her – justice. As it was in 1998, so it is now, many victims of extrajudicial killings, murder and other criminal acts are waiting endlessly for justice while the judicial system appear to be toothless. This is why there have been increasing calls on the government to take actions that will rekindle the hope of the masses in the judiciary as the hope of the masses where speedy justice is assured.

Whenever the story of the first secondary school in Nigeria – Christian Missionary Society (CMS) Grammar School, Bariga, in Lagos is told, either in abridged or full version, it will remain a half-truth without the mention of Captain Labulo Davies, a Merchant Sailor and in-law of the Queen of England – Queen Victoria, who gave a donation that brought the dream of the founder to reality.

The activities of European missionaries to Nigeria in the 18th and 19th Century may have been tainted by the Atlantic slave trade, nevertheless, the impact of their activities which led to the establishment of schools in hinterlands and urban centres across Nigeria left a mark that can never be erased.

The Anglican Church Missionary Society, the Wesleyan Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Baptist Convention and the Catholic Society of African Mission believed that if missionary activities would succeed in Africa, a foundation for education must first be laid, thus they established schools and hospitals with the primary objective of converting the natives to Christianity through education and the strategy yielded great result.

“The schools taught young Nigerians to aspire to the virtues of white Christian civilization,” James Coleman wrote in his book ‘Nigerian background to nationalism’.

One of the many results of the missionaries activities in Nigeria is CMS Grammar School, Lagos, founded on June 6, 1859 by Thomas Babington Macaulay, an Anglian Priest and father of Nigerian nationalist Herbert Macaulay.

While the name of Macaulay appears boldly wherever the history of CMS Grammar School is written, the unsung titan who was also instrumental to the actualisation of the establishment of the school was Captain J.P.L Davies who had had previous experience as a teacher in Sierra Leone before returning to Lagos.

From being a school teacher with the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Sierra Leone to becoming one of only two Africans trained as officers in the British Navy, Davies went on to become a successful businessman. He acquired his own ships to trade along the West African coast and eventually became a pioneer in cocoa cultivation, contributing to the economic success of the Western region of early Nigeria.

Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies was born on August 13, 1828 to liberated African slaves of Yoruba extraction (Abeokuta and Ogbomosho) who eventually settled in the village of Bathurst, near Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. After his secondary education, he became a teacher at CMS Grammar School in Freetown, that experience must have enriched him with the importance of education and prompted him to support Macaulay’s dream with the seed funding to start the first secondary school in Nigeria.

Many writers have described Labulo as an exceptionally brilliant young man whose brilliance caught the attention of the colonial abolitionists who wanted to train indigenous Africans to man essential services for the emancipated continent. In 1849, after the British Admiralty accepted this proposal, they took a set of African boys for training on ships belonging to the British Preventive Squadron. The plan was to turn them into captains of merchant ships, after a rigorous selection exercise, Davies and another boy were selected and placed as cadets under Commander Robert Coote on the HMA Volcano, a formidable war sloop. That marked the genesis of his naval career.

Within three years, Davies rose from cadet to midshipman and eventually to lieutenant before retiring from the Navy in 1852 and became a merchant vessel captain, travelling along the West African coast. In 1856, he eventually settled in Lagos, where he became known as Capt. J.P.L. Davies.

On Thursday August 14, 1862, at St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton, Sussex in England, Davies got married to his wife, Sarah Forbes, who was 18 years old then and 13 years younger than Davies. Historians likened the ceremony to a royal wedding because it directly involved Queen Victoria who gave approval for the union as the foster mother of the bride (a daughter of an African slave).

“For several days before the wedding, the whole of Brighton was agog with the news of the grand marriage of an African couple rumoured to be of royal pedigree,” Prof Adeyemo Elebute, an alumnus of CMS Grammar School, wrote in his book “The life of James Pinson Labulo Davies: A colossus of Victorian Lagos.

The story of Sarah Forbes is similar to Davies. She was described as an intelligent slave girl captured by the Dahomeans’ army during the invasion and sacking of her Oke Oda/Ilobi homestead was sacked and her parents were killed in 1848 when she was about five years old. She was handed over as a gift to the visiting Commander Forbes by King Gezo of Dahomey (now Benin Republic) on July 5, 1850.

Ina as she was then known, a corruption of the Yoruba name Aina, eventually made it to England with her adoptive father who renamed her Sarah Bonetta Forbes after his ship and his own surname. Queen Victoria eventually adopted Ina and sent her to study at Cheltenham, a famous private boarding school for girls. While in England, Davies and Sarah had their first child, Victoria (1863) named after Queen Victoria. Upon their return to Lagos, they had Arthur (1871) and Stella (1873) and Sarah died of Tuberculosis on August 15, 1880.

Davies is also credited as the pioneer of cocoa farming in West Africa, and he established a prosperous cocoa farm in Ijon, Western Lagos. In April 1859 when Babington Macaulay was to establish CMS Grammar School, as a former teacher himself, Davies provided Macaulay with £50 seed funding to buy books and equipment needed for the school. With the seed funding, Macaulay opened C.M.S. Grammar School on June 6, 1859. In 1867, Davies also made another donation of £100 toward a CMS Grammar School Building Fund.

On August 29, 1906, Capt. Davies died at his Lagos home, and was buried the next day at Ajele Cemetery, near Campos, Lagos Island.

CMS Grammar School which he funded its establishment has produced several prominent Nigerians from the 19th Century to the present age, some of them include – Herbert Macaulay (son to the founder); the military governor of the Eastern Region, Odumegwu Ojukwu (who later transferred to Kings College); Otunba TOS Benson, Former Interim President Ernest Shonekan, one of the fathers of accounting in Nigeria, Akintola Williams and brother Frederick Rotimi Alade (FRA) Williams; Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, father of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti; Nigerian television personality, Modupe Afolabi Jemi-Alade popularly known as Art Alade and his singer son Dare Art-Alade and Abolore Akande aka 9ice, among many others.

You must have heard the evergreen song ‘Olorun mi, iwo ni masin titi aiye mi, amin o’. But it’s likely you’re unfamiliar with the singer: Late Madam Comfort Omoge.
Omoge was a rare performing musician, her music was unique and natural. She deployed native instruments and never used any western musical instrument to produce or perform her music. All instruments used for her songs were local and indigenous as well as identifying with her roots, the cultural Asiko music of the Ikale people.Comfort Omoge was born in 1919 and unknown to many, she was married to the king of her hometown while she was doing music. She was a native of Igbodigo, a small community along the Okitipupa-Ilaje highway in Okitipupa local government area, in the southern part of Ondo state.She developed interest in music as a teenager and the motivation she needed to take the bold step to finally become a singer came from her husband Oba Williams Omoge, the traditional ruler of Igbodigo.Oba Omoge advised his wife to take music as a career because he always heard her sing from her sleep. Following the monarch’s advice, she set up the Aboba- Asiko band, modelled after Asiko cultural music, a form of folklore villagers used to entertain themselves after returning from farms and markets in the evening.
Asiko is a type of traditional music peculiar to Ikale people. Ikale is a sub-ethnic group who share some cultural history with the Benin people of Edo State. Ikale is one of the notable dialects of the Yoruba race spoken in towns in old Ikale local government of Ondo State, now divided into Irele and Okitipupa local government areas, as well as other communities in the southern part of the sunshine state.Before Asiko, Biripo, another type of traditional music, was the dominant music genre in Ikaleland but the contemporary generation found it cumbersome and difficult to sing and gyrate. Comfort Omoge made Asiko more acceptable and popular giving the genre more advantage over the older Biripo.
In 1976, Comfort Omoge released her first album, ‘Orogen rogen’ and would later record a total of 60 albums throughout her career, singing about politics, the economy, current affairs. She also infused Christian songs in her traditional Asiko music which inspired her most popular song ‘Olorun mi, Iwo ni ma sin’ (a song restating commitment to the service of God).The federal government nominated her to represent Nigeria at the Black Cultural Festival scheduled for the USA in April 1984, but she could not embark on the trip due to the change of government in December 1983.

When the news of her ‘demise’ first went viral early in 1999, she wasted no time in denouncing it and she did that in a spectacular way. She released a song ‘Me T’iku’ (I am not dead yet), which would later become the last from her.

The song released in July 1999 was a statement that quickly doused her death rumour. She died on August 28, 1999, a month after releasing the song where she waxed philosophical about some of the mysteries of life, especially death.
Comfort Omoge did not only represent royalty because she was a Queen, royalty also flows in her style of music which earned her the title – Queen of Asiko. She promoted Africanism and made folk music attractive for young and old. She recorded many firsts with her music career and genre of music. She became the first woman in Ikaleland to take music as a profession when she released her album in 1976. She was also the first known Queen in Nigeria to take music as a career.

Comfort Omoge’s death in 1999 eclipsed the further growth of Asiko music. Two decades after her death, her songs remain evergreen and are still being played at parties and events in Ikaleland. Those who have made attempts to succeed her are finding it hard to fill the vacuum she left behind in Asiko music.

The Comfort Omoge Memorial Band which is trying to carry on with her legacy is led by her daughter Mrs Idowu Fafoluyi (nee Omoge), but not much has been heard from the group in recent times after its ‘Alatunse’ album released some years ago.
Ondo State is no doubt blessed with several music stars, but Comfort Omoge remains the best singer Ikale has ever produced. Just as Ondo Central has King Sunny Ade from Ondo town, Ondo north had Orlando Owoh from Owo local government, Comfort Omoge and another legendary highlife singer late Prince Crossdale Juba also from Okitipupa were the stars from the southern part of Ondo state.

When you hear about Nigerian police officers what comes to mind is not always palatable. But there are many police officers who are doing the Force and the nation proud. One of them is Chioma Ajunwa.

Chioma Ajunwa may be famous as the first Nigerian female Olympic gold medalist, but there is more about her than her exploits at the Olympics.

The story of her rise to grace will never be complete without mentioning the hard life she went through like the experience of many other Nigerians as aptly described in Blackface’s hit track ‘Hard Life’.

Losing her father at a very young age didn’t help as the burden of catering for nine children was left to her mother. She was the last of the children and they had to struggle so hard to make meaning out of life. It wasn’t a rosy journey for the Ajunwas.

Before her exploits in athletics, Chioma also tried her hands on soccer and was part of The Falcons team that competed at the 1991 World Cup. Before then she had enrolled as a motor mechanic apprentice because her mother couldn’t raise funds to pay her school fees when she was offered admission in a university at 18. Again, she couldn’t go further because her mom was against the decision probably because the trade was seen as a ‘man’s job’.

She was forced to drink from a sour juice of setbacks in 1992 when she was banned for four years after failing a drug test.

Just like the popular saying – “the downfall of a man is not the end of his life”, after a series of setbacks and coming back from her four-year-ban, Chioma went on to become the first African woman and Nigerian to win Olympic gold medal in a track and field event after her 7.12m jump at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

She remains the only Nigerian who has won an individual Olympic gold medal in the country’s 68 years of participating in the competition.

She also competed and won a bronze medal in the 1990 Commonwealth Games, as well as the African Championships in 1989 and the All African Games in 1991 where she clinched gold medals in long jump.

The Omo-born athlete was conferred a national honour as a Member of the Order of Niger (MON) by former Head of State Sani Abacha and in 2010 she was among the 50 personalities honoured with the Golden Jubilee Independence Award by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

In the past two decades, the Nigerian government has battled the resurgence of a pocket of secessionists advocating for the break away of Eastern part of Nigeria. Ralph Uwazuruke of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) led the advocacy in the early 2000s and recently the status of Nnamdi Kanu of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as the new poster boy of Biafra movement has been simmering.

What is distinct about Kanu and Uwazuruike is their ‘eye for an eye’ approach to achieve their aim, and the cult-like followership they enjoy within the youth demography. But their power and influence pale when compared to one key person in the history of the region – Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, who declared the secession of the East from Nigeria in 1967 and announced the Republic of Biafra that tipped the country into a three-year civil war from 1967 to 1970 with an estimated casualty of three million people.

The Igbo people, with an estimated population of 40 million, inhabit the south eastern part of Nigeria – Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states, as well as related areas like Delta, and Rivers. But the war was not only about the Igbos, it also involved minority ethnic groups – Ijaw (in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers State), Ogoja, Ibibio, Efik in modern day Cross-River, and Akwa Ibom state.

The Biafra War was the gory result of two coups, in the space of six months, just six years after Nigeria’s independence from colonial rule on October 1, 1960. The first coup, in January of 1966, is widely believed to be an attack against northern leaders by Igbo military officers led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu. This culminated into a counter coup in July 1966 by the northerners.

The counter coup led to pogroms in which an estimated 30,000 Igbos living in the North were killed. The killings led to a mass exodus of Igbo people from the North and other parts of Nigeria to the Eastern Region. This exodus was followed by a declaration by Ojukwu in 1967 that the Igbos would secede from Nigeria. The declaration was met with stiff opposition from the Nigerian government with the backing of the British government who blocked the Biafra secession with military forces over fears that the country that had just been granted independence was disintegrating.

Despite the forceful blockage, the Biafran agitators were more desperate about moving out of Nigeria where Ojukwu said they “felt unwanted” than Nigeria was prepared to accept. Force met with brutal force and the result was beyond catastrophic. In his book – ‘There was a country’ – his account of the civil war released 42 years after the war, award-winning novelist Chinua Achebe, portrayed the Nigerian government as ruthless in its suppression of the Biafran movement. Achebe himself played a prominent role in the Biafra agitation and became Biafra’s communications minister. In 1969 he helped write the official declaration of the “Principles of the Biafran Revolution.”

Ojukwu was a United Kingdom-educated soldier who had access to political power at the early stage of his life like many of his contemporaries who took over the affairs of Nigeria after the departure of the British colonialists.

His father Sir Louis Odumegwu-Ojukwu was one of the richest Nigerians of the 20th Century. He was a transport magnate who was said to have offered his Rolls Royce to chauffeur Queen Elizabeth II around during her visit to Nigeria in 1956.

Born November 4, 1933 in Zungeru, Niger State, Chukwuemeka Ojukwu lived in affluence and had the best education at top institutions in Nigeria and overseas – King’s College, Lagos, Epsom College, Surrey, England and the University of Oxford, UK where he bagged a degree in History in 1955 aged 22.

On his return to Nigeria, he was expected to join his father’s flourishing business but he chose to look elsewhere by joining the Eastern Nigeria administrative service. In 1957, he decided to join the Nigerian Army, becoming one of the first set of Nigerian graduates to do so. His promotion was rapid, largely due to his academic background.

By 1963, he was already a Lieutenant Colonel. Surprisingly that was the last ranking recorded for him in the Nigerian Army. When he received his military pension in 2008, he complained that he was paid as a Lieutenant Colonel (his last rank before the civil war) rather than as a General, his rank in the Biafran army. American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, who visited Biafra with other American writers during the war, on Ojukwu’s invitation, described Ojukwu as a calm, heavy man and a chainsmoker.

How the civil war started

Some Igbo officers who were unhappy with the northern discrimination, orchestrated the January 1966 coup. The coup brought Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi to power as the Head of State and Ojukwu was appointed the military governor of the Eastern Region at age 32. The July 1966 counter coup which brought in Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon as Head of State and the mass killing of Igbo people that followed marked the beginning of animosity between the northern and the eastern region which quickly snowballed into the Biafran declaration.

When the counter-coup came six months later, Ojukwu refused to step down as the governor of the Eastern Region, the events of that year thrust the 33-year-old into the leadership role. A peace talk in January 1967 – the Aburi Accord in Ghana – failed to pacify the already agitated Easterners who were hellbent on breaking away from Nigeria. On May 30, 1967, Ojukwu, who had the backing of the Igbos, declared independence for the 29,000 square-mile Eastern region covering 11 provinces in the present day Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, Anambra, Rivers, Bayelsa, Cross River and Akwa Ibom state.

The Igbos launched the Biafran flag featuring a golden half rising sun on a horizontal tricolour of red, black and green. The Naira was no longer valid as the medium of exchange in the region and a new currency – the Biafran Pound, was introduced on January 29, 1968.

The golden sun on the Biafran flag influenced the title of award-winning Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie’s novel – ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’, her account of the civil war. The declaration of the Biafra Republic set the motion for a civil war that lasted for almost three years. While the war raged, the Biafran nation starved, all the roads and ports leading to the region were blocked by the Nigerian government, making it difficult for aid to get to the region. This led to mass starvation, kwashiorkor and mental illness among children, women and the soldiers.

The Biafra War soon attracted massive international attention as the horrendous images of victims of the war dominated international media and roused sympathy from the rest of the world. People like American singers – Joan Baez, John Lennon, political activist Martin Luther King and late American writer, Kurt Vonnegut rose to mobilise international responses to the tragedy. Vonnegut described Ojukwu as Biafra’s George Washington.

He wrote: “Biafra had a George Washington — for three Christmases and a little bit more. He was and is Odumegwu Ojukwu. Like George Washington, General Ojukwu was one of the most prosperous men of his place and time. He was a graduate of Sandhurst, Britain’s West Point… we spent an hour with him. He shook our hands at the end. He thanked us for coming.

“If we go forward, we die,” he said. “If we go backward, we die. So we go forward.”

When the war ended in 1970, three million Biafrans had died, while 100,000 casualties were recorded on the Nigerian side. According to Chinua Achebe, Igbos weren’t mere casualties of war, but victims of calculated genocide.

The Blame Game

Neither the Nigerian government nor the Biafran forces led by Ojukwu have taken responsibility for the high casualty from the civil war which Achebe described as genocide against the Igbos.

The Gowon-led government declared “no victor, no vanquished”. When Gowon appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Oputa panel) set up by the government of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, in 2002, he apologised for the massacre of about 500 men in Asaba, but Col. IBM Haruna, who led the brutal killing said:

“As the commanding officer and leader of the troops that massacred 500 men in Asaba, I have no apology for those massacred in Asaba, Owerri, Ameke-Item. I acted as a soldier maintaining the peace and unity of Nigeria…If Yakubu Gowon apologized, he did it in his own capacity. As for me, I have no apology.”

Ojukwu also said he would not take responsibility and claimed he took the right step to protect his people.

He said: “Responsibility for what went on – how can I feel responsible in a situation in which I put myself out and saved the people from genocide? No, I don’t feel responsible at all. I did the best I could.

“At 33 I reacted as a brilliant 33-year-old,” he said. “At 66 it is my hope that if I had to face this I should also confront it as a brilliant 66-year-old.”

Many writers have posited that Ojukwu and Gowon, who were 33 and 32 years old respectively, were driven by ego that dragged the war for too long.

Youthful exuberance? We may not be able to say. Ojukwu was said to be a rank higher than Gowon in the Nigerian Army and he believed Gowon was not the appropriate person to lead the country at the time he became the Head of State.

Both men never published any book detailing their accounts of what happened.

“There are a number who believe that neither Gowon nor Ojukwu was the right leader for that desperate time, because they were blinded by ego, hindered by a lack of administrative experience, and obsessed with interpersonal competitions and petty rivalries,” Achebe wrote in his last novel – ‘There Was a Country’.

He added: “As a consequence, according to this school of thought, these two men failed to make appropriate and wise decisions throughout the conflict and missed several opportunities when compromise could have saved the day.”
In 1989, Ojukwu justified the concept of Biafra as a line drawn for a persecuted people to have a beacon of hope.

“A line drawn so that a fleeing people can at least hope that once they cross it, they have arrived at a goal, a line drawn so that a hated and persecuted people can at least know that once they reach there, they would have love and succour,” he said.

In a statement on January 16, 1970, he said “Biafra was born out of the blood of innocents slaughtered in Nigeria during the pogroms of 1966.”

Ojukwu had claimed that the Easterners were treated as second class citizens in Nigeria with so much hatred. “The problem with Nigeria has always been how to accommodate these very energetic Igbo. Under the British, it was how to accommodate the uppity Igbo,” Ojukwu said.

“Then after independence, it was how to accommodate these Igbo who do not stay in their area but wander around everywhere. That is why it was easy to think that the answer was to kill them off and prevent them from ever coming back.”

How the war ended

In 1970, Ojukwu handed over authority to Lt. Col. Philip Effiong, his second-in-command, and escaped from the Eastern Region to live in exile in Côte d’Ivoire, one of the four African countries that recognized Biafra. Others were Zambia, Gabon and Tanzania.

Although the move has been described by many as cowardice, Achebe, Vonnegut and many other scholars believe his decision was in the right order.

Achebe said if Ojukwu had stayed in Nigeria, Gowon would have been less magnanimous and conciliatory towards Igbos after the war. “I found him perfectly enchanting. Many people mock him now. They think he should have died with his troops. Maybe so,” Vonnegut wrote. “If he had died, he would have been one more corpse in millions.”

A week after he left Nigeria, Effiong negotiated the surrender of the secessionist forces, and on January 15, the day that the surrender documents were signed in Lagos, Biafra ceased to exist. Ojukwu issued a statement from exile saying: “Biafra will ever live not as a dream but as the crystallization of the cherished hopes of a people who see in the establishment of this territory a last hope for peace and security. Biafra cannot be destroyed by mere force of arms.”

Nigeria after Biafra War

After the integration of Igbos into the Nigerian society in 1970, the Nigerian government gave them a £20 flat fee in exchange for the Biafran pound. Despite the reintegration, the mistrust and discrimination which led to the war still exist. The Igbos are still faced with mistrust, economic and political discrimination.

Since the civil war ended 50 years ago, the Igbos have been largely excluded from power and no Igbo man has become Nigerian president.

“None of the problems that led to the war have been solved yet,” Ojukwu said. “They are still there. We have a situation creeping towards the type of situation that saw the beginning of the war.”

Ojukwu made a triumphant return to Nigeria in 1982 after he was pardoned by President Shehu Shagari. Several biographers, including Achebe and Vonnegut, have described him as a gifted orator, charismatic but highly controversial leader. Although he never achieved the secession he sought which led to the death of an estimated three million people, the foundation he laid for the actualisation of the dream lingers.

Many have argued that Biafra has become an ideological concept that could be difficult to abolish. Generations after Ojukwu have seen it as an integral part of the Igbo history and believe they have to carry on with Ojukwu’s legacy to actualise the dream of an Igbo nation.

Ojukwu’s Personal Life

The brave General was not one without needs. Ojukwu enjoyed the company of beautiful women, and he married a couple of them. His first marriage in 1956 was to Elizabeth Okoli, who was said to be the daughter of Nigeria’s first indigeneous Postmaster General. The marriage lasted for two years as the couple separated in 1958.

As the curtain fell on his union with Elizabeth, in 1964, Ojukwu married a single mother, Njideka Onyekwelu, who had earlier been married to a Ghanaian – Dr. Brodie-Mends. Njideka was the woman beside him during the civil war and they had Emeka Jnr, Mimi and Okigbo before the union crashed in Cote d’Ivoire when he met another woman while on exile with his family.

Asked what was the lowest point that tore their marriage apart, Njideka told The Nation newspaper in an interview in 2011: “it was in Ivory Coast. It was the conspiracy that eventually led to my leaving. It is better left for another day.” While in exile in Cote d’Ivoire, Ojukwu met Victoria.

They were married till the early 80s when Ojukwu was granted a state pardon by the Nigeria government. He would later marry Stella Onyeador, who was Njideka’s chief bridesmaid during their wedding in 1964.

In 1994, Ojukwu, then 61, married his last wife – 27-year-old Bianca, a lawyer and beauty queen who won The Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria pageant in 1988. Bianca was the daughter of late Chief Christian Onoh, a former governor of Old Anambra State, who vehemently opposed the marriage.

Ojukwu died on November 26, 2011 in a London hospital after a protracted illness. In his Will which became a subject of litigation for allegedly favouring Bianca more than others, he listed Tenny Haman, Chukwuemeka Jnr, Mmegha, Okigbo, Ebele, Chineme, Afam and Nwachukwu as his eight children.

Before his death he ran for president under the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in 2003 and 2007 but lost. The war may be over, but many Easterners are still peeved that the Nigerian authorities are trying to sweep the Biafran War story under the carpet over fears that it might incite another wave of bitterness and violence in some parts of the country.

“The Biafran war is still wrapped in a formal silence,” Chimamanda Adichie wrote in The New Yorker. “There are no major memorials, and it is hardly taught in schools.”

She added that: “We cannot hide from our history. Many of Nigeria’s present problems are, arguably, consequences of an ahistorical culture.”

With the liberalization of the Nigerian broadcast industry from the ‘90s, a lot of media companies were springing up with their eyes set on the sector that was ripe for exploits. Cool FM, a contemporary radio station that was launched in 1998 was positioning itself for relevance at the turn of the millennium. It was during this period that it signed a new voice that kept everyone glued to the station.

The question at the onset was, ‘who is that guy on Cool FM?’ It wasn’t long before everyone knew his name — Dan Foster, the man who would come to shape the format for contemporary radio programmes in Nigeria. Within just a year, he won the award for ‘Best Radio Presenter of the Year’, and would later win the Nigeria Media Merit Awards for the ‘Best Radio Personality’ in 2003, 2004, and 2005. He was also named ‘Media Person of the Year’ in 2004 and 2005 by City People Magazine.

Popularly known as “Big Dawg” or “Top Dawg”, Foster revolutionized radio broadcasting in the country by infusing an inspirational and conversational style to his shows which resonated with the people. His impact, vibrant personality and contribution to the broadcast industry have been recurring in the numerous tributes that have emerged since his death on June 17, 2020.

“Bursting with talent and creativity, he helped the station break new grounds with his larger than life personality. He set the standard for others to follow. His mark and influence on Cool FM and the broadcasting industry in Nigeria will be felt forever,” Serge Noujaim, the CEO of Cool FM wrote in an official tribute.

If there was a voice that many Nigerians enjoyed listening to on the radio in the 2000s and well into the 2010s before the new crops of OAPs came on the blocks, it was Dan Foster.

There’s a generation of radio personalities like Gbemi Olateru-Olagbegi and Oladotun Kayode a.k.a Do2dtun who earned their stripes through his influence and mentorship.

“He saved my job. Such a story! He kept me regardless.. look at me now. “The Big Dog” Dan Foster put it all in for me and us at CoolFM. What an OAP. The best morning show host till date in Nigeria. This is a big loss,” Do2dtun tweeted.

Although he undertook his longest streak at Cool FM, Dan Foster also worked in a few other stations in Nigeria. After working at Cool FM for nine years (2000 – 2009), he made a switch to Inspiration FM to help jumpstart the station. He worked as both the OAP and Head of Programmes there before leaving the station to City FM in 2014. He created the Sunday Praise Jam while at Cool FM and it grew to become a yearly concert.

Foster made yet another move to Classic FM in 2016, where he hosted the Classic morning show as well and Sunday Morning Talk on Lagos Talk FM. He was hatching a plan to build his own radio station before his death.

Back to the beginning

Born in Washington DC, USA in 1960, Daniel ‘Dan’ Foster was raised by his father alongside three other siblings. His mother died when he was just ten and he split some time living with his grandmother in Baltimore. He became rebellious as a teen but was able to turn his life around by joining the US Marine Corps.

While serving as a Marine, he started practicing how to present on the radio with radio equipment on the ship.

“During my service, I started doing mock commercials; I would read adverts on magazines and put some music behind it. I did it so well that guys wouldn’t believe that was my voice,” he said in an interview with Osagie Alonge on the Netng in 2014.

Foster had signed up for the US Marine Corps to earn a scholarship to study broadcasting and drama at Morgan State University. While at the university, he met an influential radio personality and executive, Cathy Hughes who gave him a spot on the campus radio station, WHUR.

“I was hitting people with inspiration and unique songs and she’d always come in and say, ‘you have a talent for picking these unique songs and developing a good mood, hang in there Dan, you’re going to go places someday, I like what you do.’” He recollected.

He’d later go on to work at Mix 106.5 radio in Baltimore before moving to the Virgin Islands to take up a spot at WTBN.

Coming to Nigeria

Dan Foster could pass for a Nigerian, and was quite often seen as such. He immersed himself in the Nigerian urban culture and owned it completely. The radio legend who was a native of Washington DC, USA, had no links with Nigeria until he mistakenly picked a radio gig at V.I, thinking it was at the Virgin Islands. Surprisingly, the V.I turned out to be Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria.

“I wasn’t going to come because there was an advisory saying Americans shouldn’t travel to Nigeria… they said there were some negative things going on in Nigeria,” he revealed to Osagie Alonge on Netng.

This was back in 1999 when Nigeria was transitioning from military rule to democracy. Chris Ubosi, his contact in Nigeria who was working with Cool FM then was able to convince him to make the move after promising him luxurious accommodation and other benefits. He took the offer and when he arrived in Nigeria, he confessed to have never seen so many black people before. After settling into the country in 2000, he set to work at Cool FM, and through many ups and downs, he fell in love and made Nigeria his home for the rest of his life.

Beyond Radio

As Dan Foster’s influence grew in Nigeria, he started branching out to other endeavours. With his compelling style, he was invited to be a judge on the first ever Idols West Africa show which had the likes of Timi Dakolo and Omawumi as contestants in 2007.

“That was the best reality TV show ever, a lot of people came out, there was Timi Dakolo, J’odie, Omawumi and all of them were good,” he said.

He was also one of the judges on Nigeria’s got Talent in 2015, and was featured in a Nollywood movie, ‘Face of a Liar’ in 2001.

Setbacks

Foster’s success as a radio personality did not come without its own challenges. He parted ways with his first wife with whom he had a son, Joshua. His wife had joined him in Lagos and didn’t quite like it there. She eventually left with their son when Foster insisted on staying back in Nigeria.

“I told her ‘honey I know we’re going to break up but I have to do this, it’s a job thing’.”

After some years of working with Cool FM, his departure from the station was marked with some controversy that almost forced him to leave Nigeria in 2009.

In the years leading to his death, his influence began fading in a rollercoaster of issues with his work. He was accused of becoming truant in his days at Inspiration FM. According to a report by Encomium, he allegedly missed advert spots frequently without any show of remorse about it.

He moved stations much more in his last decade than he did in his first. At some point, he was no longer available on the public radar as before.

Family

After some years of trying his hands on controversial relationships, Foster finally settled down with Lovina Foster (nee Okpara). A former banker he met at Silverbird Galleria in Lagos. The couple got married in April 2009.

They both had two daughters together; Kayla and Daniella, and a son, Somtochukwu.

Foster still kept in touch with his first son, Joshua who is now 20.

Dan Foster’s Death

In a shocking circumstance, Foster was reported dead from COVID-19 complications on June 17, 2020.

Greatness may not be gender-based, but women have always been stereotyped as emotionally weak and intellectually inferior to men. Although this is 2020, gender stereotyping is still rife, many people grow into it. Right from when they are babies, society has taught them what is ‘manly’ and ‘ladylike’.

The tide is changing as more women have continued to break the barrier of gender stereotypes to make history and prove to the world that there is no distinction between what they carry inside their skulls and what men carry.

Dr Doyin Abiola – First Female Newspaper Editor

Dr. Doyinsola Abiola (nee Aboaba) made history in 1980 as the first woman to become editor of a national newspaper in Nigeria. It is a height many journalists dream to attain as the peak of their long years of career. She didn’t only make history as Nigeria’s first female editor, she attained the height at age 35.

She didn’t get there by happenstance, Dr Abiola rose through the ranks as a reporter with the defunct Daily Sketch where she started her journalism exploit after bagging a degree in English and Drama from the University of Ibadan in 1969. She left the job for the United States for her Masters programme in Journalism. On her return to Nigeria after her Masters programme, she dodged an attempt to be served a full dose of gender stereotype when she rejected the position of Woman Editor at the Daily Times on the grounds that it was an attempt to limit her. She would later be offered the position of Features Writer and became the Group Features Editor of the newspaper.

She returned to the U.S in 1976 for her Ph.D. programme and resumed duty at Daily Times in 1979. A year later, she joined the newly established Concord Newspapers owned by Chief MKO Abiola in 1980 as its pioneer daily editor. In two years, she rose to become director/editor-in-chief and in 1984 when the pioneer Managing Director, Chief Henry Odukomaiya, was bowing out, Dr Doyin was seen as a perfect fit to replace him and was elevated as the Group Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief.

“An incredulous public was soon convinced that there is nothing about the office that should make it an exclusive preserve of men. She adroitly ran the newspaper and it became a reference point,” The Nation newspaper wrote in a 2015 editorial to celebrate her 70th birthday.

Dr Doyin Abiola who was married to Chief MKO Abiola (acclaimed winner of 1993 presidential election) blazed the trail in a male-dominated field of journalism and proved that greatness cannot be limited by gender.

Prof. Elfrida Adebo – First Professor of Nursing
Prof Elfrida Adebo was another extraordinary Nigerian woman who proved that the intellectual ability of women is not lower when put in contrast to their male counterparts. In the academic field dominated by men, Adebo made history in 1984 when she became the first professor of nursing in Nigeria.

She is also reputed to have delivered the first inaugural lecture given by a nurse in Nigeria. She started her nursing career in London before returning to Nigeria to take up a job as a Public Health Nurse in Ibadan, Oyo State, in 1959. She worked briefly as an Instructor at the School of Hygiene in Ibadan before crossing over to the University of Ibadan to become a lecturer where she would later become the Head of Department of Nursing.

She was a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Experts Advisory Panel on Nursing in 1973 and several other committees locally and internationally. Prof Adebo was also a consultant to Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health and other international organisations.

Major General Aderonke Kale – First Female Major-General

From time immemorial, if there is one field considered as a career path meant ‘strictly for men’, it is the military. Despite this, Major General Aderonke Kale went in, broke records and set new ones that have become reference points for many women venturing into ‘men’s profession’.

In 1994, she became the first woman in Nigeria to reach the level of Major General in the Nigerian Army. It was unprecedented in the history of the nation.

Kale’s decision to enlist in the Army in 1972 must have left her contemporaries and some members of her family in awe. They must have questioned the decision of a female medical doctor to join the army, at a time when it is believed that only men join the army. It was a year after she returned from the University of London where she had gone to specialize in Psychiatry after graduating as a medical doctor from the then University College, now University of Ibadan.

She rose through the ranks to become Commanding Officer of the Military Hospital in Ibadan from 1980 to 1985; Military Hospital, Enugu from 1985 to 1987, and the Military Hospital, Benin from 1989 to 1990. Not long after she was Deputy Commandant, Nigerian Army Medical Corps and School from 1991 to 1994.

1994 was a remarkable year for Kale, it was the year she became the first female Commandant of the Nigerian Medical Corps and also became the first Major General in the Nigerian Army. She retired from the army in 1996 after 24 years in service.

The female hall of residence at the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) was named after her in 2011. She dipped her feet in a world dominated by men and never allowed the usual stereotyping to limit her greatness.

At a time when home video was alien to Nigeria, these two men blazed the trail, wrote several drama scripts, travelled across different cities and states with their crew for stage productions and when television started getting popular, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in Ibadan served as a good platform to widely broadcast their plays.

Duro Ladipo and Oyin Adejobi are two men who blazed the trail in theatre and made several actors who are now Nollywood veterans. The duo had several things in common, from starting their career as choir leaders in the Anglican Church, to founding their theatre groups in Osogbo, Osun State, marrying three to five wives to support their theatre productions, here is the story of two doyens of Nigeria’s theatre.

Duro Ladipo:

Duro Ladipo was one of the pioneers of theatre in Nigeria, long before Nollywood. Born December 18, 1931, in Osogbo, Osun State, his father was a reverend in the Anglican Church and he grew up in the church environment.

In a documentary titled, “The Creative Person” by the American National Educational Television (NET), Duro Ladipo revealed why he was named Duro which means ‘Stay’
“My parents had a lot of troubles having children, 13 children were born dead before me, that is why I was named Duro which means stay don’t go again

“Since I was born, I heard that none of my brothers and sisters ever died again, we are all living now, about seven of us. My father has just one wife, that’s my mother.”

Growing up in the church environment and his grandfather’s background as a renowned traditionalist would later influence Duro’s work as a dramatist, playwright and musicologist.
He revolutionized church music with the introduction of native drums and he explained the motive behind his action.

He said: “I was very interested in music since I was seven years old because I was one of the boys directing the choir for my father in the churches, I was allowed to use my own sense in bringing the choir up. Then I felt changing from the monotonous tune of the piano that was just sounding the same every time we gather to worship.

“I introduced native drums to church music abruptly one Sunday and everybody was shocked.”

Against the will of his father who was never in support of traditionalists, Duro would sneak out of the vicarage to watch masquerades and traditional festivals in town.

He left Osogbo for Ibadan where he worked as a teacher and later got the partnership that gave his passion a huge fillip. While in Ibadan, in 1960 he met Prof Ulli Beier, a German writer, scholar and a lecturer at the University of Ibadan who arrived in Nigeria in 1950 with his estranged wife Susanne Wenger. Beier developed interest in traditional Yoruba culture and arts which led him to support Duro in full-time play writing and stage production.

In 1962, Duro Ladipo and Beier co-founded the ‘Mbari Mbayo’ group in Osogbo, converting his father’s house into an art gallery and a theatre, where he produced his plays.

His theatre group was renowned for promoting and reevaluating the significance of the Yoruba tradition and culture. His major works include Oba Moro, Oba Koso, Ajagun Nla and Eda which starred veteran Nollywood actor Lere Paimo and earned him the Eda Onileola sobriquet.
Duro Ladipo and his theatre group travelled across cities in Southwest Nigeria for stage plays, theatre drama and also went international with their art showcasing their works in Europe and America and he revealed that his crew members were not just doing what they love without reward.

“I started my theatre on a salary basis, I was one of those who started this in Nigeria because I felt people should be tied to a particular profession. We do everything together, I feed them and at the end of the month, we shared profit,” Duro Ladipo said.

His second wife, Chief (Mrs.) Abiodun Duro Ladipo, alias ‘Moremi’, also played significant roles in his plays. In Oba Koso, regarded as one of his most prolific performances, he played the lead role as Sango, the god of thunder. He was so close to reality in his delivery of the role that he was assumed to be a second Sango. Events on the the day of his death, March 11, 1978, – unusual heavy rain with heavy thunderstorms gave this believe some level of credence among his fans

Duro wrote and produced 36 plays, published 10 plays, produced 9 gramophone records and acted in four films. He was conferred with two national and three international awards, which included the first prize at the Berlin Arts Festival in Germany in 1964 and at the first-ever Commonwealth Arts Festival in London, UK, the following year, with his epic play, “Oba Koso” (the king did not hang).

He had three wives – Mabel, Abiodun and Bisi and he explained in the documentary that Mabel who was the first wife took care of the children at home, while the other two go along with him on tour. Abiodun played lead roles in his plays.

“My second wife who is the greatest star I have is Abiodun, she plays the lead role every time because she has wonderful voice, she is just talented with voice, she sings wonderfully and she is a very serious actress. The third is Bisi Idowu, very talented and one of the best dancers I have,” he said.

On Wednesday, 11th March, this year, it will be exactly 42 years the iconic actor died.
Veteran Nollywood actors like Lere Paimo aka Eda Onile Ola, Kareem Adepoju (Baba Wande) are some of the prominent actors who passed through the Duro Ladipo Theatre Group.
His second wife and children Wole Duro-Ladipo and Solabomi Duro-Ladipo Akinsola, have been carrying on with his legacy.

Oyin Adejobi:

Born 1926, Oyinade Adejobi is another legendary dramatist and actor who was instrumental in the training of several veteran actors.

Like Duro Ladipo, Adejobi also started his career in the choir of a local Anglican Church parish in Osogbo, Osun State. That was where he met the woman who eventually became his first wife and veteran Nollywood actress, Grace Oyin-Adejobi popularly known as Iya Osogbo. He later married four more wives who all participated in the productions and travelling across different cities.

“He really was not someone who liked polygamy. But his work made him marry about four more wives,” Grace said in an interview with The Punch. That line sounds familiar, it was the same justification Duro Ladipo gave while explaining why he married three wives.

Oyin Adejobi started developing interest in theatre when he travelled to Lagos with his brother who was a primate. “It was during his stay in Lagos that he learnt many things about theatre,” his wife Grace said.

He founded the Oyin Adejobi theatre group in Osogbo, Osun State in the late 1940s and the group was one of the popular Yoruba travelling theatre groups at the time up till the 1980s.
Oyinade Adejobi wrote and performed several Yoruba drama productions on stage, television and movies. Some of his plays included – Paradise Lost, Kuye, Orogun Adedigba among others. He also had a weekly television show, Kootu Asipa ‘Ashipa’s Court’ on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Ibadan. He was well known for his autobiographical movie ‘Orogun Adedigba’ which chronicled how he started using crutches from the age of seven.
He died at the age of 74, at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State in the year 2000.

Aside from his first wife ‘Iya Osogbo’, other veteran Nollywood actors whose acting skills were sharpened under Oyin Adejobi included Kareem Adepoju who was a former member of Duro Ladipo group, Lere Paimo who started with Oyin Adejobi before joining Duro Ladipo, Kola Oyewo, now a professor of Theatre Arts at the Ekiti State University, among others.

One of his children Bola Oyin-Adejobi, a singer, has continued to carry on with the legacy of the late dramatist. He, however, said he is more involved in stage productions than movies.

While many people regard her as one of the most awarded Nigerian women of all time, the former Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Late Dora Akunyili is mostly remembered as the woman who cleaned up Nigeria’s toxic pharmaceutical and consumer goods industry.

Before her reforms, the Nigerian market was flooded with fake drugs and counterfeit products that caused a lot of untold misery to unsuspecting members of the public. Sick people would see their conditions deteriorate while taking ‘appropriate’ medicines prescribed to them without knowing that the drugs they bought were just placebos. But once she was appointed the DG of NAFDAC, she set out to rectify the situation.

Dora Akunyili had taken a keen interest in stamping out fake drugs from Nigeria after suffering a personal tragedy. Her sister, Vivian met her untimely death after taking fake insulin injection in 1988. She then vowed to fight against drug counterfeiters. All her endeavours were pursued with that goal in mind. She finally fulfilled her dreams when she was appointed to lead the NAFDAC in 2001, a position she held till 2008.

Born on July 14, 1954, to Chief and Mrs. Paul Young Edemobi, Dora Nkem Akunyili attended St. Patrick’s Primary School, Isuofia, Anambra state in 1966 before proceeding to Queen of Rosary Secondary School, Nsukka, Enugu State. She would later become a renowned pharmacist after obtaining her first degree in Pharmacology at the University of Nigeria Nsukka in 1978.

During her studies, she met and married a physician, JC Akunyili in her third year. Immediately after her studies, she started working as a Pharmacist at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) in Enugu from 1978 to 1981.

Dora will go on to become a senior lecturer and a consultant pharmacologist in the College of Medicine at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) after receiving a Ph.D. from the same university in 1985.

Before she was appointed the Director-General of NAFDAC, she was the zonal secretary of the Petroleum Special Trust Fund (PTF) for four years. It was while working there that she caught the attention of then-president Olusegun Obasanjo after she was diagnosed with severe pancreatic disease, and was sent to London for treatment with government funds. When her doctors determined that she wouldn’t need the surgery, Akunyili returned the $18,000 check to the Nigerian government. This gesture elevated her image which was already spectacular from the numerous accolades she had received for her work in pharmacology, public health, and human rights.

She was later invited, on President Obasanjo’s request to take up a position at the NAFDAC following his resolve to clean up the sector. Once she took the reins at the regulatory agency, Akunyili decided to implement a system of registration where all packaged foods, beverages and pharmaceutical products were assigned NAFDAC numbers as a mark of their authenticity. Even manufacturers of “pure water” (drinking water sold in nylon sachet at a lower cost than bottled water) were equally mandated to get NAFDAC numbers. The screening drastically reduced the incidence of cholera which was caused by contaminated water in Nigeria.

She gradually moved into reforming the pharmaceutical industry after an alarming 70 percent of the drugs sold in the country were found to be counterfeit during testing. The fake drug peddlers were paying huge bribes to the regulatory officials who looked the other way while many Nigerians died every year after being dosed with the toxic mixtures.

She carried out a national sensitization program to confront the problem while securing testing agreements between the Nigerian government and China, India, and Egypt – three of the biggest suppliers of counterfeit drugs to the country. She followed up with a clampdown on the fake drug marketers, some of whom were convicted for their crimes. Her efforts paid off as the sales of counterfeits declined by up to 90%.

This success didn’t come without a price. It wasn’t long before the fake drugs mafia started hunting her. Assassination attempts were made on her life and in December of 2003 six assassins opened fire on her car with AK-47 rifles. Akunyili luckily escaped with the bullet grazing her head, but a nearby bus driver was killed. Sections of the NAFDAC building were set ablaze, but Akunyili was undeterred. She moved her family to safety abroad and stayed back in Nigeria to continue the fight.

“Thousands of Nigerians die from fake drugs every year. Is my life worth more than their lives?” She had queried while being asked if staying back was worth it. “I will keep on fighting. If only we get adequate support from Customs, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), and Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), not a single fake tablet will come into this country. We will keep on fighting in any case. And we are making progress.”

The people noticed her bravery and she garnered a lot of solidarity as a result. By the time she left NAFDAC in 2008, the fake drug industry was reduced to nothing and the testing and assigning of NAFDAC numbers has become a standard practice in Nigeria today.

Immediately after leaving NAFDAC, she was also called up to lead as the Nigerian Minister of Information and Communications from 2008 to 2010. It was during this time that she ran an international campaign to elevate the image of Nigeria around the world. The campaign slogan, “Good People, Great Nation” became so popular even as some people argued that one cannot market a bad product. But Akunyili succeeded in making the country look good for the time she was at the helm of affairs.

Throughout her career, she received numerous awards, including the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) 2002; Transparency International Integrity Award, 2003; Time Magazine’s Heroes of Our Time Award, 2006; International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) Industrial Pharmacy Medal Award, 2005; President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Icon of Hope for Nigerians Award, 2002; and over 900 other awards and recognitions.

In 2011, Akunyili decided to venture into politics after being urged by many Nigerians over time to run for president and help fix the country. She reckoned that the presidency was too far from her grasp, so she offered to run as Senator for Anambra Central under APGA, but lost to Chris Ngige of the ACN. She disputed the result and petitioned INEC for redress.

All along Akunyili had been battling uterine cancer which later claimed her life at the age of 60. She died in an Indian hospital on June 7, 2014, and was laid to rest in Agulu, Anambra state on August 28, 2014. Her death was seen as a great loss to the country.

When Nigerian literary giants are brought up in conversations and publications, it is usual for Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ben Okri, Buchi Emecheta and even Chimamanda Adichie’s names to come up more often.

One name that is often conspicuously missing in the all-time greats’ list is D.O. Fagunwa.

The man, Fagunwa

Daniel Olorunfemi Fagunwa, a native of Oke-Igbo in Ondo State who was relatively unknown until his first book, Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole, first hit the shelves in 1938, was a special breed. He was born to the family of Joshua Akintunde Fagunwa and Rachel Osunyomi Fagunwa in 1903, and had his education at St. Luke’s School, Oke-Igbo, and St. Andrew’s College, Oyo. He would later become a teacher himself.

Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole, which told the story of seven brave hunters in the deep forests occupied by evil spirits, immediately became a bestseller, gaining recognition across different continents. In the book, Fagunwa wrote as if he had deep conversations with the gods and evil spirits in the thick forests of Yorubaland, and led many to believe in the powers of the forces that can’t be seen with the naked eye. This was despite his strict Christian background (his mother and father held high positions in the church).

In one of the chapters, he wrote about a demonic newborn child, Ajantala, who spoke on the day he was born and gave priests and guests that gathered at his christening the beating of their lives.

Fagunwa’s second book, Igbo Olodumare published in 1949, was even more well received across the world. The book has been translated in over 40 languages. His vivid but unusual storytelling style quickly earned him a moniker as ‘Nigeria’s Shakespeare’.

The books, which were the first to introduce Heinemann publishing company to the literary community in Nigeria, immediately became highly recommended in classrooms across all levels of western education, and were adapted for plays by numerous theatre groups.

By the time Fagunwa published his three other critically acclaimed books – Ireke Onibudo (1949), Irinkerindo ninu Igbo Elegbeje (1954), and Adiitu Olodumare (1961), he had become a spirit in the minds of his hometown locals and a section of the people that read him across the world.

Fagunwa’s mysterious death

It was why many locals found it hard to believe that he died under natural circumstances when he drowned in a river on December 7, 1963. Surely, the gods and evil spirits must have had a hand in his death, they believed. Some even believed Fagunwa was swallowed by the snake with a human head he so gleefully wrote about in Igbo Olodumare.

But he had drowned while waiting to take the ferry on his way home from an assignment in the Northern part of the country, where he had gone to advertise Heinemann books to schools and also search for great writers like him.

His wife, Mrs Elizabeth Adebanke Fagunwa who died in 2018 at age 85, told Tribune in 2017, “James (Fagunwa’s driver) said the canoe turned upside down and covered him, he shouted for help and people came to rescue him but Fagunwa was nowhere to be found. While the people were still searching for Fagunwa in the river, a message was sent to Ibadan about the incident but I still had the belief that he would be brought home alive because he was a great swimmer but to my surprise, he never came home alive.”

On the third day after his disappearance, Fagunwa’s lifeless body was found floating at the exact spot where he drowned.

“What surprised us is that he had his shoes on, with his cloth intact as well as his cap and had his pair of glasses firmly in his hand. This was told by people who saw him at the river and people who saw his corpse when he was brought home,” Fagunwa’s widow, who was barely 31 at the time of his death but never remarried, said in the interview.

Fagunwa was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1959 and in 1965, two years after his death, was awarded the Margaret Wrong Prize. His tombstone remains at St. Luke’s Anglican Church cemetery, Oke Igbo, where he was buried on December 10, 1963.

When conversations about the greatest Nigerian writers are had, it is only right that D.O Fagunwa’s name appears at the very top of the list.

Years before the death of Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Pepple street in Ikeja was a Mecca of some sort for his energetic fans who throng the area every week to be thrilled to free live music mostly full of innuendoes attacking politicians and the elites. The street housed Fela’s club turned ‘worship’ centre – The Afrika Shrine, but shortly after his death, his family lost the facility to the real owners after a legal battle.

The club formerly known as Afro-Spot was located on the junction of Folarin Street, opposite his former house on 14A Agege Motor Road, in Mushin, Lagos. At Afro-spot which he later renamed ‘The Afrika Shrine’, Fela held regular gigs where fans were privileged to hear his new songs before they were recorded and released. Most of these songs were direct attacks on the government and discussions on current affairs.

After the February 18, 1977 attack on his home ‘Kalakuta Republic’ by soldiers which inspired the song ‘unknown soldiers’, Fela built another house (a two-storey building) at 7, Gbemisola street off Allen Avenue (present day Kalakuta Museum) and relocated to Ikeja. He also moved his club ‘The Shrine’ to Pepple Street, in Ikeja. A fence demarcated Pepple street from the Nigerian Police Force College.

On Sunday and Tuesday, Fela held performances that put pressure on Pepple street with the large crowd of mostly young people, he added a ‘Divination Night,’ on Saturday where he incorporated ritual services into his musical compositions, and on Fridays were for discussions about current affairs and politics. On these days, mobile marijuana and alcohol traders, and a swarm of fans besiege Pepple street. It was fun for them but pain for many residents of the area, especially members of the Church of Christ which was directly opposite The Shrine on Pepple Street.

A member of the Church told The Sun in 2016 that while Fela was alive, the church was constantly praying to God for a miracle that would either move the Shrine or the Church away from Pepple street when they couldn’t bear the menace of Fela’s fans who adopted the church premises as their escape route whenever police invaded the Shrine.

“In those days, anytime the police came for a raid they would jump over our fence in order to escape from them. But the problem is, they would still be smoking their Igbo (Indian hemp) and filling everywhere with the smoke while they were hiding inside the church premises,” the resident said.

The club grew to become one of Fela’s image, unarguably, one of his biggest legacies besides his music, and Pepple street was the convergence point of all lovers of his music and protégés. Unknown to many of the fans who throng ‘The Shrine’ every week, the property where the club was built on Pepple street is owned by the Binitie Family who leased the site to Fela.

Maybe the prayer of the Church of Christ, Fela’s neighbours, was eventually answered, when Fela died in 1997, the Binities demanded their land back and insisted they would not deal with Fela’s family leading to a long drawn legal battle. According to PM News report on October 20, 1998, the Federal Court of Appeal’s judgement of October 19, 1998 ordering the Anikulapo-Kuti family to move out of Afrika Shrine on Pepple street by January 31, 1999, laid to rest the years of legal battle between the Kutis and the Binities.

On December 30, 1998, one month before the agreed deadline, the Binities “accompanied by police, threw out musical instruments which included loudspeakers, drums and amplifiers on the streets as members of Fela’s ‘Egypt 80 Band’ looked on helplessly,” Inter Press Service (IPS) reported on January 12, 1999.

Bayo Binitie, one of the owners, told IPS that the fight to take back the property from Fela began 16 years before the judgement in 1998. He had claimed his brother, Michael Binitie, who rented out the property to Fela in 1978, did him a favour after his home was attacked by soldiers. “That time nobody wanted Fela near him or her,” he said. “We gave him a place to perform, but today we cannot wait till January 31 to effect the court order”.

After the forced eviction, Jide Ogunye of Femi Falana chambers (Kutis lawyers), had threatened to institute another court case after the property were thrown out before the agreed date. “We had made all plans to leave before January 31,” Ogunye said. “But because of the new development the court might intervene again. We are likely to take them to court for damages and for disrupting our shows which should have come up on the New Year eve and on January 1, 1999 at the shrine.”

Fans were disarrayed by the eviction, many of them who had adopted the Shrine as their second home and place of comfort became heartbroken. Today, the land which once housed The Afrika Shrine is occupied by the Mene Binitie Plaza in the heart of Computer Village.

Fela’s eldest son, Femi, had said the band must perform rituals to appease Kuti’s gods before the shrine could be moved to a new site. “It will be unwise to just move the shrine without first appeasing Fela Kuti’s gods,” he said.

Fela’s fourth child and second son, who manages the Kalakuta Republic (now a museum), Kunle Anikulapo-Kuti told The Sun in 2016 while lamenting the loss of the building, “I feel very bad whenever I am passing through Computer Village and see that structure. That is something that should have been preserved. But I understand the owners wanted it back.

“We offered a deal but they refused. We lost the case in court. But I would have loved it if the state government had intervened and acquired that place. There’s a great history there.”

The New Afrika Shrine
On October 15, 2000, Fela’s eldest son, Femi Kuti, who has been promoting his legacy through his music opened the New Afrika Shrine in Agidingbi area of Ikeja, Lagos, which is bigger and has more space than the old Shrine, now surrounded by shopping complexes where computer and mobile phones are sold.
20 years later, the New Afrika Shrine has grown to become a tourist attraction. On July 3, 2018, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron visited the Shrine thus becoming the first president to visit the centre.

“Fela was not just a musician. He was a politician who wanted to change society,” Macron said during his visit. “So if I have one message for young people, it’s this: Yes, politics is important; yes, be involved.”

Six short years after Nigeria gained independence from the British, the country was drawn into a conflict that metamorphosed into a civil war in July 1967. The war which saw the death of an estimated 1 to 3 million people was fought between the Nigerian government and the newly formed Republic of Biafra.

Biafra was made up of the states in the Eastern Region of Nigeria, who seceded from the country following an ethnic pogrom targeted mainly against the Igbos in the North. The Nigerian government did not take the secession lightly. And the Nigeria-Biafra war broke out when diplomatic talks between both parties failed.

Due to the lack of access to many essential resources during the war, necessity became the mother of invention. Most of the innovations were weaponry from the Biafran side. Scientists, mainly from the University of Nigeria Nsukka (then University of Biafra), formed the Research and Production (RAP) Organisation of Biafra which invented many of these machines.

Ogbunigwe (Ojukwu Bucket)

Ogbunigwe loosely means ‘mass killer’, and it was designed to accomplish that goal. It was made from a series of improvised explosive devices, command detonation mines, and rocket-propelled missiles. It had the capacity to eliminate anyone within its reach and many soldiers were wary of the device. The surface-to-surface missile had many modifications that could convert it to a rocket launcher. Ogbunigwe and its production was dismantled and prohibited after the war.

Biafran pot (Mini refinery)

There are claims that this long, round pot had the capability of converting palm oil into refined petrol and diesel. While that may not be entirely true, the Biafran pot which was built with heavy crafted metal was able to refine crude oil into kerosene, petrol and aviation fuel for military, and public use. The project was abandoned after the war.

Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC)

In the absence of an armoured vehicle to carry some of its frontliners closer to the enemy lines, the Biafran engineers designed their own armoured carrier nicknamed Red Devil. It was powered by sophisticated machine guns. The APC came in four variations and could manoeuvre difficult terrains. Like all other inventions during the war, the armoured vehicles were dismantled. It was in 2012 that Nigeria finally built an indigenous armoured personnel carrier codenamed ‘Igirigi’.

Converting commercial aircraft to Fighter Jets

Perhaps one of the greatest feats of the time was the conversion of commercial planes to fighter jets. The weaponized jets made the Biafran Air Force one of the most effective units during the war.

Airstrip at Uli

After being cornered from all sides and cut-off from the rest of the world, the Biafran side was able to construct an airstrip in Uli. The Uli Airstrip facilitated many flights that brought in mainly food and aid materials. Most of the aircraft were operated or contracted by “Joint Church Aid”, often referred to as “Jesus Christ Airlines” from the initials JCA. It flew in primarily from Sao Tome and Cotonou.

By the time the war was over, all these inventions were discontinued by the Nigerian government. And most of them can still be found today at the National War Museum in Umuahia, Abia state.

A Yoruba adage, ‘ogún omodé ò lè seré fún ogún odún’, popularly, and quite factually, posits that 20 children can’t be friends for 20 years. But for the ones that stand the test of time, such friendships tend to transcend merely exchanging handshakes and beer and hanging out at choice parks while fawning over beautiful women’s derrières.

Such friendships oftentimes result in a family bond that is as strong as a mother’s love for her child. The best ones even result in great accomplishments. Accomplishments such as the Guaranty Trust Bank.

GTB, one of Nigeria’s leading banks, with a retail customer base of more than eight million people, is a product of unfettered friendship between Fola Adeola and Tayo Aderinokun. Both men had become friends when their path crossed ways during their high school days.

That friendship, which Adeola describes as “teenage friendship”, led both men to found the progressive bank in 1990.

Before then, Adeola and Aderinokun had bravely embarked on a mission to provide a haircut service for the disadvantaged residents of Ikoyi, who, up to the mid 80s, would always take the long road to the mainland to have a fade, many times risking their lives.

“One of the challenges posed by living in Ikoyi in 1986 was that there were no barbers anywhere near-by! One, therefore, had to go to the Mainland for a simple haircut any time one was required. I was on one of these barber trips one Sunday when I saw a ghastly accident on Eko Bridge,

Adeola said in his tribute to Aderinokun following the latter’s sad passing in 2011. “The only thing that came to my mind was whether the victim of that accident was also on his way to the barbers! I decided we would put barbers in Ikoyi. The only person I knew that would entertain such a fanciful thought was Tayo Aderinokun. We both dipped into our pockets, and thus Finishing Touches Barbing Salon was born.”

A successful barbing salon was enough motivation for the friends, who were both on the roster of Continental Merchant Bank in 1986, to seek a license from the shot callers in Nigeria’s finance industry, for their own bank.

As is often common with friends who partner to found a company but get overwhelmed by the eventual success and wealth, Adeola and Aderinokun never allowed money to tear their friendship of many years, even dreaming to once again become neighbors by owning choice buildings on the Presidential Hilltop in Abeokuta.

Aderinokun, in an interview with City People shortly after he became the bank’s MD, said “What people often forget is that Fola and I were friends well before the bank came on the scene. We’ve been friends from our high school days. So, the relationship goes beyond business.”

Although that dream, one of many between the pair, never materialised due to Aderinokun’s premature death, the pair will dance and hold their heads up high as two friends that not only played for 20 years, but created a legacy while at it. Their legacy as one of Nigeria’s most innovative and successful friends has without a doubt been fully engraved in the country’s history.

“For me, the idea of a commercial bank never died. I revisited it with Tayo, and told him I was now prepared to go ahead, as I felt the window of opportunity for a license was narrowing.”

This was in January 1989,” Adeola said in his tribute to Aderinokun.

On August 2, 1990, the pair, who were both in their 30s, received a banking license No. 58, dated August 1, 1990 and signed by the Federal Minister for Finance, Chief Olu Falae, for Guaranty Trust Bank Limited.

From that moment on, both friends, with their education and wealth of experience (Adeola had obtained a Diploma in Accounting from Yaba College of Technology in 1975 and became a Chartered Accountant in 1980 following his training with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells and D.O. Dafinone & Company, while Aderinokun had obtained a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Lagos, and much later, an MBA in International Business from the Graduate School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles in 1981), set their sights on creating one of Africa’s most trusted and profitable banks.

Today, GTB, which stands tall as Adeola and Aderinokun had envisioned, boasts of over 200 branches, 17 Cash Centres, 18 e-branches, 41 GTExpress locations and more than 1165 ATMs in Nigeria.

In Africa, the bank has expanded to Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, including the United Kingdom. The bank’s total assets are also estimated to be worth over N3 trillion.

Fola Adeola, the visionary who co-founded GTB with longtime friend.

If Fola Adeola looked back to the event that led to the creation of Guaranty Trust Bank in 1990, it wouldn’t be out of place to find him teary eyed. And why not, he was only in his 30s when his dream to own one of Africa’s biggest banks began to materialise.

Having obtained a Diploma in Accounting from Yaba College of Technology in 1975 and a Chartered Accountant certificate in 1980 following his training with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells and D.O. Dafinone & Company, Adeola set his sights on creating a commercial bank that would serve millions of people in his home country.

This dream, he would achieve with his “teenage friend”, Tayo Aderinokun, in 1990.

Before Adeola and Aderinokun founded GTB, the pair who were both on the roster of Continental Merchant Bank in the mid 80s, had collaborated to solve a simple but rare problem for residents of Ikoyi.

“One of the challenges posed by living in Ikoyi in 1986 was that there were no barbers anywhere near-by! One, therefore, had to go to the Mainland for a simple haircut any time one was required. I was on one of these barber trips one Sunday when I saw a ghastly accident on Eko Bridge,” Adeola said in his tribute to Aderinokun following the latter’s sad passing in 2011.

“The only thing that came to my mind was whether the victim of that accident was also on his way to the barbers! I decided we would put barbers in Ikoyi. The only person I knew that would entertain such a fanciful thought was Tayo Aderinokun. We both dipped into our pockets, and thus Finishing Touches Barbing Salon was born.”

But just as the business of providing the people in the upscale Lagos community a haircut service started to boom, Adeola’s focus started to shift elsewhere.

“For me, the idea of a commercial bank never died. I revisited it with Tayo, and told him I was now prepared to go ahead, as I felt the window of opportunity for a licence was narrowing. This was in January 1989,” Adeola reminisced in 2011.

In his 2015 article titled ‘The Curious Case of Young Generations’, Femi Pedro, one of the founding members of the bank, said “As of 1988 when we began the journey, Fola was 34, Tayo was 33, Gbolly was 33, Bode was 33, Akin was 35 and I was 33. The objective: To own a BANK. It was a bold objective considering our respective ages at the time, but certainly not an impossible task in our eyes.”

On August 2, 1990, Adeola received a banking license No. 58, dated August 1, 1990 and signed by the Federal Minister for Finance, Chief Olu Falae, for Guaranty Trust Bank Limited. And the bank became listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1996.

Adeola would serve as the bank’s Managing Director for 12 years between 1990 and 2002, with Aderinokun right by his side as his able deputy and Femi Pedro, Gbolade Osibodu, Femi Akingbe, Akin Opeodu and others in tow. Aderinokun would later take over the reigns as MD of GTB after Adeola stepped down in 2002 and held the position until his death in 2011.

Today, GTB, which stands tall as Adeola and Aderinokun had envisioned, boasts of over 200 branches, 17 Cash Centres, 18 e-branches, 41 GTExpress locations and more than 1165 ATMs in Nigeria. In Africa, the bank has expanded to Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, including the United Kingdom. The bank’s total assets are also estimated to be worth over N3 trillion.

Since vacating the seat as the MD of GTB, Adeola has served as the chairman of UTC, ARM, Lotus Capital, Eterna Oil, CardinalStone Partners Limited, Tafsan Breweries (board member), and Credit Registry Services.

As the chairman of Main One Cable Company Limited, Adeola oversaw the complete construction of an open access submarine cable system that spanned 14,000 kilometres in 2010.

He has also tested his feet in the public sector and in politics, serving as running mate to former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission chairman (EFCC) Nuhu Ribadu in the 2011 presidential elections.

Married with six children, Adeola was decorated as Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) in December 2002 by President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Despite all of his achievements, Adeola has made it clear that his friendship with Aderinokun which was the bedrock of GTB’s birth is one he’ll forever hold dear, going on to say in his tribute to his deceased friend and partner in 2011, “I will always reserve for myself the credit for partnering with Tayo.”

Remembering Tayo Aderinokun, the goal getter who co-founded GTB with his ‘teenage friend’

“As we grew up, Tayo always shared his life’s desires with me. Two very important objectives he always emphasized. One was to be very rich, and he would add, ‘very, very rich’; the other was to be managing director of a bank. He accomplished both. I would ask him, often, what would you do with such wealth? And he would laugh, and reply, ‘wait until I get it.’”

That was Fola Adeola extolling the drive of his friend and partner, Tayo Aderinokun in a tribute following the latter’s passing in 2011.

Aderinokun had an interesting childhood. His father was a technician who worked for the Nigerian Railway Corporation. He had his basic education at Baptist Day School, Kano, from 1961 to 1966, before the Civil War forced his family to relocate to Lagos. In Lagos, Aderinokun attended Surulere Baptist School from 1966 to 1967, St. Peter’s College, Abeokuta, from 1968 to 1972 and St. Gregory’s Boys College, Lagos from 1973 to 1974.

It was during this period that he forged an unfettered friendship and brotherly bond with Adeola. They both later worked at the Continental Merchant Bank in the mid 80s before Aderinokun moved to Prime Merchant Bank where he occupied the position of an Assistant General Manager and Head, Financial Services.

“I finished from the University of Lagos and I went for my NYSC and got posted to Central Bank, through normal posting,” Aderinokun recalled his first romance with banking in an interview with City People.

He went on to say, “immediately after that, I went abroad to get an MBA. I finished my MBA at UCLA and I came back to Nigeria. At that time, banking was it, with all the glamour. They paid better, the suits were sharper. Glamour seemed to work. That was how I started and I found out that I liked it. And it was something I did very well.”

In their 30s, the “teenage friends” decided to collaborate to found one of Africa’s biggest banks in 1990, following the success of their barbing salon, Finishing Touches Barbing Salon, in the mid 80s.

Aderinokun, born in 1955, had been convinced by an ambitious Adeola to start a commercial bank that would serve millions of people in Nigeria. That bank would be named Guaranty Trust Bank.

On August 2, 1990, Adeola and Aderinokun received a banking license No. 58, dated August 1, 1990 and signed by the Federal Minister for Finance, Chief Olu Falae, for Guaranty Trust Bank Limited. The bank became listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1996.

Aderinokun who held a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Lagos, and an MBA in International Business which he obtained in 1981 from the Graduate School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles, went on to serve as Adeola’s deputy for the 12 years the latter held the position as the bank’s Managing Director between 1990 to 2002.

“Now, we are going into a new phase which may be for me more challenging, because I have to play 2 roles. So, I have to start looking for somebody who will play either the role Fola was playing or the role I was playing before. That is really the challenge I am facing,” Aderinokun told City People shortly after he assumed the position as GTB’s new MD.

And he took on the challenge fantastically well.

When Aderinokun took over the reign as MD after his friend stepped down from the position, his experience and dedication to excellence were immediately in full glare. Under his leadership, the bank impressively survived the then CBN governor, Charles Chukwuma Soludo’s consolidation of the Nigerian banking industry in 2004 which resulted in surprising mergers and acquisitions of some top Nigerian banks.

He received many awards for his outstanding leadership, including many others for GTB.

Aderinokun held the position until June 2011 when he shockingly died from cancer aged 56. His death reverberated through the entire banking and finance industry.

In his tribute to his departed friend and partner, Adeola commended Aderinokun “for sustaining the vision, and taking the bank so much higher to a realm I know I could never have taken it to,” adding that under Aderinokun’s leadership, “the bank simply grew in leaps and bounds.”

Today, GTB, which stands tall as Adeola and Aderinokun had envisioned, boasts of over 200 branches, 17 Cash Centres, 18 e-branches, 41 GTExpress locations and more than 1165 ATMs in Nigeria. The bank’s total assets are also estimated to be worth over N3 trillion.

Before his death, Aderinokun founded the Day Waterman College, a co-educational boarding school for children. He left behind a wife and three children.

The dream of most Nigerian footballers is to play in the top clubs in Europe where they would be recognised and later handed a call up for national duty to play for their national team – Super Eagles.

However, not many local talents have been so lucky to get the recognition needed to travel out of the country, despite being overtly talented.

Odion Ighalo, Kelechi Iheanacho and Victor Osimhen are some of the Nigerian players who rose from playing soccer on the streets to playing for big clubs in Europe.

Here is their inspiring stories of rise to grace:

ODION IGHALO:
When Odion Ighalo tweeted “favour is better than labour” on November 26 2019, many disagreed with him and a mob of netizens made him a subject of internet trolling for several days, forcing him to reframe his tweet to meet their narrative. 24 hours after, Ighalo tweeted: “Labour is better than favour, are we ok now?”

Well, he had his reasons for rating favour over labour and it didn’t take too long before his trolls saw things from his perspective. His deadline day loan move from Shanghai Greenland Shenhua to Manchester United in January was the eye opener.

The Ajegunle born born striker defied all odds to become the first Nigerian to play for Manchester United.

He started his career with Prime F.C in Osun before moving to Julius Berger now Bridge FC. He landed in Europe in 2007 joining Lyn Oslo of Norway, he thereafter joined Italian Serie A side Udinese and Spanish club Grenada and played for Watford in England before he eventually moved to China in 2017.

His loan move to Manchester United in January 2020 was one of the most shocking story of the January transfer window. Many mocked, trolled the club for considering Ighalo. Against all odds, in the most unlikely form, Ighalo’s dream of playing at Old Trafford, his boyhood club, eventually came to pass at 30 when many players would already be considering hanging the boot.

“I was born in a ghetto in Ajegunle with nothing. I work hard to be where I’m today and with the Grace of God. You can do it too, don’t give up. Impossible is nothing,” he tweeted last November.

Ighalo earns £300,000 (N140m) a week wages before his loan move to Old Trafford.

If that is not favour, we wonder what else it could be.

VICTOR OSIMHEN:
Born December 29 1998 in Olusosun area of Lagos, Victor Osimhen who is presently Lille FC’s wonderkid had been forced to drink from the sour grape of life’s disappointment.

From battling hardship – hawking sachet water on the streets of Lagos, to his injury spell just after joining Wolfsburg in Germany, Osimhen’s story is that of dedication, grace and hardwork.

Osimhen stepped into global prominence after his outstanding outing at the 2015 U-17 World Cup in Chile where he scored 10 goals and won the tournament’s golden boot as highest goal scorer, as well as, the Silver Ball as second most valuable player. He quickly caught the attention of Europe’s top clubs, but he chose Wolfsburg. His two seasons in Germany were bedeviled by injury and sickness and he made just 14 appearances without a goal. He later moved to RSC Charleroi in Belgium before joining Lille last summer where he has been outstanding.

His outstanding performance for Lille has made him the toast of top European clubs – Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham who are eyeing a move for the Nigerian forward.

Today, the former sachet water hawker is currently valued at €30 million (over N12 billion) in the football transfer market.

KELECHI IHEANACHO:
Unlike Ighalo and Osimhen who rose from the lowest class of the society to grace, Kelechi Iheanacho came from a relatively lower middle class. Before his rise to global fame, his father James Iheanacho was a building material trader in Imo State while his late mom was a teacher.

His parents never wanted him to be a footballer, for them, education is a more assuring route to success than playing soccer, judging by the huge number of talented players who never made it beyond street and local soccer.

But Kelechi was determined to prove his parents wrong and he set out very early in life to do just that. His parents became convinced and started supporting his dream when the young lad started winning laurels from local and inter state football competitions.

His outstanding performance at the 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup made him a toast of big clubs in Europe, but his father preferred Manchester City and there he went after the competition.

The 23-year-old now plays for Leicester City and is presently valued at €12 million accor

Hajiya Gambo Sawaba was an indomitable fighter and advocate for the rights of women and children who vigorously pursued the cause of the talakawa (down-trodden) with a kind of energy that was the envy of many men.

She didn’t stand aloof to address the anomalies, she immersed herself in the murky waters of politics to bring the social change she desired in the north where the system was naturally configured against women. She didn’t allow the social and political construct to stop her, she exhibited virtues that were very rare among women of her time and this launched her into national consciousness.

Born in Zaria, Kaduna State, on February 15 1933 to a Ghanaian father Isa Amarteifo and Fatima, a Nupe mother (Nupe people are the dominant ethnicity in Niger State and other parts of North Central Nigeria – Kogi and Kwara), she was named Hajaratu but also called Gambo, a name given to a child born after a set of twins. It was during her days of political activism that a chieftain of her party the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) gave her Sawabiya meaning Redeemer and was later shortened to Sawaba.

She started exhibiting traits of activism right from her childhood, engaging in street brawls and fighting bullies. Losing her father and mother within three years put an abrupt end to her education at Native Authority Primary School in Tudun Wada in 1943 and she was forced into early marriage as a teenager. This is prevalent in Northern Nigeria. A 2017 study by the World Bank says child marriage is most common in the North West and North Eastern parts of Nigeria where 68% and 57% of women aged 20-49 were married before their 18th birthday.

Her marriage didn’t last too long and this gave her the liberty to go into full time politics joining the opposition NEPU as a teenager and rose to become its women leader at Sabon Gari Branch, Kaduna.

Sawaba’s activism dragged her to Abeokuta where she met and shared from the wealth of knowledge of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti who was also an activist and campaigner for women’s rights, but more educated than Sawaba. It didn’t take long before her encounter with Funmilayo started manifesting in her activities. Drawing inspiration from her southwestern ally, Sawaba was said to have become more vocal against injustice, oppression and intimidation of opposition members by the ruling elites on her return from Abeokuta. In July 1958, Sawaba led the women’s wing of NEPU to form an alliance with the Nigerian Women Union (NWU) under the leadership of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti.

Bearing testament to Sawaba’s influence, a former Governor of Kano State, Abubakar Rimi, was quoted to have said “most people identified NEPU with Mallam Aminu Kano but there were certain members (that) were greater than him in many respects. Firstly, among the women you have Hajiya Gambo Sawaba”.

She also took her activism beyond the rallies and went from door to door sensitising women in purdah restricted by cultural and religious doctrines from attending political rallies. Gambo campaigned against under-aged marriages and forced labour. She also advocated for western education in the north, however, her activism didn’t go without a price. As a member of the opposition party challenging constituted authority, she was imprisoned several times by the colonial authorities and officials of native administration. One of the times she was imprisoned was during her trip to Kano to help NEPU canvass for women’s support, reports of her activities in the town was said to have reached the Emir. She was arrested and tried before the Alkali court and was jailed. After her release, she was ordered to leave Kano.

When NEPU and other political parties merged to form the Great Nigeria People’s Party (GNPP), Sawaba became the Deputy National Chairperson.

She also shares the belief of many Nigerians that minority ethnic groups in the country are being suppressed. Speaking on the crises that was said to have rocked the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida in 1987, she said in an interview with defunct New Breed magazine on April 10, 1989; “You don’t know that Babangida comes from the Northern minority, and to these political opportunists here, anybody who does not come from Sokoto, Kano, Bauchi or Borno does not qualify to lead the country. They believe that this country is their personal property and once someone else is at the head, they cause trouble for him”.

Hajiya Gambo Sabawa died at the age of 71 in 2001 at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Zaria, Kaduna State, after a protracted illness.

Even though writers like Amos Tutuola and Cyprian Ekwensi had published novels early in the 1950s, Chinua Achebe’s 1958 Things Fall Apart was the one that started the African literary renaissance of the 1960s. The book, which was one of the first African novels to gain global recognition, has since been translated into 57 languages and sold over 20 million copies. It also made Achebe the most translated African writer of all time and earned him the label “patriarch of African literature.”
Achebe was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in 1930, in the region of southeastern Nigeria known as Igboland into cultural crossroads. (He dropped his first name because it was a “tribute to Victorian England”). His parents were Christian converts but other relatives still practised the traditional Igbo faith, in which people worship a variety of gods, and are believed to have their own personal guiding spirit, called a chi. This duality he lived through greatly fascinated Achebe. “The distance becomes not a separation but a bringing together, like the necessary backward step which a judicious viewer may take in order to see a canvas steadily and fully,” he later wrote.
The family spoke Igbo at home but Achebe started to learn English in school. It was when he was exposed to colonialist literature such as “Prester John,” John Buchan’s novel about a British adventurer in South Africa. That book has this famous line: “That is the difference between white and black, the gift of responsibility.” It was Achebe’s first taste of erasure and racism in the ideas Westerners popularised about Africa even though he didn’t realise it at the time.
In one essay, “African Literature as Restoration of Celebration,” he wrote, “I did not see myself as an African to begin with… The white man was good and reasonable and intelligent and courageous. The savages arrayed against him were sinister and stupid or, at the most, cunning. I hated their guts.”
When he was at the University College, Ibadan (Now University of Ibadan), he came across the novel “Mister Johnson,” by the Anglo-Irish writer Joyce Cary, who had spent time as a colonial officer in Nigeria. By this time, Achebe had outgrew his admiration for the imperialists and was absolutely repulsed by the portraiture of his country Cary had painted in words. In Cary’s words, the “jealous savages . . . live like mice or rats in a palace floor”; dancers are “grinning, shrieking, scowling, or with faces which seemed entirely dislocated, senseless and unhuman, like twisted bags of lard.”
Cary’s writing carried the typical colonialist tropes of the time, framing African as “unhuman” and somehow, less. That was what Achebe considered dangerous.“It began to dawn on me that although fiction was undoubtedly fictitious it could also be true or false, not with the truth or falsehood of a news item but as to its disinterestedness, its intention, its integrity,” he wrote later. This vision of leveraging on the moral power of fiction for change would guide all of Achebe’s future work.
After graduating from the university, he taught English at a local school for four months before securing a job at the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBC) during the mid-fifties. This was when he started work on “Things Fall Apart”. By the time Achebe submitted the manuscript to publisher William Heinemann, African fictional novels as a form were still young. Amos Tutuola’s Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) and Cyprian Ekwensi’s People of the City (1954) were the only African fictional works in English at the time but they only enjoyed readership within the country. Achebe’s approach represented a new take, showing the collision of old and new ways of life to potent effect.
After “Things Fall Apart” was published in 1958 and it achieved the success it did, Heinemann soon asked him to sign on as general editor of its African Writers Series in 1962. He held that position, without pay, for 10 years. He was instrumental in Heinemann publishing the works of Flora Nwapa, John Munonye, and Ayi Kwei Armah – all of whom went on to become important figures of African literature. Then came the Nigreian civil war.
His novel “A Man of the People” (1966), a political satire, had predicted the war so accurately, it was thought that he might have been in on the plot. He fully supported Biafra, travelling to London to promote awareness of the war and helped write the official declaration of the “Principles of the Biafran Revolution” in 1969. Achebe also stopped writing fiction and instead turned to poetry – “something short, intense, more in keeping with my mood.” At the end of the war, between one and two million Igbos had died.
After a 1990 accident which put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, he moved to the US and took a position as Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College, just outside New York, USA. he held that position for 18 years. Next, he took a role as David and Marianna Fisher Professor and Professor of African Studies at Brown University. He held the position till his death in 2012 aged 82. Achebe was survived by his wife Christiana Chinwe Okoli and four children.
Growing up in a dichotomy of culture and politics was very instrumental in shaping Achebe’s unique worldview. He wanted the African narrative to be told by Africans and without remorse or empathy for anything else. He was a visionary who saw the world for what it was and made African literature globally relevant. Without Achebe, African literature might still be considered second-rate. Even today, his influence can still be felt in the works of many a Nigerian authors. Chimamanda Adichie, Nigeria’s biggest literary export in recent times, even lived in his old house in Nsukka with her family for a while. Adichie has spoken about discovering his work at the age of about ten. Until then, she said, “I didn’t think it was possible for people like me to be in books.”

Sixty years ago, a Yoruba woman – Wuraola Esan became the first woman in pre- and post-independence Nigeria to be a member of the Nigerian Senate. Esan was one of a handful of Nigerian women actively involved in politics at the time.

Although women were actively involved in political activities in the southern part of Nigeria. They were seen more as agents of mobilization for garnering the support of other women to vote in elections.

Before Esan’s rise to national political prominence, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the fearless activist ran for a seat in the Western Region Assembly as the candidate of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC) in 1951. She lost.

Esan was from Ibadan, and she joined partisan politics in the 1950s as a member of the Action Group (AG) after working as a school teacher and advocate for women education and empowerment. In 1958, she was elected to the Ibadan Urban District Council.

The AG was the ruling party in the Western Region at the time and it was also home to two former Premiers of the region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola as well as other prominent Yoruba political leaders. The party was seen as a pan-Yoruba political group and with this sentiment it dominated politics in the region for a long time before the relationship between Awolowo and Akintola went sour.

Esan was born in 1909 in Calabar, present day Cross River State to Chief Thomas Adeogun Ojo a veteran of the First World War and a forestry officer and Madam Ajike Ojo Aina popularly called Iya Gbogbo (mother of all), a self-made business woman

She was first educated at the Sacred Heart Covenant, Ibadan. She later went to Sacred Heart Covenant School in Calabar and Baptist Girls College, Idi-Aba, Abeokuta, Ogun State, and the United Missionary College where she was trained as a Teacher. This qualified her to take up a teaching job as a domestic science teacher at a missionary training school in Akure. She married Victor Esan a civil servant at the Ibadan City Council in 1938 and they had four children.

As an educationist, in 1944, she established the Ibadan People’s Girls Grammar School in Molete to educate women in different subjects including domestic science. Before politics, she had distinguished herself based on her philosophy that a woman has to be twice as effective and efficient as a man to get recognition in a society where women were seen as second fiddle. With this philosophy she was first among equals.

How she got to the Senate:

Esan’s emergence as a Senator was not by election but by appointment. In the 1959 constitution becoming a member of the Nigerian Senate was by appointment. Section 37 of the 1959 Constitution states that the Senate shall consist of:

(a) twelve Senators representing each Region, who shall be selected at a joint sitting of the legislative houses of that Region from among persons nominated by the Governor;

(b) four Senators representing the Federal territory (Lagos); and

(c) four Senators selected by the Governor-General, acting in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister.

This led to the appointment of Esan on January 8, 1960 to represent Ibadan West, at a joint meeting of the Western House of Assembly and the House of Chiefs held in Ibadan which was the capital of the Western Region.

At the meeting there was a mild drama between the ruling party AG and members of the opposition NCNC who later staged a walkout over disagreement on the principle on which the selection should be based.

Dennis Osadebay, leader of the NCNC which had 27 members at the Western Assembly as against 54 of the ruling AG, had said the AG is entitled to eight while NCNC is entitled to four seats in the Senate because that was the reflection of the political representation in the Western House of Assembly. The ruling party disagreed with Osadebay’s suggestion and said it will give the opposition three seats only if the Eastern Region government where the NCNC is the ruling party would give the AG three seats in the region.

When a consensus could not be reached, the NCNC lawmakers staged a walkout and the Premier of the Region, Ladoke Akintola appointed 12 Senators. They include – Olajide Somolu, Chief Sanmi Esangbedo, Dalton Asemota, Chief Solomon Huponu-Wusu, M.G Ejaife, E.A Lagunju, Wuraola Esan, Chief T.A Odutola, Chief J.S Olayeye, P.A Ogundipe, S.A Eyitayo, Dr. J.O Omitowoju. The Oba of Lagos, Oba Adeniji Adele was also appointed to represent Lagos as the Federal territory.

The appointment meant Esan would be the first woman to become Senator, a distinction that placed her among 47 male Senators throughout the period she was at the Senate from 1960 – 1964.

Though her legacy is hardly remembered, biographers described Iyalode Esan as “a fierce critic of corruption and tax evasion”. She led advocacy for improving women’s education and providing loans and services to help market women.

She strongly condemned the decision of the northern region government denying women the right to vote in the province. This decision limited the likes of fearless activist Gambo Sawaba from contesting in elections.

Recalling her skill in diffusing difficult situations, Denzer LaRay, author of ‘Gender and Decolonization: A Study of Three women Leaders in West African Public Life’, quotes Esan as saying: “I have the power of combating those people who want to fight me better than men, because when you smile sweetly when your enemy is coming there will not be any fight.”

After leaving the Senate, she continued her advocacy as a founding member of the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS). The 1966 military coup forced her to stay away from politics and on May 9, 1975, she was installed as the Iyalode of Ibadan.

Just like Esan, her youngest child Jadesola Akande, a professor of law and former Vice Chancellor of the Lagos State University (LASU), also made history as the second woman in Nigeria to be appointed a Vice Chancellor, after Professor Grace Alele Williams of the University of Benin.

Prof Jadesola also followed the path of her mother, as an academic and activist. She was a member of the Constituent Assembly that produced the 1989 Constitution and a member of the National Council of Women’s Societies where her mother was a pioneer member.

Before her death in 1985, Iyalode Esan witnessed the emergence of Franca Afegbua as the first female elected Senator in 1983, from Bendel north in present day Edo state.

Through a reputation of honesty and incorruptibility, Dr Dora Akunyili, earned the trust and confidence that secured her the job as the Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).Her major task when she was appointed in 2001 by then President Olusegun Obasanjo was to wage war against counterfeit drug barons and bring sanity to the food and drug regulatory system. It wasn’t too much to ask for, but the principalities profiting from the system went to war against her – spiritual and physical.It wasn’t an easy task when she took over, “it was very tough when we started,” she admitted in a 2009 interview with the National Academy of Public Administration, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University.Before 2001, NAFDAC was in obscurity with several teeth that could not bite nor harm the counterfeiters it was supposed to hunt. “NAFDAC was not a big name. I heard about it vaguely, but it was not a place I would apply to work because it was not a popular place,” Dora Akunyili recounted.The regulatory agency itself was said to be aiding the activities of the counterfeit barons before Akunyili, the impunity went unchecked for many years as money was exchanging hands. “Before I came into NAFDAC, the counterfeiters were paying their way to bring in whatever they wanted to bring in. I came in and said no, it would not happen again,” Akunyili said while lamenting the systemic corruption at NAFDAC when she took over.She was a senior lecturer and a consultant pharmacologist in the College of Medicine at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) before she was appointed. But her Pharmacology degrees were not enough to land her the job and make her succeed in the role. Few years into the government of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, he was shopping for a perfect hand he could trust with NAFDAC to sanitize the system, in that process he heard about the heroic of Akunyili and how she (as Zonal Secretary of Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF)) returned 12,000 pounds to government coffers after she was paid 17,000 pounds to undergo a surgery in the United Kingdom but ended up spending 5,000 pounds.She recalled: “I had a strange ailment then and was asked to go to Britain for treatment. I was supposed to have surgery, but it was a wrong diagnosis here in Nigeria. I went with 17,000 pounds: 12,000 for surgery, 5,000 for treatment, tests and others. In the end, it was found that I did not need surgery. So, I asked the hospital to give me the 12,000 pounds, which I had already paid. They were surprised that I wanted to return the money to my employers”.When she returned the money to Muhammadu Buhari (now President), who was the Chairman of PTF at that time, he wrote her a letter praising her: “I did not know there were still some Nigerians with integrity.” Few years later, her action which did not go unnoticed, in a society plagued by endemic corruption, earned her the NAFDAC job. When she was appointed in 2001, asides the herculean task of fighting counterfeit products, she faced stiff opposition ranging from her gender, political affiliation, where she hailed from and those who saw her coming to office as a battle against ‘her people’.“There were a lot of fights from the political class, they didn’t want him to give me the job because the Minister of Health was Igbo. I am Igbo and most of the drug counterfeiters are Igbos,” Akunyili said. “Remember, I am also a woman. But Obasanjo stood his ground and said, ‘No, this is the woman that will do the job’.”She fought myriads of battles, from the propaganda at the homefront that she was fighting her kinsmen and blocking their source of livelihood to the spiritual and physical attacks. She never hid the fact that most drug counterfeiters were from her place in the southeast and she described it as “A very big issue. At a stage they carried that propaganda, that I was fighting my people.”Being detached from the affluence and comfort of living with her upper middle class parents in Makurdi, Benue state where she was born didn’t deter her from becoming the best in whatever she got into from her childhood. At age 10, she was dispatched to her grandmother’s village in the southeast, where her uncle, who was a teacher, ensured she got good education and came out in flying colours.“Village life is hell on earth. It was a shock to me as a child who was used to eating good food, having running water, to find myself in the village with no toilet facilities, no running water,” she told Guardian UK in 2007.She was exceptionally brilliant from her childhood and it was not surprising that it was evident in her dealings at NAFDAC and every other position she held. She won a scholarship twice – first to go to high school and another to study pharmacy at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.On assumption of office at NAFDAC, She worked tirelessly and with significant success for the eradication of counterfeit drugs and unsafe food in Nigeria between 2001 and 2008. One of the driving forces behind her action, she would later reveal, was the death of her sister, Vivian, in 1988. She watched helplessly as Vivian, a diabetic, died after injecting herself with fake insulin.“Not only was it fake and did not contain the insulin she was supposed to take, but it was also contaminated and gave her abscesses. She did not respond to antibiotics, and we just watched helplessly until she died,” she lamented.In 1990, a former Deputy Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Adeoye Lambo, found that 54 percent of drugs in one of Lagos pharmacies were fake, the figure rose to 80 percent in the following year. A survey of 35 pharmacies in Lagos and Abuja in 2001, revealed that 48 percent of the products there were fake. To combat this, Akunyili directed that no drug should be sold except they have been authorized by NAFDAC. With massive media awareness warning Nigerians of the dangers of taking unauthorized drug and food products, many Nigerians imbibed the culture of painstakingly checking the label of any drug or food products for NAFDAC registration number and expiry dates before buying them. With that NAFDAC got rid of counterfeits.Through her resilience, she put an end to the reign of impunity in the drug and food industry and gave the baron a run for their money, many of them after failing in their attempt to bring her down, took their trade to other neighbouring nations, she went after them and together with other West African nations, they created the West Africa Drug Regulatory Authority Network (WADRAN) to make the region hostile for the baron.On different occasions, she personally led a team to invade the two most notorious fake drug markets in Nigeria – Idumota in Lagos and Onitsha Main Market in Anambra (her home state). She led the raid on Ogbo Owu market in Onitsha with a team of 350 policemen, 150 soldiers, and 150 staff members of NAFDAC to destroy counterfeit drugs.All her actions came with a price, she refused to pay but she was shaken.Her son, who was the only child of her six children living with her in Nigeria, was almost kidnapped from school until she told the kidnappers that Akunyili was her aunt and not her mother. A series of life threatening messages were sent to her husband, and she also escaped an assassination attempt in December 2003. Recounting her close shave with death, she said: “When they got very desperate, they even shot me. A bullet grazed my scalp, and it shattered my headscarf. It was a miracle that I survived”.The attacks didn’t end there, within six days, NAFDAC secretariat in Lagos was razed on March 7, 2004, three days later, NAFDAC laboratory in Kaduna was burned down. “That was when I got hysterical. The next day, the arsonists went to Maiduguri (Borno). The day after, they went to Benin, but President Obasanjo had ordered more policemen to be sent and they did not succeed; they were chased out,” she said.For the rest of her stay in office, she lived with an armed guard of nine policemen who watched over her round the clock. The policemen were initially four, the wave of attacks prompted Obasanjo to order the police to beef up security around her, her family and NAFDAC offices across the country.At a time the name Dora Akunyili was synonymous to NAFDAC, many Nigerians never knew the agency existed before her appointment. After spending five years in office, fake drugs in circulation reduced from 70 percent in 2001 to 16.7 percent in 2006, according to a study conducted by WHO and DFID, while drug manufacturing outfits also rose from 70 to 150 by 2007. By the time she left NAFDAC in 2008, fake drugs in circulation had reduced to about 9-10 percent according to the agency’s assessment.When she left NAFDAC, she was appointed Minister of Information and Communication under the administration of late President Umar Musa Yar’adua in December 2008. After leaving the office in December 2010, she ran for Senate under the platform of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Anambra State but lost to Chris Ngige of the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). After then she was away from public until 2014 when she reappeared at the National Conference convened by the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, she was looking frail and sickly. Her look shocked many Nigerians and sparked a series of reactions in the media. She died of uterine cancer at an Indian hospital on June 7 2014 at age 56.Before her death, as a testament to her forthrightness, incorruptibility and excellent service, she received international recognition and numerous accolades for her work in pharmacology, public health, and human rights, including a Grassroots Human Rights Campaigner Award by International Service in 2005.

Many didn’t know that Afrojuju maestro Sir Shina Peters squatted with a prostitute in a motel room in Oshodi, Lagos before his rise to stardom as one of Nigeria’s entertainment legends.

His hit albums Ace in 1989 and Shinamania in 1990 easily won the hearts of many, but it wasn’t an easy ride for SSP. This informed his reason for saying “I don’t know who can survive what I have been through in life” in a 2018 interview in celebration of his 60th birthday.

He revealed in 2018 that as a young boy he left his parents’ ‘face-me-I-face-you’ one-room apartment on 6, McCarthy Lane, located in the ever-busy Oshodi market in Lagos, he had nowhere to go and had to squat with a prostitute in a motel.

His reason for leaving home was his parents’ refusal to allow him to dump school to become a musician. For them, only a wayward child would abandon school for music. He later proved them wrong.

He said: “I woke up at 2 a.m one day and I told them (my parents) I was not going to school; that all I wanted to do was play music. But because of my decision not to go to school, my parents woke up everybody in the house that night including the landlord. The landlord then said, ‘If you are not going to school, that means you have been cursed from outside and we wouldn’t want you to influence the other children’.

He added:

“When I left home, I went to Temiogbe Motel, Oshodi. I can remember, a prostitute then called me and I was living with her. She would lay her wrapper on the floor for me to sleep on. For weeks, I was with her. So, it happened that the woman kept her money under the pillow but she forgot it was under the pillow and she now said I took the money.”

Peters would later become a house boy to legendary singer turned pastor, Chief Ebenezer Obey.

“I also served as a house boy to Ebenezer Obey. Things changed for the better for me when I met Ebenezer Obey. I used to go to his place to clean his clothes and shoes. Whenever he was not at home, I would play his guitar,” he said.

He thereafter joined the band of another singer General Prince Adekunle where he became more active, from there he formed a partnership with Segun Adewale (another singer who left his parents’ home in Osogbo, Osun State for Lagos because his parents didn’t want him to become a musician). The duo formed Shina Adewale and the Superstars International. They eventually went solo in 1980 to set up their separate bands. Following their separation, Peters created a brand of music he called Afro juju.

Like the words of Tai Solarin in his January 1, 1964 article, the road was very rough for SSP, but through steadfastness and dedication to his dream, Peters became a global brand and ruled Nigeria’s entertainment world for close to two decades through his new brand of music he dubbed Afrojuju, a fusion of Juju and Afrobeat.

His Afrojuju brand is premised on fast percussion beat with the use of electric keyboard, saxophone and guitar. Afrojuju has taken him to several countries across the world and won him multiple awards.

From dreaming about becoming a medical doctor just to please her father, Ibidunni Ajayi-Ighodalo, shattered glass ceilings to build a huge name in the event management space, and for 17 years, she successfully ran one of the leading events agencies in the sub-continent.

A career in Medical Science was her father’s dream for her, but life happened and she settled for a career far away from the sciences. “I had wanted to study medicine but somehow, my name was on the admission list for medical microbiology. I felt I could stay there and transfer to medicine at some point. However, the opportunity never came,” she recounted in a 2019 interview. “I eventually found out that my name was included in the next batch to study medicine. Meanwhile, Elizabeth R had been birthed by then, so I just decided to finish with the medical microbiology degree.”

Not achieving her purpose on earth was her greatest fear, as she revealed in an interview, but with what she achieved in almost 17 years with Elizabeth R., which she founded as a public relations and events management firm in her 20s, it is clear that she overcame her greatest fear in the short period she walked this land.

Young, sassy, and gorgeous, Ibidunni was a perfect definition of beauty and brains. She rose into the limelight during her days as a microbiology student at the University of Lagos when she won the maiden edition of Miss Lux, a beauty pageant organised by Lux bath soap. Fame came quite early and she used it as a springboard to give her career a fillip. From the 1990s when she won Miss Lux, she graced magazine covers, made news headlines for her trailblazing endeavours in the events and hospitality industry, till her death.

In October 2003, she dumped her dream of becoming a medical doctor and opted for solving event issues.

“I wanted at all costs to become a doctor to please my father. That was my childhood ambition,” she said. When that didn’t work, she started Elizabeth R. at the age of 23. At that time, the events management industry in Nigeria had not taken shape, but Ibidunni had big dreams.

“Although that industry hadn’t fully formed in Nigeria, I knew it would eventually become something big and that was how Elizabeth R started,” she recalled.

Ibidunni worked for high profile clients like the Lagos State Government, Guaranty Trust Bank, Sahara Group, Dangote, Skye Bank (now Polaris Bank), MTN Nigeria, Thisday Newspaper, amongst many others.
Despite being one of the best in the industry, she was defined by virtues such as tenacity, doggedness, humility, and foresight. Her annual signature Christmas decoration on the Ajose Adeogun roundabout in Victoria Island, Lagos, made possible by Zenith Bank bears testament to her great panache.

Finding the right partner in Pastor Ituah Ighodalo who did not only support her dreams but also helped her manage her business for three years while she battled health challenges, was a gift she vocally cherished.

Ibidunni said: “At a time when I was going through my health challenges and was out of the industry for almost three years, he (Ituah) built me my event centre and kept my business running all the time I was away. He stood in for me, attended meetings and was just there for me which, to me, was a very romantic gesture.”

In a short but impactful life and career, Elizabeth R. diversified into establishing Avant Garde – an exclusive wedding gown and party accessory firm and ‘The Dorchester’, a 3000-capacity event hall in Oniru, Victoria Island area of Lagos. Ibidunni also handled most of society’s top events, such as the wedding of Halima Babangida (daughter of ex-military head of state Ibrahim Babangida), EbonyLife TV’s Tomike Adeoye’s wedding, among many others.

“I want everyone to help me say THANK YOU to @elizabeth_r_events & @elizabeth_r_couture family. Everything you saw yesterday was a result of their hard work. The wedding was beautiful from their traditional wedding to the garden service and the wedding reception,” those were the words of Tomike singing the praises of Ibidunni for a successfully planned wedding.

Classy and highly cerebral, Ibidunni was born on July 21, 1980. After her education at the Federal Government Girls College, Oyo State, she bagged a degree in Microbiology from UNILAG.

She also founded the Ibidunni Ighodalo Foundation (IIF) which gives grants to couples in need of fertility treatments after trying In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) more than 10 times.

She worked closely with her husband and assisted him in overseeing the children’s church and the women’s ministry of the Trinity House.

Ibidunni was a lover of dogs, it was this part of her that helped her family expose one of her domestic staff’s plan to poison her husband in 2015 after testing the poison on one of her dogs.

Multiple sources said Ibidun died of cardiac arrest in the early hours of Sunday morning in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. In the past month she had worked with Bayelsa and Rivers States government, helping with the building of COVID-19 isolation centres.

Her family in a statement announcing her demise requested for privacy as they mourn.

“The Ighodalo and Olaleye Ajayi families are deeply saddened to announce the sudden loss of our beloved wife and daughter Mrs. Ibidunni Ituah-Ighodalo who passed away in the early hours of today,” a statement by Asue Ighodalo read.

“As you will understand, this is a difficult time for our families, and we will appreciate some privacy during this time. All information of burial proceedings will be provided in due course.”

In one of the most unlikely places, 80 kilometres north of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial city, a small town is making big waves.

There is something mysterious about Igbo-Ora, a peaceful town in Oyo State, Southwestern Nigeria. With an estimated population of 198,514 people, every household has a set of twins. Or more!

It is fascinating and puzzling to people visiting the town for the first time when it appears like there is a double of every face.

Though towns like this have been observed in Brazil and India, the number and frequency at which twins are born here are unique.

There are unverified statistics suggesting the town boasts 158 twins per 1,000 births.

But a study carried out by a British gynecologist, Patrick Nylander between 1972 to 1982 revealed that the town gets an average of 45 to 50 sets of twins per 1000 births. That’s almost three times more than the global average,18.

Before it became popular as a twin city, Igbo-Ora was only known as a charcoal-producing town. Most inhabitants are farmers and traders. Today, there is a Festival of Twins that enjoys state-wide celebration and draws visitors from Nigeria and elsewhere. The town is referred to as the twin capital of the world and there is a statue built in honour of twins at its entrance.

Pundits say this is remarkable, considering that it was once a taboo to have twins in Nigeria.

Several communities in Nigeria and nearby nations were known for killing twins and ostracizing their mother. It was believed that if a woman had twins, one of them had to be evil. So the twins were left in the jungle in clay pots to die. But Mary Slessor, a Scottish missionary stationed in Calabar led a campaign against the practice and successfully ended the killing of twins in Nigeria.

Twin children are now seen as a blessing, desired by many.

To create a distinction between a set of twins, especially if they are identical, South WesternNigerians call the first born twin Taiyewo (Taiwo), which means “the first to taste the world” and the second twin is named Kehinde, “the child that came behind but gets the rights of the elder.”

The people of Igbo Ora believe that their food (mainly yam or Amala eaten with soup of okra leaves commonly called ewe ilasa) is the secret to making twins. This view is supported by a research study carried out by fertility experts from the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital which explains that yams prompt the production of gonadotropins, a chemical agent that stimulates the production of eggs.

However, this position has been refuted by other experts who argue that there is no empirical evidence for the high incidence of twin births in the town as this variety of yam is eaten elsewhere around the world without the same result.

Speaking to Africa Check on the matter, Dr. Sulaiman Heylen, who currently serves as the President of the Southern African Society of Reproductive Medicine and Gynecological Endoscopy, equally contradicted the claim.

“There is no scientific evidence that yams, or any other product or food, can increase a woman’s chances of having twins,” he said.

Another possible explanation for the large number of twins being born in Igbo-Ora could be nothing more than genetics even as happy mothers insist that it is an honour and blessing from God and their diet.

A joyous mother of a set of twins once told Batabox in an interview that “it is the work of God… and the food that I eat, like Amala with Ilasa soup.”

The community leader of Igbo-Ora gave the same answer as well: “We eat a lot of the okra leaf or Ilasa soup. We also eat a lot of yam and these diets influence multiple births.”

Whatever the reason for the unusually high rate of twin births in the town, it is plausible to conclude that this is a matter of the many wonders of nature and lucky genes.

At a time when Nollywood was dominated by older women who featured more in cultural films, Adebimpe Adekola, popular on and off screen as Ireti, was the toast of both young and old. She was the poster girl of Yoruba love movies.
She was a screen goddess and one of the few most sought after relatively younger actresses who made Nollywood attractive in the late 1990s. She was part of the generation of actors who made home videos popular in the 1990s.
Born in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State, Ireti as she is fondly called in movies was a versatile and talented actress who could take on any role, from cultural to love movies.
She earned the screen name Ireti in 1993 after playing the character ‘Ireti’ in ‘Asiri Nla’ a movie by veteran Nollywood actor Jide Kosoko. From then on, the name stuck and she became popular as Ireti as many of her fans and movie lovers never knew her as Adebimpe Adekola before and after her death.
Ireti was trained as an actress by the Odunfa Caucus, one of the longest surviving theatre academies in the Yoruba movie industry. The group was founded in 1986 by veteran actors Yinka Quadri, Taiwo Hassan aka Ogogo, Razak Ajao aka Araosan, who now lives in the U.S and popular movie director Abbey Lanre.
Also trained by the Odunfa Caucus are actors like Saheed Balogun, Faithia Balogun, Yomi Fabiyi, Sanni Alli, Funke Akindele, Aina Gold, Iyabo Ojo, Kemi Afolabi and Yomi Gold.
Being an alumna of the Odunfa theatre group influenced why the tall, dark and elegant Ireti starred mostly in movies with Ogogo. Ogogo and Ireti’s affinity in movies, mostly as a couple, fuelled speculations that the duo were dating and may likely get married.
After Ogogo got married in 1994, speculations were rife that he was having an affair with Ireti.
Reacting to the speculation in a recent interview, Ogogo said: “What you perceive to be this may not be so. It was inside this very house that we are talking that we taught Ireti acting. She was my girl, my sister, my baby. Let me put it that way. She was my baby, I nurtured her and she cannot be in this group and we have a part she can perfectly play in a production and begin to look for someone from another group. Forget that we got fixed up in others and mostly played couples. Ours was not the first. It is done abroad. Though some people made that mistake about Ireti and I; that we will get married. But we had nothing like that in mind. We both knew why we were in industry. I am happily married and she was a very serious-minded person. So, there was nothing between us except a business relationship.”
Ireti died in September 2002 at a Lagos hospital after a brief illness. Her death shook Nollywood, fans and colleagues. Worse hit were her colleagues at the Odunfa theatre group who were so fond of her and wondered who would take her role after her demise. She appeared in all movies produced by the Odunfa Caucus before her death.
Some of the movies she featured in included: Ike Owo, Agba Akin, 23/24 Loro Ile Aye, Edunjobi, Sikira Ereko, among many others
When she died in 2002, she left a son Tomiwa Adekola who was just a few months old. Tomiwa is now 17 years old and said he plans to pursue a career in sports as a basketball player. Nollywood actors Yomi Fabiyi and Sunny Alli who were trained at the Odunfa Caucus shared photos of Tomiwa on social media last year.

of birth. Some are simply adored for their talent, while some are adored for their looks. But for some others, it’s both. And MacArthur Fom was one of those.

Before Ramsey Nouah became Nollywood’s poster loverboy for his good looks which ultimately landed him uncontested movie roles, millions of movie lovers had worshipped the ground Fom walked on.

Fom was born in Otukpo in Benue State and had his primary education at Our Lady of Apostle. He also attended Township School in Jos. Between 1976 and 1989, he had his secondary education and studied Mass Communication at Unijos. He started acting in primary school, playing the role of Angel Gabriel during a Christmas Carol and later joined the drama society in secondary school, where he became president.

In the mid 80s, Fom starred as Nosa in Behind the Clouds, one of a bevy of soap operas that dominated the airwaves at a time NTA held a monopoly over television broadcasting in Nigeria.

The drama series told the story of families living in Jos, with the Okonzua family being the most popular. This was due to Zack Amata‘s impeccable acting as a stern father who defiantly stood against his daughter Efe’s (Evelyn Ikuenobe-Otaigbe) music career. Efe’s younger brother Nosa, as well as their caring mother, Adesuwa (played by Franca Brown), were however, in total support of her chosen career path.

As Nosa, Fom made many women’s hearts to fluster. He was young, handsome and soft-spoken. He was a damn good actor, too.
His character’s love affair with Zainab on Behind The Clouds got many fans talking. In one of the most memorable scenes, Nosa was left with no choice but to wear Zainab’s clothes so as to escape her house after her parents returned home unexpectedly.

Fom was asked about the onscreen chemistry, and in what would turn out to be his last interview, he told The Standard newspaper reporters, Kunle Ojeleye and Kunle Alabi, “People, and sometimes the press marry actors and actresses. So also are friends who might feel that you should start thinking of the person you are acting with as being the best for you. In our case, while such pressures have come from here and there, our love relationship is limited to the stage. In reality, we hardly see each other after location and shooting. Besides, we are good friends and we know each other’s spouses.”

And just when viewers had become attached to his character and good looks, the cold hands of death struck. News made the rounds that MacArthur Fom had passed away due to complications from cerebral meningitis.

The entire country was shell-shocked. Women wailed and men gnashed their teeth, it seemed as if the mourners had lost a very dear family member. The shock of Fom’s passing didn’t immediately wear off, even for the cast of the show. Behind The Clouds was never the same and was pulled off the air shortly after, although Nosa’s passing was written into the script.

He (Nosa) was referred to as dead for the rest of Behind The Clouds’ run, though the cause of death was never mentioned. On Papa Efe’s (Zack Amata) return in one memorable episode of the show, he asked after Nosa from his wife, Adesuwa, who simply replied with “it’s a long story”, just as the scene cut to a commercial. After the commercial break, a distraught Adesuwa was only shown weeping while a visibly sad Papa Efe’s comforting hand was on her shoulder.

It was impossible to replace Fom and the show inevitably lost steam.

Fom attracted adoration from millions of people across the country and we are only left to wonder what could’ve been, if the messenger of death had been kinder to the young, handsome and blossoming actor.

Arguably, the best thing that’s consistently created positive value for Nigeria has been its entertainment industry. Nigerian entertainers are building a multi-billion dollar industry in spite of the government. Nollywood is growing in leaps and bounds, Nigerian music is taking over the world and our stand-up comedians are getting ready to go global. It’s all happening.
As the comics are warming up for Netflix specials and Staples Centre gigs, a new sub-industry is blowing up rapidly on the Internet. Armed with smartphones, Wifi, and active social media accounts, dozens of Nigerian youth are now making a legit hustle out of making people laugh online. And they are multiplying everyday.
Experts say the Nigerian comedy skit industry is now one of the top five in the world, going beyond the shores of Nigeria to the Instagram pages of international stars like Diddy and smartphones of audiences all over the world. From very popular Mark Angel Comedy and Emmanuella, to eternal job seeker Frank Donga, multiple personality Maraji, troublesome barrister MC Lively, chronic ranter Lasisi Elenu, ever angry mother and daughter combo Taaooma and the ambitious Alhaji Nedu, there are now hundreds of popular names and faces making it big.
Tech company Plaqad says it has paid over $300,000 to influencers in the past two years. The average income for a skit per influencer is around $1000 and it is increasing. Some commission up to five skits in a week alongside other auxiliary types of content which brands are willing to pay for. Do the math.
“The going rate depends on the client and what they want to achieve,” Maraji told Ebuka on the “Rubbin’ Minds” show in 2018. “It is also different from creator to creator but on average I’ll say my fees are around N500,000.”
All of these people and the many others like them on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Tik Tok are making money from brands Pepsi, Coca Cola, MTN, DSTV, Nigerian Breweries, 9Mobile and Budweiser, as well as from Youtube and Facebook. “It is a great, easy way to do something legitimate and still make decent money,” says Joe (not his real name), an aspiring comedy skit creator. “With your phone, internet and basic video editing skills you can become a superstar. Who wouldn’t want to jump on that?”
The revenue for skits has now overtaken that for stand up comedy. But away from their phones and laptops, most of the skit makers cannot perform live for various reasons. Sometimes organising something of such is expensive and other times, the skill to be able to perform live for an audience is missing. Many of them are now taking up roles in Nollywood movies while plotting their next move.
As unemployment levels continue to rise and access to technology continues to grow, the right conditions seem to be falling into place for this sub-industry to explode. If it does, the creators and entrepreneurs able to build scalable businesses off the back of it will be the biggest winners. Either way it goes, we are here for it

The January 15, 1966 coup led by an Igbo military officer – Kaduna Nzeogwu, altered the Nigerian political system. Fifty four years after the brutal coup and the counter-coup six months after, Nigeria is yet to heal from the consequences of the action of a group of aggrieved officers.

The coup widely believed to be an Igbo coup against the north and other ethnic groups claimed the lives of Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier of the northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Minister of Finance, Okotie Eboh, Premier of Western Region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola among others while Nnamdi Azikwe, an Igbo man was spared.

The list of casualties gave some credence to the claim that it was planned by the Igbos against other ethnic groups but many Igbo scholars including late Chinua Achebe have dispelled this claim. Six months after the coup, another group of young northern military officers staged a counter coup. It was in July 1966. This incident would later snowball into a declaration of secession by the Igbos.

But before the declaration of Biafra Republic, a group of young men from a minority ethnic group – the Ijaws, who also frowned at the January 1966 coup had declared their independence from Nigeria. This is the story of what happened.

The Ijaws, with an estimated population of 15 million people, inhabit Ondo, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Akwa Ibom and Rivers state in the oil-rich Niger Delta area of Nigeria. According to the account of Ambassador Boladei Igali, Isaac Adaka Boro who was in his late 20s then, had questioned the legitimacy of the violent coup that toppled the government and needless show of disrespect for the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions.

Five weeks later he proclaimed the republic of Niger Delta. Across the world, secession is not new. Branches and units within a state at one point or the other always counter each other and make moves to breakaway. Bangladesh, South Sudan, Panama, Uruguay and many other countries were born through acts of secession. Recently, Catalonia has also been making moves to secede from Spain. Although it has failed in Nigeria in the past, the two secession attempts of 1966 and 1967 hold an important part in the country’s history. The first was declared in February 1966 by Isaac Boro at age 27 while Chukwuemeka Ojukwu declared the second secession in May 1967 at age 33.

The Man Isaac Adaka Boro

True to his nickname – Adaka which means Lion in Ijaw – Boro was a radical and restless freedom fighter. Born September 10, 1938, in Oloibiri (Bayelsa) where crude oil was first discovered in Nigeria, his father, Pepple Boro, was a school headmaster and in his autobiography – ‘Twelve day revolution’, Boro described how he moved with his parents to different towns whenever his father was transferred to head a school.

“Before I was old enough to know my surroundings, I was already in a city called Port Harcourt where my father was again the headmaster of another mission school. This was in the early forties. The next environment where I found myself was in my hometown, Kaiama. My father had been sent there to head a school yet again,” he wrote.

After secondary school in Warri, present day Delta state, like his father, he took up a teaching job before later joining the police force. In 1961, he obtained a scholarship from the Eastern Regional Government to study at University of Nigeria (UNN).

After two failed attempts, Boro emerged Students’ Union Government President for the 1964/65 session. His popularity soared. He claimed that ‘tribalism’, which relegated the Ijaw to the position of ‘strangers’ within their own region, was the cause of his two failed attempts to become Students’ Union President.

The 12-day Niger Delta Republic

When he left UNN in 1965, Boro moved to Lagos, where with other Ijaw likeminds, Samuel Owonaro (son of the first Ijaw person to write a ‘History of the Ijaw’), and Nottingham Dick, he founded a political movement, called the Integrated WXYZ, which advocated greater control of the benefits of oil wealth for the Ijaw. Boro, who was said to have strong admiration for Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa (the ‘protector’ of all Ijaws according to Boro), strongly condemned the coup that led to his assasination and said Ironsi’s emergence as Head of State convinced him that revolution was the only way out for the Ijaw. He advocated a rejection of the new regime.

On February 23, 1966, a few weeks after the January 1966 military coup and after training hundreds of young men in a militia camp behind his father’s compound in Kaiama, Boro and his comrades made history by proclaiming the Niger Delta Republic which lasted for only 12 days.

His proclamation was the first time the unity of Nigeria would be put to test and it was forcefully restricted by the federal government under General Aguiyi Ironsi and the Governor of the Eastern region Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, who ironically, would make the same move a year later.

Boro’s younger brother, David told The Punch in a recent interview that their father was aware of the plan, even if he did not approve. ‘‘Our father advised him against it and told him to face his studies because he was a student.”

He was so radical and courageous that as a student, he dragged the Federal Government to court seeking the nullification of the 1963 general election. When he proclaimed the Niger Delta Republic in February 1966, Boro argued that the region where the nation’s wealth comes from had suffered years of neglect and underdevelopment. He also condemned the suppression of minority ethnic groups and the January 15, 1966 coup.

In his declaration speech he said: “Today is a great day, not only in your lives but also in the history of the Niger Delta. Perhaps, it will be the greatest day for a very long time. This is not because we are going to bring the heavens down, but because we are going to demonstrate to the world what and how we feel about oppression.”

Boro added: “Remember your 70-year-old grandmother who still farms before she eats; remember also your poverty-stricken people; remember, too, your petroleum which is being pumped out daily from your veins; and then fight for your freedom.”

He had envisioned a Niger Delta Republic economically independent to transform its landscape with its resources which many believed were being used to develop other regions at the expense of the Niger Delta. Boro also wanted to draw attention to the plight of the Niger Delta region and set it free from the dominance of other major ethnic groups.

Some historians have argued that Boro’s proclamation and advocacy were more of a provocation than a genuine succession attempt. South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar, Ruth First as quoted by Kathryn Nwajiaku, was also of the opinion that Boro and his men were in league with senior Northern officers, and had wanted to use the threat of revolution to trigger the imposition of a state of emergency by the Northern-led Federal government prior to the first coup.

David, his younger brother confirms this, saying his brother received support from the North before the declaration, “Isaac Boro did not just start the 12-Day Revolution and decided to declare a Niger Delta Republic. There was some degree of encouragement from the North.” Boro himself admitted to having close ties with the Balewa government.

On the likelihood of success, Boro had said: “As for success, it was … better to call the attention of the world to the fact that the inhabitants of the Niger Delta in Nigeria were feeling very uncomfortable… Let the success be a magnanimous grant from Lord Providence.”

The confrontation between the NDVF and the Nigerian forces which is widely known as ‘The Twelve-day Revolution’ led to the death of over 150 people. The armed militia led by Boro was overpowered by the Nigerian forces, while Boro and Samuel Owonaru who was the Chief of Staff of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force and other leaders of the militia group were arrested and charged for treason. When they appeared before Justice Phil-Ebosie of the Port Harcourt High Court. They were sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life in jail.

“And honestly speaking, looking back today, he did the right thing,” David said. “If he had not made the move at that time, the Ijaw people would not have been politically emancipated.”

In August 1967, after Ojukwu declared the Biafran Republic, Boro and his comrades were released by the Yakubu Gowon-government and enlisted in the Nigerian Army to fight in the civil war on the side of the Nigerian government against the Biafra. Boro was allowed to recruit his own force of about 1,000 soldiers whom ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo described as “ill-disciplined, hurriedly and poorly trained Rivers men,” in his book ‘My Command’.

Before the end of the war, Boro was killed in 1969 after a number of much-celebrated victories against the Biafran forces. His death sparked controversies as many claimed he was murdered by his commanding officer, Col. Benjamin Adekunle, who was said to be jealous of Boro’s rapid rise and the success of his force. Owonaru, his ally, also sustained a near-fatal injury that condemned him to a wheelchair until his death in June 2020.

Boro’s remains were excavated from the Ikoyi cemetery in April 2013 and re-buried at Heroes Park in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State on Saturday May 18, 2013. Major Isaac Boro is survived by Roseline Agidi Boro, a retired Superintendent of Police and his three children.

In 1982, Nigeria’s president Shehu Shagari conferred a posthumous national honour on him. His daughter Esther was also appointed as a Special Assistant on Health to former governor of Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson.

The Bayelsa State government has also declared May 16 as Isaac Boro day to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Ijaw war hero.

In the late 1960 to early 1970s, before Ishola Oyenusi began his illicit armed robbery trade that kept residents and security operatives awake, Lagos knew relative peace with very scarce cases of armed robbery in the city. But the peace soon became history when Oyenusi dipped his feet into the armed robbery business terrorising Lagos and other southwest states.In the history of crime in Nigeria, the name of Ishola Oyenusi aka ‘Dr Rob and Kill’ can never be erased. He was a daredevil armed robber and expert at what he did. If robbery was a course in an institution, Oyenusi would probably graduate with a first class degree and would likely be retained as a lecturer in the faculty to pass on his knowledge to those behind him.Abubakar Tsav, a former Lagos Commissioner of Police who was an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in Lagos during the notorious days of Oyenusi told The Punch in March 2020 that “he (Oyenusi) was an expert robber and was ruthless and very notorious because that was the first time we experienced a case of armed robbery”.Tsav is no doubt at a vantage position to paint the picture of the ruthlessness of Oyenusi having witnessed, first hand, the days of his reign of terror as a police officer. He was only comparable to Lawrence Anini who confined his reign of terror to Bendel State (present day Edo and Delta states).He specialised in carjacking, robbing banks and factories, armed with native charms and weapons – Dane guns and the rest, the lives of his victims had no value to him, he wasted them at will in the most gruesome manner after dispossessing them of their valuables. During one of his several expeditions, Oyenusi was said to have attacked a factory in Ikeja in March 1971, killing a police officer on guard and carted away £28,000 (the official currency at that time). During another deadly operation, Oyenusi was said to have dispossessed a man of his car along Herbert Macaulay Road in Yaba, Lagos, shot him dead and sold the vehicle for £400 then gave the proceeds to his girlfriend.Though he had no medical training, he preferred to be called ‘doctor’. The perception at that time was that he was invincible and possessed some mystical powers that could make him appear anywhere when his name was mentioned, this created fears in the mind of the people and even security operatives who avoided mentioning his name.“Some policemen were afraid of him. Many of them were scared of mentioning his name,” Tsav said. “They thought he could suddenly appear in their midst with the mention of his name.”After evading arrests at different times, the law finally caught up with Oyenusi in 1971 when he was arrested, tried before the Military tribunal and executed by firing squad on September 8, 1971 with his gang members at the Lagos Bar Beach. Thousands of residents gathered at the beach to watch the end of the man whose name and presence in the neighbourhood brought palpable fear, sorrow, tears and blood.Up to the point of his execution, Oyenusi was so confident it was not the end of the road for him. “When he was arrested, he kept on boasting that he would escape and that was why he was kept under strict security watch,” Tsav said. “He believed he had mystical powers that could make him disappear, and that if we shot him, the bullet would not penetrate.”He missed it, at that point all the charms he depended on failed him, it was clear that whatever grass the charm was made of had withered and the flowers had faded, it was all over for the man who threw many homes into mourning and turned many into sudden widows, orphans and widowers. It was a sad end for Oyenusi, but the beginning of relief for the populace and end to a reign of terror.“Oyenusi smiles to his death,” read the lead story on the front page of Daily Times newspaper the morning after his execution.Despite his public execution alongside other members of his gang, the fear of Oyenusi did not clear off easily in the land, it was so prevalent at that time that in 1977, six years after his death, no actor was willing to play his role in a movie by veteran movie director, Eddie Ugbomah, titled “The Rise and Fall of Dr. Oyenusi”.“Everyone feared retribution from the “Dr.s” gang, so the director played the role (of Oyenusi) himself,” Frank Ukadike wrote in his book “Black African Cinema”.37 years later, Nollywood actor, Odunlade Adekola, made another attempt at retelling Oyenusi’s story. This time without any fear of retribution, ‘Oyenusi’ was released in 2014 to tell the story of the life and atrocities of the dreaded armed robber. The movie was a huge success.Though his life and atrocities have been adapted into movies, Oyenusi lived a far more ruthless life than Nollywood could depict him.

Some call her the ‘Queen of the Tube’, others call her the television goddess. To another group of Nigerians, she is the ‘Queen of Nigerian Television’. Julie Coker was one of the pioneer broadcasters when Africa’s first television station was launched in Nigeria in 1959. For over three decades she was the delight of many viewers on Western Nigeria TV (WNTV) and later the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).

Coker’s journey to becoming a broadcasting legend started when she was only a teenager and she made good use of the opportunity brought by stardom to etch her name in the honours roll of Nigerian broadcasters.

Before the media career beckoned, Coker already built a reputation at age 17 as a star from her secondary school after featuring in the Festival of Arts and Culture. Her photos made it to the pages of The Daily Times Newspaper, Nigeria’s most popular daily at that time.

On WNTV, Coker enchanted viewers. In a career that lasted over 30 years in the public service, she was one of the best the Nigerian broadcast industry ever produced. And many agree that her rise to fame was magical. Born July 25, 1940 to an Egba, Ogun State father and an Itsekiri, Delta State mother, Coker grew up with her mother in Lagos and attended Holy Child College, Obalende, in Lagos.

“People thought I adopted the name Coker but my father was from the Coker family in Abeokuta. I speak Yoruba fluently to communicate with my father’s family but I was not living with them. I lived with my mother most of the time because I was her only child,” she said in a 2011 interview.

Back in 1957, she represented her school in a festival of arts and that event marked her break into the media world. Her performance made the news and her photo was featured in the Daily Times Newspaper. After secondary school, Coker took up a teaching job at Our Lady of Apostles Convent School in Warri, Delta State. While on the job, she found an advertisement for a Miss Western Nigeria competition. Her friends submitted her photos for the competition and she was crowned Miss Western Nigeria in 1958. That same year, she was also a runner-up at the Miss Nigeria contest. That moment officially marked her foray into mainstream media.

She recounted: “a friend who had seen that photo of mine that was published in Daily Times said, ‘why don’t we send Julie’s picture which had appeared in the papers earlier?’ So she put her picture and mine and sent them to Daily Times. A week after, we found ourselves as candidates selected for an interview in Ibadan…and, to my greatest surprise, I won the competition.”

She eventually got her break into broadcasting in 1959, at age 19, when she got a job at the Western Nigerian Television (WNTV), in Ibadan, Oyo State where she became the second female presenter at the station.

Despite having no university education at that time, when she appeared on screen that same year, Coker said her experience as a stage actress in secondary school had imbued in her the confidence needed to face the camera and helped her complete her internship under two weeks when it took others six months.

“Already I was grounded in stagecraft, and it wasn’t difficult for me to face the camera, with all humility,” she recounted in an interview with The Sun Newspaper.
“I wasn’t particularly disturbed by the audience at home but the people in the studio, who were calling the shots. My internship didn’t last for two weeks, but some people said it took them up to six months. Ambassador (Segun) Olusola was very helpful in putting me through.”

She was one of the three people including Charity Adadevoh and Segun Smith nominated by the first Information Minister, TOS Benson, for a study visit to the U.S. “I was the first person to be sent abroad. I was attached to Norridge television and later I came to BBC,” Coker said.

Coker set another milestone as the first female television presenter to cast the flagship news, a role reserved for only male broadcasters at the time on NTA Lagos.

On the day history was to be made, there was no male presenter on ground at the time for the news hour. As the broadcaster available, she was summoned to read the news and from then, female broadcasters were allowed to read the news on NTA Lagos. Pundits say that was the giant step that opened the door for other female broadcasters.

Before she retired in 1993, she moved from being in front of the camera to the commercial department, in a transitional marketing function.

And she was not just an extraordinary broadcasting career. Julie Coker starred in a 1975 film, Dinner with the Devil. She also tried her hands on music, releasing three albums under E.M.I. Music. American singer Anderson Paak, sampled her 1970s record ‘Ere Yon’ on his track ‘Savier’s Road’ which featured on the album ‘Oxnard’.

All these feats wouldn’t have been possible if she had resigned to her fate as a child bride, when she was barely 14.

Recounting how she almost ended up as another victim of child marriage, Coker told Vanguard in a 2010 interview that she had visited her sick mother in her village in Delta State. Upon recovery, her mother’s aunt took her to Sapele where she promised to send her to Lagos, “but it turned out my aunt had made plans for me to be married off to a rich man in Sapele,” she said.

Narrating her encounter with the potential groom, she said: “I was taken to a big house, a beautiful storey building where I met a huge man with a very imposing figure. He had other wives and wanted another one and I was given to him at age 14.”

“I learnt they paid a huge bride price for me because I had a Standard Six certificate and was in secondary school. I was too shocked and I just sat there, frightened and shivering alone and my grand aunt disappeared. It was her mother’s younger sister who came to the house of the groom to rescue her and send her back to Lagos to continue her education.

“She grabbed my hand and we made good our escape. She was the person that went to town to look for money. She hid me somewhere in the village and the next morning, she took me to the garage, paid my fare, gave me some money and sent me back to Lagos to continue my education. Eventually, I was lucky to get a scholarship that saw me through my education,” she reminisced.

According to UNICEF, Nigeria has the largest number of child brides in West and Central Africa, at 22 million, accounting for 40 percent of all child brides in the region, with 18 percent married by age 15 and 44 percent married by age 18.

While Julie Coker was lucky enough to have escaped child marriage in 1954 – 66 years ago- and went on to become great in her career, the dream of many young girls are still being shattered following the practice of child marriage which is still prevalent in Northern Nigeria and other parts of the country.

Coker married Mike Enahoro, her colleague and a veteran broadcaster who died on October 9, 2015 aged 76. Their union lasted for nine years with three children. She lost one as a toddler, lost Richard, a sickle cell patient in 2004 and her last surviving child Michael died in 2018 at age 59. Since she retired from NTA in 1993, she has had her programme – ‘Julie’s World’ and also hosted children’s programmes. She has also written many books.

“I have written about my 30 years on TV. I have written some children’s stories which I have given out as souvenirs to mark some of the events in my life. In the last 15 years, I have been living in England and I have been involved with some TV stations out there,” she told journalists in a rare 2017 interview. Coker now runs a non-profit organisation – ‘The Richard Coker Foundation’, named after her son Richard.

The 80-year-old former beauty queen and broadcasting legend is yet to be conferred with a national honour by the Nigerian government.

Ibadan, the Oyo State capital and the largest city in West Africa didn’t just earn its place as the political capital of Nigeria’s southwest region, over 120 years ago after the fall of the old Oyo empire, the city started playing the role of a big brother to other towns in Yorubaland. Assigning District Officers popularly known as ‘Ajeles’ to several towns under its authority and extracting tributes from their colonies.

The collapse of the old Oyo Empire in the beginning of the 19th century due to the attack by the Muslim Fulani Emirate established at Ilorin, left a leadership vacuum that would provide an effective military check to any further encroachment by the Fulani on Yoruba territories. Ibadan’s status as a war camp and the influx of soldiers to the settlement in its early years, positioned it to rise to become the ‘mother hen’ shielding towns in the Eastern parts of Yorubaland from the encroaching Fulanis.

The effective opposition posed by the Ibadan army to the Fulani Jihadist forces earned it loyalty from major settlements in the eastern half of the Oyo Empire to Ibadan. By the mid-1870s, the Ibadan Empire was made up of Ibarapa, metropolitan Ibadan, Ife, Osun, Ijesa, Ekiti, Akoko and most of Igbomina. Ibadan then started posting Ajeles (district officers) to towns under its territories.

However, the overbearing lifestyle of the Ajeles started creeping in, they became too power drunk and the Ekiti people and other towns who could no longer bear their oppression had to revolt.

Cause of the war:

The war was said to have gotten its name Kiriji from the thunderous sound ‘kiriji’ of the cannon guns which the Ekitiparapo forces acquired for the war. Although there are several accounts on the cause of the war, chiefly among them was the desire for freedom from Ibadan’s dominance, this is why many historians called the war – the fight for freedom. By 1877, Ibadan had made a lot of enemies who formed an alliance under Ekitiparapo to revolt against the Ibadan Empire.

Adewale Adeoye, a journalist wrote “In my personal encounter with the current Aare Latoosa, he told me that his great grandfather, Latoosa, had consulted the Ifa oracle. He said the oracle told the ancient Latoosa that some ‘Albinos’ were coming to dominate Yorubaland and take over her resources. The oracle then told the Aare to build a single force to repel them on behalf of the Yoruba nation. The Albino is believed to be the white colonialists who later came.” The Albino is believed to be the British colonialists who later came into Africa.

Composition of the alliance:

The Ibadan army, which camped at Igbajo, was led by a generalissimo Aare Obadoke Latoosa, the 12th Aare Ona Kakanfo, while the Ekitiparapo led by a renowned warrior Saraibi Ogedengbe (famously known as Ogedengbe Agbogungboro), the Balogun of Ijeshaland, comprised of war leaders from Ilesa, Ekiti, Efon, Yagba, and Akoko. Others were Baloguns from Ila, Otun Ekiti and Akure while the Elekole, the Alara, the Alaaye and Ajero personally led their own contingents to Oke-Imesi to fight under the leadership of Ogedengbe.

Ilorin supported Ekitiparapo, Egba and Ijebu also closed their trade routes to the coast against Ibadan so that their troops would not be able to obtain arms and ammunition. Ibadan at the center, was fighting at five different war fronts – the Ilorins camped at Offa Ibadan’s ally) in the north, Ekitiparapo and Ile-Ife (joined in 1882) in the east, Egba and the Ijebus in the west. Despite the overwhelming alliance against Ibbadan, these five forces could not defeat Ibadan before a stalemate was reached in 1893.

The Ondos and the Mahins in present day Ilaje local government area of Ondo State did not participate in the war while Oke Oguns in Oyo State and the Egbados now known as Yewas in the western part of Ogun state were also said to be passive spectators in the war.

How it ended:

While the war raged, the British colonial government in Lagos stood aloof because it did not affect its economic interest, after a series of condemnations, it finally waded into the crisis.

After years of killing, fierce battle, unrelenting power tussle, massive destruction of communities and properties, the warring parties signed a treaty to end the war in September 1886. According to Aribidesi Adisa Usman and Toyin Falola in ‘The Yoruba from Prehistory to the Present’, the Treaty stipulated that:

– Members of Ekitiparapo be granted autonomy

– The warring sides should respect the territorial boundaries of one another in the future

– The Alaafin should retain the position relative to the Owa of Ilesa before the war – the status of an elder to a younger brother.

– The boundaries between Ekitiparapo and Ibadan would stay as they were at the time of the agreement and the inhabitants of Otan-Ayegbaju, Iresi, Ada and Igbajo who wanted to stay with their Ekiti and Ijesa kin were free to migrate, but the towns would remain in the hands of Ibadan.

– The Ilorin-Ibadan contest over Offa would be resolved later

– The people of Modakeke would leave Ife territory and move to Ibadan area between the Osun and Oba rivers and those who wish to stay were to move to Ife.

– Ijebu and Ibadan were to sign a peace agreement and the Ijebu forces would remove their camp near Modakeke and return home.

On September 23, 1886, the Acting Colonial Secretary, Henry Higgins, Queen’s Advocate, Oliver Smith, and other delegates from Lagos with the representatives of Ibadan, Ekitiparapo, Ife, Ijebu and the Alaafin present, peace was announced before the warring parties and their camps were destroyed.

Despite the signing of the treaty in 1886, the war didn’t bring immediate peace due to some unresolved matters on the Ilorin-Ibadan front, the Ijebu front and the Ile-Ife-Modakeke front. The clause in the treaty asking the Modakeke to relocate from their town to another site did not go down well with them, this still results in communal clash up till this present age. The Ilorin did not attend the peace meeting and they continued their scramble for Offa with Ibadan.

One of the historical sites in Igbajo (Ibadan soldiers’ camp) in Boluwaduro Local Government Area of Osun State that played a crucial role in the war was the Fejeboju Stream formerly called Eleriko Stream. It is said to be a symbolic and mysterious stream that provided spiritual cleansing to the casualties and wounded warriors. Victims went to the stream to wash blood from their wounds. With its therapeutic powers, the water from the stream was also used to remove bullets from the wounded warriors. It supplied water to both the Ibadan and Ekitiparapo Confederation camps.

If the Yorubas had not gone to war against themselves and were united, historians said with the kind of soldiers the Yorubas had at that time, about 500,000, it would have built an indomitable force that would make it very difficult for the British to make an inroad into the region to colonise it.

Although General Murtala Muhammed is the main figure on the 20 Naira note, there’s a woman at the flipside of the bill who is set in her craft, rolling the potter’s wheel.

Her name is Ladi Kwali.

A talented potter from the village of Kwali in the Gwari area of what is now called the Federal Capital Territory, FCT. She was born in 1925 and though she never had a formal education, she was one of the most influential women of art in modern Nigeria.

Ladi Kwali came from a family of artists where pottery was a female tradition. Normally, these women would practice their vocation in obscurity, but Kwali was like the proverbial golden fish. She had a unique talent that could not be hidden.

She had a ravenous mind as a child and this prompted her aunt to start teaching her pottery at an early age. She learned how to use a traditional method of throwing clay with hands and pinching it into shape.

She excelled in the crafts and her wares were often sold even before they were taken to the markets.

She later set out on her own and moved to Suleja. It was from there she made figurative patterned pots that were used as water jars, cooking pots, bowls, and flasks from coils of clay. Her pots were noted for their beauty of form and decoration.

It wasn’t long before her work was used as decorative pieces in homes of prominent Nigerians including the Emir of Abuja.

In 1954, she joined the Abuja Pottery as its first female potter. This was where she developed her skills in the modern European method of pottery under Michael Cardew. Cardew was a studio potter who was appointed as the Pottery Officer by the colonial government in 1951. He established the Abuja Pottery Training Centre. She returned the favour by teaching Cardew the traditional pottery skills.

Over time, her ceramics became incredible pieces of art that gained prominence in Europe and America. Her works were shown in Berkeley Galleries in London. And during Nigeria’s independence celebration in 1960, her pottery was displayed as a tribute to Nigeria’s artistic talent and craftsmanship.

This shot her to global limelight. She was invited to give lectures and demonstrations across Britain, France, and Germany. In 1962, she was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). About a decade later in 1972, she toured America with Cardew.

By the time the 20 naira note was being introduced in January 1973, Ladi Kwali was featured on the money as a display of Nigeria’s rich artistry which she embodied. This made her the first and only woman to feature in the Nigerian currency.

Her influence kept growing and in 1977 Ladi Kwali was offered an honorary doctoral degree from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria. She then joined the university as a part-time lecturer despite not knowing how to read or write. She was later invested with the insignia of the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award (NNOM), the highest national honour for academic achievement by the federal government in 1980.

A year later, she also received the national honour of the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON).

She died three years after, in 1984 at the age of 59. Her achievements were immortalized by renaming the Abuja Pottery to Ladi Kwali Pottery. A major street in Abuja, Ladi Kwali Road was also named after her.

Not much is known about her family life, but it is believed that though she was married, she had no children. She left behind a rich legacy of pottery which is still celebrated today.

In 1971, the Lagos Bar Beach gained global recognition for something entirely different from what beach fronts across the world are known for – it became the execution ground for convicted armed robbers and coup plotters by firing squad. But it wasn’t always that way, it was a fun spot.

Before the now famous Elegushi Beach, Oniru Beach and other sea fronts became hubs of fun seekers in Lagos, the Bar Beach located along Ahmadu Bello Way in Victoria Island used to be the go to place for picnic, to wine and unwind. However, the rising cases of crime in different parts of the country and activities of coup plotters changed the fortune of Bar Beach to an execution ground.

The disturbing and daring activities of notorious armed robbers like Ishola Oyenusi aka Doctor in the late 1960s to early 1970s prompted the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon who was the then Head of State to promulgate the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Decree of 1970, to send all convicted criminals to the firing squad.

A former Lagos Police Commissioner Abubakar Tsav in a recent interview with The Punch said the decree “was promulgated to serve as a deterrent to others and that was the only language they (criminals) understood. The government was very concerned and that was why the decree was made”.

What partly contributed to the rise in criminal activities during that time was the civil war. A wave of armed robberies followed the civil war which pitched other parts of Nigeria against the Igbos over its declaration of secession from Nigeria following the counter coup of 1966. The coup claimed the lives of many Igbos in the Nigerian Army.

Many of the notorious armed robbers who etched their names in Nigeria’s history books of dreaded criminals became prominent after the 30‐month civil war which ended in 1970. Many accounts say some returning soldiers also channeled their military skills to aiding criminals, while others sold guns and ammunition on a glutted market.

The casualties were not only those who died in the war just like renowned poet John pepper Clark wrote in his famous poem “The Casualties”, the living also shared in the suffering and humanitarian crisis caused by the war.

“The population of the cities doubled, stretching communications, services and tempers to the limit. Inflation and blood pressure soared, and violence became increasingly commonplace,” a report in the New York Times of March 19, 1979 read.

While criminals were terrorising the cities, soldiers who held grudges against the military hierarchy and the government in power also strategised to overthrow the government through coups. When such plans fail, the coup plotters knew their fate was death by firing squad at the Bar Beach.

Robbery kingpins like Babatunde Folorunsho aka ‘Baba oni lace’, Ishola Oyenusi aka Dr Rob and Kill alongside members of his gang became the first set of armed robbers to be publicly executed by firing squad at Bar Beach on September 8, 1971. His second-in-command Isiaka Busari (aka Mighty Joe), who carried on with the nefarious trade also fell before a firing squad on the Bar Beach in 1973.

Youpelle Dakuro, an army deserter who was said to be an expert in daylight robbery could not escape the rain of bullets on the beach. Then Lawrence Anini aka “the Law”, the fiery armed robber who terrorised Benin City and other communities in then Bendel State (now Edo and Delta States) was executed before a firing squad on the Bar Beach with his gang members on March 29, 1987.

A former defense minister, Major General I. D. Bisalla, and 29 others were also executed at the Bar Beach in March 1976 for their role in the February 13, 1976 coup attempt that led to the death of former Head of State, General Murtala Muhammed, his driver, an aide and a military governor of Kwara State, Colonel Ibrahim Taiwo.

According to the New York Times, there was always a radio announcement inviting spectators to the public execution which attracted a boisterous crowd of thousands. The crowd most of whom had lived under fear of attacks by the dreaded armed robbers usually lined the road along the beach to catch a glimpse of the end of the men who terrorised the nation either as armed robbers or coup plotters.

Before their execution, the convicts were tied to a stake and blindfolded, and a squad of rifle-bearing soldiers take up positions in front of them and fire them until they were sure they are all dead. The transition from military rule to democracy led to a decline in the number of convicted criminals executed by the government. Following calls from within and outside the country for the abolition of public execution and capital punishment, in 2003, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo put a moratorium in place which temporarily halted execution of criminals.

Obasanjo’s moratorium on executions did not stop courts from sentencing people to death. The death penalty is still on the statute books in Nigeria, and the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 does not prohibit its application.

“Public execution is very brutal. It doesn’t portray us well in the eyes of the international community,” Tsav said in a recent interview commending the abolition of public execution of criminals. “So, as far as I’m concerned, the cessation of public executions is very good”.

In present day Lagos, the Bar Beach is gone. What used to be an execution ground and fun spot now houses the Eko Atlantic City – a residential and business district standing on 10 million square metres of land reclaimed from the ocean and protected by an 8.5 kilometre-long sea wall.

Akinwumi Ambode, then governor of Lagos, while unveiling the Eko Black Pearl Tower, one of the residential high rise buildings located in the Eko Atlantic City in November 2016 said “It will improve the economy of the State, increase the internally generated revenue, and translate to further employment opportunities for our unemployed youths.”

To the British colonialists, Madam Efunroye Tinubu the first Iyalode of Egbaland and ex-Queen of Lagos, was a slave merchant who amassed a lot of fortune from the illicit trade and refused to quit when the Atlantic slave trade was abolished, while to natives, she was a business tycoon, an indomitable Iyalode and a powerful kingmaker who was actively involved in the enthronement of kings in the 18th and 19th Century Lagos and Egbaland.

She is one of the prominent personalities in business, politics and economy of 19th Century Nigeria. She was so powerful that they had to banish her from Lagos after exerting so much power and influence on the natives and the King.

Named Efunporoye Osuntinubu Lumosa (shortened as Efunroye Tinubu) after her birth in 1805 at Gbagura, in present day Abeokuta North Local Government Area of Ogun State. Osun-ti-inu-ibu-wa as her name is fully pronounced (the child given by Osun, the river goddess) was the daughter of Nijeede and Olumosa, a wealthy man in Gbagura.

It will not be out of place to say she was born with a silver spoon, her upbringing amid affluence in Lumosa’s compound in Gbagura bears testament to this. Despite having no formal education, she was a shrewd business woman and a smart investor who knew where to put her money – she acquired a lot of landed properties in Lagos. She must have adopted business sense from years of learning market skills from her grandmother, Osunsola, who traded in tree bark, roots, herbs, and leaves and her mother, Nijeede, a food seller.

Historians described Tinubu as a beautiful woman, when she was 20, she married an Owu man (Owu, also in Abeokuta, is the hometown of former President Olusegun Obasanjo) and their union produced two sons.

After the death of her first husband, she started trading tree bark and leaves and got financial support from her father for her new trade. In 1833 Tinubu remarried Prince Adele Ajosun, a deposed Oba of Lagos who had visited Abeokuta after he was dethrone and Oba Esinlokun took his position.

Tinubu’s marriage to Prince Adele launched her into the position of affluence, wealth and authority and she would later relocate to Badagry in Lagos with her new husband. It was in Badagry that Tinubu lost her two sons to malaria and also expanded her business activities, adding tobacco, arms and ammunition and slaves trading. Badagry was the meeting point for international and local business activities in Lagos at that time, it was the point of export and import of all forms of merchandise including slaves.

Around 1834–35, when Oba Idewu Ojulari (Esinlokun’s successor) died, the kingmakers, who were against Prince Kosoko’s candidacy, invited Adele back from exile to be Oba of Lagos for a second time. This opened the door for Tinubu to become a Queen in Lagos. Two years into his second term on the throne, Adele died in 1837. By that time Tinubu had become so influential that she helped her stepson Oluwole ascend the throne as the new Oba.

She married the Oba’s military advisor, Yesefu Bada. After Oluwole’s death, Tinubu was also instrumental to Akitoye’s emergence as the new king, and her political influence grew mightily. However, in 1845, Tinubu and Bada went into exile in Badagry when war broke out between the Oba and his nephew, Kosoko, who had always seen himself as the rightful heir to the throne. Akitoye was exiled and fled to Badagry to join Tinubu and her husband.

In Badagry, she continued to expand her business, traded in palm oil and firearms and monopolised slave trade by preventing the Europeans from dealing directly with the natives which exponentially increased her wealth. She was the middleman between the slave seeking Europeans and the local merchants.

The British bombarded Lagos in 1851, dislodged Kosoko from the throne, and reinstated Akitoye after signing a treaty to outlaw slave trade, Tinubu continued to secretly trade slaves for guns with Brazilians and Portuguese traders. Akitoye also allocated lands to Tinubu which created animosity between the king and some prominent natives.

During her lifetime, she was instrumental to the installation of three kings in Lagos – Oluwole, Akitoye and Dosunmu sealing her place as a formidable Lagos kingmaker. During Dosunmu’s reign, Tinubu continued to exert so much power and influence that many started seeing her as a threat.

In 1855, she led a campaign against the repatriated slaves in Lagos for using their wealth and power against Dosunmu, and for subverting the customs of Lagos. Many of the returnees, also called Saro, were favored by the British in commerce and soon began dominating legitimate trade in Lagos. Her revolt against the Saros and powerful Brazilians and Sierra-Leoneans immigrant traders led the British Consul, Benjamin Campbell, to instigate Dosunmu to expel Tinubu and her followers from Lagos to Abeokuta in 1856.

Location didn’t limit her, in Abeokuta, Tinubu further expanded her business. During the Dahomey invasion of 1863, history says she contributed to the successful defence of Egba town, for this she was rewarded with the title of Iyalode in 1864. She was the first Iyalode of Egba, this gave her more political power in her hometown and secured her a seat among the men piloting the affairs of Egbaland. This also gave her a voice in the selection and installation of kings in Egba.

From Abeokuta, she opposed colonial policies in Lagos. Up till her death in 1887, Tinubu never had any child after the death of her two sons in Badagry. Tinubu Square on Lagos Island, previously known as Independence Square, is named after her. She was buried at Ojokodo Quarters in Abeokuta.

Reggae music legend, Majekodunmi Fasheke, popularly known as Majek Fashek who passed on Monday night dominated Nigerian and African music scene for over two decades before his slide to infamy in the last decade of his life.

In Nigeria, he was one of the early proponents of reggae music which was first developed in Jamaica before it spread throughout Africa. Reggae is generally believed to be a revolutionary song used to express pain, struggle, address societal ills and call political leaders to order. This is evident in many of Bob Marley’s songs like ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ and ‘Africa Unite’ which are deeply political, revolutionary and radical.

From the beginning of his career as a member of Benin-based reggae group that included Ras Kimono and Amos McRoy Gregg in the 1980s, Majek Fashek rose to become the best Reggae artiste to come out of Nigeria and one of the greatest from Africa after going solo in 1988 to release ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ his debut album which sold more than 200,000 copies in Nigeria alone. The album had the hit track ‘Send down the Rain’ which earned him the sobriquet – the ‘Rainmaker’.

How he became the Rainmaker and Prophet:

Nigeria was also affected by the Sahel Drought of the 1970s which peaked in the 1980s and led to a 30 percent decrease in rainfall. The drought led to the deaths of about 100,000 people in the Sahel region from 1980 to 1988. In 1988, after Majek’s ‘Send Down The Rain’ from his debut album, it rained and that marked the end of the drought. The song marked a significant moment for Nigeria and from that moment, Majek became the favourite of most Nigerians for that sentimental reason and they named him the ‘Rainmaker’

‘Send Down The Rain’ won him six PMAN Music Awards in 1989, they include ‘Song of the Year’, ‘Album of the Year’, and ‘Reggae Artist of the Year’ among others. From 1988 when he released his debut album “Prisoner of Conscience’ to the peak of his career in the late 1990s, Majek proved to the world that his knack for making huge hits was not in doubt. To deliver other huge albums like ‘Little Patience’, ‘I & I Experience’, ‘Spirit of Love’, ‘Rainmaker’, he meshed roots, rock, reggae and Afro into a unique signature sound he called ‘Kpangolo’ which he described as “the sound of many cultures coming together.” He also worked with American singers Tracy Chapman, Snoop Dogg, Beyonce and late Michael Jackson; Jamaican singer Jimmy Cliff, and did a remix of “No More Sorrow’ with 2Baba.

Another of his talents was playing musical instruments, he was very good at playing trumpet and guitar which he learnt at his local Aladura church in Benin, Edo state, his mother’s hometown which he adopted as his root after the death of his father who is believed to hail from Osun State.

Majek’s longtime friend and music promoter, Azuka Jebose in an interview with Guardian in 2009 described him as a very creative musician who can write and produce a hit anywhere.

“Majek is a very creative man who can sit down here, write a song and create the beat as well. That is why people such as Charles Novia and I keep trying to help him, because we know he is a wonderful person,” Azuka said.

Before his inglorious latter days marred by controversies, bankruptcy, drug addiction and alcoholism, Majek Fashek broke several barriers, won laurels in the music industry beyond Africa. From the 1980s to the early 2000s, he was a colossus in the Nigerian music scene, but fell from that exalted height after losing himself to drug addiction and alcoholism.

Azuka Jebose wrote in 2015: “Majek stopped being a musician years ago. He traded music for addiction. I wait for his obituary, some day”. The obituary finally came on June 2, 2020, five years after.

Controversies:

In a controversial interview with ThisDay in 2016, he accused his former partners Charles Novia and Azuka Jebose of conniving to cheat him and profit off his sweat. “I want Nigerians to please help me stop Charles Novia and Azuka Jebose from defrauding me. A lot has been happening, which I am giving a little tip. I have never had a contract with Charles Novia,” Majek said.

It didn’t end there, he also accused Timi Dakolo of using his song ‘Send Down The Rain’ without his permission.

“I also need Timi Dakolo to present the management he paid to and how much by going to use my song and earning money from iTunes and making money from Send down the rain,” he said.

Reggae musician, Victor Essiet popularly known as ‘Mandator’ was also dragged into the controversy, Majek accused him of using his name and picture for his Africa meets Reggae show in November 2016, without consulting his manager Omenka Uzoma.
Rehabilitation:

From 2015 till his death on June 1, 2020, he was in and out of hospitals and rehabilitation centre. Drug addiction and alcoholism took the better part of the legend, tore him apart and made him a caricature of his old self. The former world famous, who dominated the scene and also performed on the David Letterman Show in 1992 (the biggest show on American TV station CBS at that time), became a subject of pity.

After his reported deportation from the United States, which he denied in 2015, he was always seen roaming the streets of Lagos looking haggard and unkempt before his former backup singer Monica Omorodion Swaida launched a GoFundMe campaign in 2015 to take him off the street and put him in a rehabilitation centre.

“He was one of the greatest singers and guitarists in Nigeria. He came to America and even went as far as singing in David Letterman’s show. Majek put Nigeria on the map when it comes to music,” Monica wrote on the GoFundMe page.

“Today, Majek is seen in the streets of Lagos looking for petty change to buy food and drinks. Majek looks sickly and fray. He is looking haggard! How can a national hero be left on the street like that?”

She added that “We must do something to take care of this man. No matter the problems majek has, whether drug related, spiritual or mental related problems, it doesn’t matter. Everyone can be saved! Let’s come together and help him”.

After interventions from Nigerians like Warri-based businessman, Ayiri Emami, Majek was taken to a rehab centre in Abuja in August 2015 by Monica, his ex-wife Rita Majek, and first son, Randy Majek, who all came to Nigeria from the United States. After his redemption, he went back to his dirty past and continued with his addiction. Ayiri who funded his rehabilitation announced that he had severed ties with Majek following reports that he had gone back to drugs.

In an interview with The Punch in May 2016, Ayiri said “against my wish and that of the doctors, he left the rehab home, went back to Lagos and started doing music. As I speak he is no longer under my care”.

In April 2018, Majek reportedly staggered to the stage oozing alcohol at the Eko Le Meridien Hotel in Lagos where he was billed to perform alongside few Nigerian musicians.

His old friend Azuka in an article titled ‘Why the intervention failed for Majek Fashek’, wrote in May 2016, “Charles Novia and I knew it won’t work. Charles didn’t want to be seen as anti-Majek’s wellness. I chose to speak. I was vocal. I told the handlers their approach was wrong and would not work for an addict. They seemed to be forcing Majek into treatment. They want an addict to follow their steps to recovery”.

Azuka also narrated how he was thrown out of a flight at Memphis airport in the U.S on December 22, 2006 while heading to Nigeria for a show with Majek because of his addiction.

“Majek got drunk in transit and was misbehaving, trashing everyone and oozing alcohol. Two passengers that sat next to him were very uncomfortable with his unruly behavior and intoxication. They requested to be removed from the seat next to him, Azuka wrote.

“The pilots refused to fly the plane unless Majek was removed from the flight. I pleaded with flight attendants that I would control him during the flight. The pilots said I could fly without Majek. I said no. I was flying because of him.”

His estranged wife, Rita, also shared her ordeal, she said in 2015, “I don’t know what went wrong with Majek. I may never know. He is deep into substance abuse. I discovered his dependency on drugs and alcohol after the birth of our second son, Seun: he would leave the house and return stoned and wasted, ultra-happy and erratic…”

Majek denied all the reports of drug addiction and alcoholism in 2019. “As you can see I am very okay and sound. I know the alcoholism reports are the works of my detractors,” Majek told a reporter. “As we all know, I am the only surviving Nigerian music legend. I am the last man standing. How can they say I am in rehab when I just returned from a music tour in Cape Town and the United States?”

His Last Days:

After leaving rehab, Majek was said to be battling different ailments that made him visit hospitals in Nigeria and overseas frequently. Azuka had said in 2016 that Doctors in the U.S diagnosed him with liver disease due to years of alcoholism abuse and warned if he didn’t stop drinking he might lose his life soon.

It was not clear if the liver disease was his reason for being in and out of hospital during his last five years. Again, in September 2019, his manager Uzoma Omenka, called for financial support after announcing that Majek had been hospitalised at Queen’s Hospital, London, billionaire Femi Otedola took up his medical expenses. Majek was discharged from the hospital in January 2020 before his reported recent admission to a hospital in New York where he eventually gave up the ghost.

Although details of his death are not known yet, Majek was believed to be in the care of his first son Randy who is based in New York where he died. He was married to only one wife, his childhood love Rita and they had three children.

He was a good man:

Beyond the controversial lifestyle that overshadowed his greatness, Majek Fashek was described as a very kind and passionate man by his friends.

Rita said “Majek was the best husband any woman could ever dream of. He was the best husband to me. He was (a) charming, affectionate man that blessed me with great attention then. But his alcoholism and drugs addiction denied us his love, care and humanity. I am tired!”

“What people don’t know about Majek is that he’s a very passionate man; he’s a very wonderful family man, who doesn’t joke with his children and wife; he’s married to one wife. His family comes first in everything he does,” Azuka said.

“Majek is so kind that if he has $300 now and you tell him you need $299, he will give you the money and he will say, ‘this man needs the money, Jebose, let him go, Jah will provide.’ That’s why most of us tag along with him, because we see the other side of him.”

Before History as a subject was expunged from the curriculum of secondary schools in Nigeria, the name of Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu constantly appeared first when the topic ‘Military Incursion in Nigerian Politics’ was being discussed in History classes.

Nzeogwu was said to have masterminded Nigeria’s first military coup in January 1966 with the aim of overthrowing the democratic government barely six years after the country gained independence from the British colonialists.

On January 15 1966, Nzeogwu led a group of soldiers on a supposed military exercise to attack the residence of the Premier of the Northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the bloody coup also led to the death of the Premier of Western region, Sir Samuel Ladoke Akintola. The Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a federal minister of Finance, Festus Okotie-Eboh, and top army officers from the Northern and Western regions of the nation were also brutally murdered. Those spared in the coup include the premier of the Eastern region Michael Okpara, the President of the Nigerian Federation Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Igbo Army Chief Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi.

The coup failed the planner but it opened the door for Ironsi to become Nigeria’s first military Head of State and it was also perceived by many as an ‘Igbo coup’ because many of the casualties were Hausa and Yoruba while the Igbo survivors were believed to have been deliberately spared. This led to a bloody revenge coup six months later in July 1966.

Here are 10 facts you need to know about Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu

He was born on February 26, 1937 in Kazaure road, Kaduna State. He attended Saint Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Kaduna and later Saint John’s – now Rimi College- Kaduna.
Contrary to reports that he was from the Southeast, he hailed from Okpanam Town in Anioma, the Igbo speaking part of Delta State.
He started showing signs of rebellion while in secondary school. Emeritus Professor Augustine Esogbue who was his junior in school said in 1956, Nzeogwu led a protest against the decision of the school management to allow his juniors register and write the West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) in form five instead of form six. The protest led to Nzeogwu’s expulsion as well as other students. Other students apologised and were readmitted except Nzeogwu and one of his friends who left the school without writing the WASSCE.
In March 1957, a year after his expulsion from school, Nzeogwu enlisted as an officer-cadet in the Nigeria Regiment of the West African Frontier Force and proceeded on a six-month preliminary training in Ghana and completed training in October 1957. He thereafter proceeded to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst where he was commissioned as an infantry officer in 1959.
He returned to Nigeria in May 1960 and was posted to the 1st Battalion in Enugu where. He was later posted to the 5th Battalion in Kaduna where he became close friends with former President Olusegun Obasanjo (who later wrote a biography about him).
He was the first Nigerian officer to head the military intelligence section at the Army HeadQuarters in Lagos
His Hausa colleagues in the Nigerian Army gave him the name ‘Kaduna’ because of his affinity with the town and his fluency in Hausa language.
As a military intelligence officer, he participated in the treasonable felony trial investigations of Obafemi Awolowo and other Action Group party members and also clashed with the Minister of State for the Army, Ibrahim Tako Galadima which led to his posting to the Nigerian Military Training College in Kaduna where he became Chief Instructor.
In January 1966, a month to his 29th birthday, Nzeogwu colluded with others like – Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Christian Anuforo, Adewale Ademoyega, Humphrey Chukwuka, Donatus Okafor, Timothy Onwuatuegwu; Captains Ben Gbulie, Emmanuel Nwobosi and Oji to carry out the country’s first military coup. The coup failed, and Nzeogwu was later arrested in Lagos in the company of Lt. Col. Conrad Nwawo, on January 18, 1966.
His younger sister, Susan Uwechie, in an interview with The Sun, said contrary to reports that Nzeogwu was killed by the Nigerian forces during the civil war in July 1967, he injected himself and threw a grenade thereafter when he realised he’d been surrounded by his captors.

In May 1973, three years after the 30-month civil war that pitched the eastern region against the rest of Nigeria, the military administration of General Yakubu Gowon announced the establishment of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) by Decree No.24 of May 22, 1973, with the aim of uniting a highly fragmented nation.

Before the war, the Igbos had expressed their disappointment in the lopsided appointment in the northern-dominated public service and to register their displeasure, a group of aggrieved soldiers from the East led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu led the nation’s first military coup in January 1966. The coup ousted and led to the killing of Tafawa Balewa as the Prime Minister and Aguiyi Ironsi became the Head of State while Chukwuemeka Ojukwu became the Governor of the Eastern Region. It soon became widely termed an “Igbo coup”.

Renowned Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe in his last book before his death – ‘There Was a Country’, while opposing the labelling of the brutal coup as a ‘tribal coup’.

He wrote: “Part of the way to respond to confusion in Nigeria is to blame those from the other ethnic group. One found some ethnic or religious element supporting whatever one was trying to make sense of.”

Achebe added: “There seemed to be a lust for revenge which meant an excuse for Nigerians to take out their resentment on the Igbos.”

Six months later, some soldiers led by Murtala Muhammed staged a bloody retaliatory coup to counter the coup that brought Ironsi to power. The casualties were Ironsi and other Igbos in the Army. In the northern states, the Igbo people became victims of what many historians have described as pogroms which led to the death of an estimated 30,000 people.

The pogroms led to a mass exodus of Igbo people back to the East. On May 30, 1967, Ojukwu declared the secession of the region from Nigeria over claims that the Igbos were no longer needed in Nigeria and they could no longer stay where they were not wanted.

In a statement on January 16, 1970, Ojukwu said: “Biafra was born out of the blood of innocents slaughtered in Nigeria during the pogroms of 1966.” The declaration of the Biafran state led to a civil war that lasted for 30 months and led to the death of an estimated three million people.

When the war finally ended in January 1970, as part of the “3R” programme of the government — Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation, aimed at rebuilding and uniting the country, the Gowon—led military government created the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to bridge ethnic and religious divisions in Nigeria and to foster nationalism.

“The reason my government established the NYSC was to initiate reconciliation among Nigerians after the civil war,” Gowon said in 2017 while speaking on the 44th anniversary of the scheme.

“We also sought to establish it for Nigerians to know each other more; promote national unity and encourage the NYSC to offer services to communities around them,” the former head of state added. “We fought to establish it and I am proud of the scheme and all it has achieved and continue to do for the youth and the country.”

The scheme was originally designed to deploy university and polytechnic graduates under the age of 30 (at the time of graduation) to locations outside their region of origin and where they were educated, while graduates above age 30 at the time of their graduation get an exemption letter.

The corps members are then posted to places of primary assignment relevant to their field of study where they would acquire one year experience while earning stipends popularly called ‘allowee’ from the federal government and in some cases from the state government and their employers.

However, corps members are now being deployed to schools to make up for the shortage of teachers in many public schools across the nation. This has made many lose interest in the scheme. Many now allegedly bribe officials to be deployed to ‘juicy’ government agencies and private organisations.

Section 2 (1) of the NYSC Act mandates all Nigerians who earn degrees or higher national diplomas from Nigerian and foreign tertiary institutions (effective 1972/73 session) to participate in the scheme.

Section 12 of the Act also mandates all employers to demand the national service certificate of prospective employees before hiring, while Section 13 criminalises skipping the scheme as it prescribes 12 months imprisonment or a fine of N2,000 or both, for such offenders.

In 2018, a former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun was compelled to vacate the office for not participating in the scheme and presenting a fake exemption certificate for her screening when she was appointed Minister.

In the last 20 years, there have been debates and calls for the scrapping of the scheme over claims that it has lost its purpose. Many corps members who view themselves as a source of cheap labour for the government and some private employers also see the scheme as a waste of time.

In July 2000, the League for Human Rights called for the scrapping of the scheme over claims that it had deviated from the objectives for which it was established.

The rising insecurity across the country has also fuelled calls for the scrapping of NYSC. In 2011, 10 corps members who worked as INEC adhoc staff during the 2011 general elections were killed in post-election violence in some northern states. The government paid N5m compensation to their parents. Lives of corps members living in hinterlands that are hotbeds of kidnapping and insecurity are endangered.

Also in the last three years, there have been rising cases of abduction of corps members travelling to their states of assignment by Boko Haram insurgents and other bandits. A corps member Abraham Amuda kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents in 2019 is yet to regain freedom. Some corps members have also been victims of communal clashes in the communities they were posted to serve. In March 2020, a bus conveying corps members to NYSC camp in Zamfara State was attacked by gunmen while some corps members have also been attacked in different communities across the country.

Meanwhile, Gowon who founded the scheme believes the call for the scrapping of NYSC is misplaced.

“They are saying it should be scrapped. They believe that the NYSC has out-lived its usefulness and is no longer relevant to society. The scheme has done a lot to bring about national unity and integration,” he said in 2017.

Meanwhile, through the scheme, some corps members have secured gainful employment and also met their love partners.

For Oluwasegun Fabiyi and Oluwaferanmi Daramola, who got married in June 2020, the call for scrapping of the scheme may sound absurd to them. The couple met during their orientation course at the NYSC camp in Jigawa State in 2019 and their love story started from there.

50 years after the civil war and 47 years after the establishment of NYSC to promote national unity, the country is still battling terrorism and ethno-religious tensions across different parts of the nation. In all of these tensions, corps members are easily the target of bandits and rioters.

You may be familiar with the evergreen 1972 album – ‘Board Members’ by the legendary Nigerian juju musician Ebenezer Obey-Fabiyi.

If you’re not, here’s a brief summary: The 38-minute long album was full of praises and philosophy. It was one of the most successful Nigerian albums ever released, it broke sales charts and earned Obey and his Inter Reformers band a place in the history of African music. But Obey, who also used his music for education and social commentary created another star from that album. His name? Ajala.

It was not a stand alone track by itself. But the chorus went, to use today’s parlance, viral.

“Alajala mi Omo Olola, Alajala mi Omo Olola; Alajala mi Oko Alhaja Sade…Ajala travel all over the world, Ajala travel all over the world, Ajala travel, Ajala travel, Ajala travel all over the world.”

The name Ajala and his story became a lexicon in the Nigerian parlance. Here is the story behind the man and why everyone who loves travelling is easily nicknamed after him.

So Who Was Ajala?
Mashood Olabisi Ajala’s exploits were relatively unknown until Obey made him a global star. Before the tour of the world that made him popular, Ajala had, while studying in the United States, aged 23, bicycled 2,280 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles.

In its December 11, 1952 publication, Jet magazine reported that this adventure landed Ajala a role as a second male lead in 20th Century-Fox’s adventure movie ‘White Witch Doctor’ in 1952, joining a cast headed by Susan Hayward and Robergt Mitchum. The contract, according to the Jet, was worth $300 a week and he played the role of Ola, a companion of Loni (Mitchum) a famous African hunter.

Born in 1929 in Ghana to a Nigerian father with four wives and 25 children, Ajala started crossing borders at a young age when his family relocated to Nigeria. Back home in Nigeria he was educated at Baptist Academy in Lagos and Ibadan Boys’ High School in Ibadan, Oyo State where he graduated in 1946, according to the school’s nominal roll seen by Neusroom.

With the disapproval of his father and the blessings of his father’s four wives and his 25 siblings as he narrated in his 1961 article published in the West African Review, Ajala left Nigeria for the United States in 1952 to study at Roosevelt College in Chicago.

His first movie role in 1952 also came from recommendations from actor Ronald Reagan whom he met in London three years before travelling to the U.S. Reagan later became the President of the United States.

But everything changed one year later, Ajala, who was enjoying media attention for his travel and acting exploits, ran into trouble with the U.S authorities.

In February 1953, he was arrested and jailed on three counts of grand theft in Los Angeles after he was charged with passing bad cheques under the name Edward Hines. He admitted the act but insisted he was duped by an American banker Arnold Weiner.

As if that was not enough, Ajala was also convicted for failing to maintain his studies at Santa Monica Junior College, a condition which invalidates his Visa. Adding to his many troubles, a Chicago nurse Myrtle Bassett also filed charges in a Los Angeles Court against him for refusing to accept paternity of his child.

Apparently, when it rains, it pours.

Bassett claimed her child – Andre, was conceived in Chicago before Ajala embarked on his bicycle trip to California. He ‘promised’ to marry her but never returned to Chicago. Ajala was ordered by the courts to pay $10 per week to Bassett when he refused to show up to take the blood test he had demanded.

Following the charges of failing to maintain his studies which invalidated his visa and grand theft, Ajala was ordered to be deported to England after pleading not to be deported to Nigeria. While in London he conceived the idea to globe-trott 40 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa on his Vespa scooter and he embarked on the journey on April 27, 1957. He was 26. He named his adventure – “This Safari” and said it would cover 30,000 miles across 40 countries in nine months and he would return to London afterwards.

He visited India, Russia (then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR), Jordan, Iran, Israel, Australia and many other nations on his motorcycle. At the end of the tour he had visited 85 countries in six years.

In his memoir – ‘An African Abroad’ documenting his experience, Ajala narrated his encounter with some world leaders like Marshal Ayub Khan of Pakistan, Golda Meir (the first female Prime Minister of Israel), Makarios III of Cyprus, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Nikita Khrushchev of the USSR, the Shah of Iran (Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi), Gamal Nasser of Egypt, General Ignatius Acheampong of Ghana, Odinga Oginga, former vice president of Kenya and others.during the tour.

On his encounter with the ex-president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ajala wrote:

“Every day at 6am for the next two weeks, I was waiting directly in front of his presidential palace hoping he would come out. On the 13th day of my hitherto unpromising efforts, around 5pm President Naseer emerged from the interior of his residence heading for his car.”

During this tour, he ran into trouble with immigration officers at border points. At the border between Israel and Palestine, Ajala said he was almost shot for speeding across without permission and was accused of spying for Israel.

12 years after his graduation from Ibadan Boys High School (IBHS), on February 28, 1958, Ajala made, what could best be described as, a triumphant entry into his alma mater. In the school’s 80th anniversary commemorative magazine – ‘The Triumph of Resilience,’ published in October 2018, Ajala’s visit was described as the greatest event of that year in Ibadan Boys’ High School.

According to the magazine’s report, “His triumphant entry to the school was marked with all the songs and reception which any school could offer. Accompanied by cyclists, auto-cyclists and a large crowd, he rode in his 150 c.c. motor cycle through the guard of honour formed by the boys. He was heartily, proudly and warmly received by the Principal, who, incidentally, was his master at school.”

Ajala at a Public Park in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in USSR: “In nearly all the 87 countries I’ve visited, I’ve met with brutality and racial intolerance. I’ve felt the bitter evil of man’s inhumanity to man, and have marveled at the goodness of the humane-hearted.” Photo: Guardian Nigeria Designer: Kume Akpubi

Ajala also stepped into the shoes of his father who enjoyed the company of many women. Apart from the mother of his first son, he was involved with other f women. He married an American Hermine Aileen who separated from him in 1955 over allegations of philandering, an allegation he never denied.

He also married a 19-year-old British radio-TV actress Joan Simmons. In 1962 when he got to Australia during his tour of the world, Ajala met and fell in love with a 28-year-old Australian lady, Joane Prettan, whom he married and had three children with.

In England he married Toyin Ajala, and Mrs. Sherifat Ajala, the mother of his last daughter, Bolanle. His children are spread across the globe – in Nigeria, Australia and London.

The most popular among his Nigerian wives was Alhaja Shade who was mentioned in the famous Obey song “Alajala mi oko Alhaja Shade…Ore mi kama puro, kamu tegan kuro, Shade dara l’obirin,” that was Ebenezer Obey praising and attesting to Shade’s beauty in the album ‘Board Members’. In 1976, Ajala reunited with his 23-year-old musician son Oladipupo Andre whose paternity he had denied in 1953. Andre died in Oakland in January 2020 at age 67.

On June 18, 1998, Ajala the Traveller suffered a stroke that paralysed his left limb after falling on the balcony of his house in Bariga, a suburban community in Somolu local government area of Lagos. Living in Bariga was an indication that Ajala, who had toured the world and was a top Nigerian socialite, had seen better days.

His health got worse in January 1999 and he was rushed to the Lagos General Hospital in Ikeja on January 25, 1999, where he died 11 days after, on February 2, 1999. He was buried in Lagos. In his final days only three of his children – Olaolu, Bolanle and Anifowoshe, were around to bury him.

According to a February 1999 report in Nigeria’s Guardian newspaper, some of his children who could not be with him include Dante, Femi, Lisa and Sydney all of whom are based in Australia. Others also spread around the globe include – Taiwo and Kehinde in the U.S, and Bisola in England.

None of his numerous wives was around to bid him goodbye. Not even the famous Alhaja Sade, who lived in Ikotun, Lagos, at the time, visited Ajala while he was battling a stroke until he finally died.

“We told her that he was sick and she told us she would come, but we never saw her,” Olaolu told Guardian.

One of the major challenges of living in metropolitan Lagos State over the years has always been about moving across the city, either in public transport or private vehicle. Millions of residents in the nation’s economic hub encounter a number of problems on their daily commute, the most obvious of which are inadequate public transport and long hours spent in traffic. It didn’t start now, the challenge is as old as Lagos itself.

In 1914, a year after the closure of the Lagos Steam Tramway service, a popular social worker Charlotte Olajumoke Obasa rose to the challenge and made move to ease the pain of Lagos commuters by establishing a transport service – Anfani bus service, the first in the Colony now knows as Lagos state.

The tramway, which was used to convey passengers and goods from Iddo in Lagos Mainland to Custom Wharf and Ereko Market on the Lagos Island, was operated by the Lagos Colonial Government Railway. However, the operation ended in 1913 due to the renewal of original rolling stock.

The abrupt closure of the transport service brought pain on Lagos commuters, up till 1914, commuting from Mainland to Lagos Island was under pain and distress. Several accounts say pedestrians walked long distances and congested the streets. The situation could be likened to what Lagosians experienced during the ban of motorcycles (Okada) and tricycles in February 2020.

When the colonial government didn’t take action to ease the pain, Charlotte Olajumoke Obasa, ventured into the commercial transport business to relieve the agony of commuters on the Lagos – Ebute Metta route by introducing the Anfani Bus service.

Charlotte was the daughter of Richard Beale Blaize, a successful and politically influential merchant in Lagos in the 19th and 20th Century. Blaize was also the publisher of the Lagos Times and Gold Coast Colony Advertiser. In 1902, she got married to Dr Orisadipe Obasa one of the pioneer indigenous physicians in Nigeria.

She was actively involved in social welfare in Lagos and served as a member of a committee to investigate the causes of infant mortality. She was also the leader of Lagos Women’s League (LWL) which promoted health education, more employment opportunities for educated girls, better conditions for female nurses and government workers, more girls’ schools, and a better standard of living for Africans in general.

Charlotte’s venture had a fleet of four buses which provided a regular service on the Obun Eko-Iddo route for a fare of one penny and on occasions offered special services. Her personality as a social worker also rubbed off on the bus service, she did not establish it for profit making but to provide social service for the people.

According to the account of G.O. Olusanya in “Nigerian Women in Historical Perspective”, Obasa’s Anfani Bus Service was the pioneer urban bus service in Nigeria, and “she conceived the project as a philanthropic rather than a commercial proposition”.

Charlotte’s Anfani bus service was in operation till the late 1920s when Zarpas bus service began operation and continued from where hers left off. The Zarpas bus established by the Levantine firm of J.Z Zarpas in 1929 marked the turning point in the development of an enduring municipal transport service in Lagos. Unlike Anfana which was more of a social service, Zarpas was a strictly commercial venture and had more buses that ran a regular service and covered more routes.

From leaving Nigeria at the age of 18 to join the British Navy during the First World War, to taking up several menial jobs just to survive in London after the war, Orlando Martins’ journey to becoming a film Legend and a globally-acclaimed actor was full of thorns and spikes, still he blossomed like a rose.

Widely acclaimed as the first African to appear in British film, in his biography published in 1983, Martins said he is “very very happy to say that I am one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer African film star.”

His journey to the screen was not pre-planned, it was happenstance. His motive for leaving Nigeria for London was to enlist in the British Navy and be part of the civil war but he found himself in theatre. At first he was doing it to survive but he later took it as a career.

In his 1948 book ‘The Negro in Films’, Peter Noble described Martins as “a tall, powerful figure of a man with a deep bass voice, friendly, hospitable and with a grand sense of humour. He is keenly interested in the foundation of a Negro Theatre in London.”

Martins was born in 1899 in Lagos to Emmanuel Akinola Martins and Paula Idowu Soares. His paternal grandfather was a liberated Portuguese slave, who sold wood and died at age 120. Educated at Eko Boys’ High School in Lagos, he worked as a bookkeeper with a French firm in Lagos after leaving Eko Boys in 1916.

During the First World War, his grandmother became a prisoner of war and it was her plight at the hands of the German forces who had held the Cameroons that made him abandon his job in Lagos and travelled to London in 1917. His migration to London at the age of 18 was neither in search of greener pasture nor to study, which was common among many young Nigerians at the time.

Martins left Nigeria for London with the aim of joining the British Navy so he could fight on the side of the British forces against the German in the World War. In London, he could only enroll in the Merchant Marine because he was too young to join the Navy and Martins served in the Merchant Marine until the end of the war. After then, he decided to settle in London in 1919 and took interest in theatre as a means of survival.

In 1920, Martins made his first theatrical appearance as a Nubian Slave, a role he later said he hated, but took it because “I was young and hungry and had no other choice”.

To survive in London, Martins took up a series of menial jobs, from working as a Porter to being a wrestler known as ‘Black Butcher Johnson’; he was a snake-charmer; night watchman; kitchen porter; road sweeper before finally making his debut in ‘If Youth But Knew’ in 1926. In 1928 he joined the Mississippi Chorus of the musical Show Boat at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and later toured Britain with the production.

His journey to being Africa’s acclaimed first movie star was not as rosy as many would want to believe, especially as he is globally acclaimed as the first African movie star. He took on more than a few humiliating roles only to guarantee his livelihood. The kind of roles Martins played in films became subject of debate in publications. A film journal – The Cinema Studio in October 1951 strongly made a case for the kind of roles Martins played in films and suggested better roles.

The journal wrote: “Orlando’s talents, together with a delightful sense of humour, could be employed by a film producer without any attempt at propaganda but merely as entertainment to show the negro as a warm, sensible, charming human being in our modern way of life.”

Martins also acted on stage in a couple of plays with American actor Paul Robeson. During the Second World War (1939-1945), Martins was engaged in important works for the war which took him away from theatre for four years. On his return in 1945, he starred as Jeremiah, the international Brigadier, in ‘The Man from Morocco’, and his performance was widely commended. He was also cast as the influential witch doctor ‘Magole’ in ‘Men of Two Worlds’. These two roles, according to his biography, established Martins as one of Britain’s most sought-after actors.

One of Martin’s most memorable roles was ‘Blossom the Basuto Warrior’ in ‘The Hasty Heart’, which he played on the stage in London in 1945 and later in the screen version in 1949 with Ronald Reagan, who later became the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989). In ‘Sanders of the River’ (1936), Martins played the role of ‘K’lova’ acting alongside Jomo Kenyatta who also emerged the Prime Minister and President of Kenya. He made several stage appearances in London in the 1950s until he returned to Nigeria in 1959 to settle in Lagos.

On his return to Lagos at the age of 60, Martins accepted only occasional acting roles and while the curtains were gradually falling on his acting career, in his 70s, he appeared as a cameo in two of the most iconic Nigerian films in the 1970s which were adaptations of the books of Nigerian literary icons – Wole Soyinka’s ‘Kongi Harvest’ (1970) and Chinua Achebe‘s ‘Things Fall Apart’ (1971).

In 1970, the British Actors’ Equity Association conferred an honorary life membership award on Martins in recognition of his long career in British films. In 1982, he was conferred with the Member of the Order of the Niger (MON) by President Shehu Shagari. In 1983 he received the National Award in Theatre Arts by the Society of Nigerian Theatre Artistes during a ceremony at the University of Calabar.

After a career spanning over 60 years, Martins

The 30-month Biafran War (July 1967 – January 1970) to some was more than a fight or avenue for vengeance, it was a means to an end and an opportunity to renegotiate Nigeria’s union.
The war may have been lost by the Eastern region who declared secession from Nigeria, but May 30, 1967 remains a special date in the calendar and history of the Igbos.
It was the day Col Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu declared the secession of the East from Nigeria and announced the Republic of Biafra. The result of the announcement was a three-year civil war from 1967 to 1970 with an estimated casualty of three million people. It remains a horrible period in Nigeria’s history.
Ojukwu may have been the commander of the war, but there is an endless list of prominent Igbos who played active roles. Chinua Achebe. Lt. Col. Philip Effiong. Victor Banjo. Richard Ihetu. The list goes on.
This is the story of Richard Ihetu, popularly known as Dick Tiger, who used his skills, resources and global fame to support the war.
Dick Tiger was a boxing champion who did not only fight inside the squared ring picking up global titles, but he also fought in the civil war on the side of Biafra, defending what he believed in.
He etched his name in a significant part of Igbo’s socio-political history following his support for the Biafran cause as a soldier, troops trainer and for renouncing a British title conferred on him by Queen Elizabeth II in protest against the British support for the Nigerian government during the war. And that’s not all.
Both in and out of the ring, Dick Tiger was a beacon of hope and freedom and a legend to many Nigerians.
Born on August 14, 1929 in Amaigbo, Imo State, Dick Tiger discovered his boxing talent as a teenager. He started throwing punches at age 19 in 1948, during inter-club contests organized by British military officers.
He became known as Dick Tiger after an Englishman was overwhelmed by his display of acrobatics when he jumped in the air to clobber an opponent in a bout. “What tenacity he thought, almost like a Tiger. A Tiger is what he is!” the Briton exclaimed. Legends says that’s how he became known as Tiger. In the west, those named Richard are often nicknamed Dick – that explains how he became known as Dick Tiger.
After almost a clean professional sheet, winning 15 of 16 contests in Africa, he relocated to Liverpool in England. It was not so easy adapting to the new life and fighting style of his British opponents. He suffered defeats in his first four matches before eventually finding his feet.
As soon as he got used to the British life, he returned to winning ways. But just as his fame was soaring in the U.K, he decided to relocate to the United States.
The year was 1959. Tiger moved to New York City where he became a two-time world middleweight champion after beating Gene Fullmer in 1962.
Four months later he retained his championship after a rematch with Fullmer at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Still not satisfied, Fullmer challenged Tiger to a rematch, this time, Tiger wanted the rematch at home in Nigeria and it was the first world title bout in Africa before Mohammed Ali vs George Foreman’s ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ in DR Congo, on October 30, 1974.
Before a crowd of 35,000 spectators at Liberty Stadium in Ibadan, with $250,000 generated from ticket sales, Tiger defeated Gene Fullmer again on August 10, 1963, winning $100,000 while Fullmer went home with $60,000.
“Tiger was a rough guy…I went to Nigeria to fight him, and, of course, I don’t know what happened over there….He beat me. He beat me bad. My mother and father could have been the judge and referee, and I couldn’t have won a round…” Fullmer was quoted by Peter Heller in his book – “’In this Corner… !’: Forty World Champions Tell Their Stories.”
Tiger also won the light heavyweight title in 1966 when he dethroned José Torres of Puerto Rico. A much younger and taller Bob Foster was the first boxer to knock Tiger out in May 1968.
In 1965 while interacting with journalists in his dressing room at Madison Square Garden ahead of his fourth match against American boxing champion – Joey Giardello, Dick Tiger revealed he had invested in a bookstore in Lagos.
“With my purse I bought a beauty shop for my sister and a bookstore in Lagos,” he told newsmen. Asked why he bought a bookstore, “He flashed a smile that revealed a gold tooth and said ‘because I like to read books. Har, har. Why else?”, American journalist Sam Toperoff wrote.
After the outbreak of the civil war in 1967, Dick Tiger returned to Nigeria to support the Biafran forces. He was enlisted as a lieutenant in the Biafran Army where he trained the Biafran soldiers in physical combat.
On June 15th 1967, Dick Tiger publicly declared his allegiance to Biafra at a pre-match press conference in New Jersey. He told newsmen: “I called you to let you know that I am relinquishing this Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) title I won in London because I can not wear this around my waist while the British government is supplying ammunition to kill my people in Biafra.”
The next morning, he mailed the title back to London, with a note: “I am hereby returning the MBE, because everytime I look at it, I think of the millions of men, women, children who died and are still dying in Biafra because of the arms and ammunition the British government is sending to Nigeria and its continued moral support of this genocidal war against the people of Biafra.”
When the war ended in January 1970, Dick Tiger returned to the U.S.
On July 15, 1970, World welterweight boxer Emile Griffith put an end to Tiger’s reign after defeating him in New York. In the fight which turned out to be his last, he lost a 10-round decision to Griffith. Four years before then, on April 25, 1966, Tiger had also lost his middleweight title to Griffith.
Dick Tiger, twice the world middleweight boxing champion and once the light‐heavyweight titleholder, retired from boxing in June 1971 after fighting in 81 professional matches, winning 61 (26 by knockouts), losing 17, and drawing three.
In a professional boxing career spanning 15 years, his manager, Willis (Jersey) Jones said he made $500,000 but Tiger died virtually penniless.
He lost his early riches, invested in seven apartment houses, in the 30-month civil war.
Following his unrepentant allegiance to Biafra, he was declared ‘persona non grata’ in Nigeria and banned from returning to the country. After retiring from boxing, he took up a job as a security guard at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
In October 1971 he was incapacitated at work by stabbing pains in his back, right side and abdomen, the pain was so severe that he fell to his knees. He was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York, where he was diagnosed with liver cancer
“The United States is a very good country, a very nice country, but Biafra is my home. I will die in Biafra,” he told Toperoff before heading back to Nigeria in 1971.
The Nigerian government lifted the ban placed on him and permitted him to return to Aba, in Abia State. For days after his return, Toperoff recalled that “thousands of visitors – mourners, really – from miles around walked the hot, dusty roads to Aba. When they found Dick Tiger’s house, they saw a muscular but pain-withered boxer sitting in front, in the shade of a solitary acacia tree.”
He eventually died in Amaigbo, his hometown, on December 14, 1971 and was buried on December 19, 1971 in his hometown.
New York Times reported on December 20, 1971 that: “mourners from miles around crowded the hot, dusty streets of the remote township as the 42‐year‐old former world champion was laid to rest.”
The boxing idol left behind his wife – Abigail and eight children. His widow, Abigail also passed on aged 73 in 2008.
Tiger was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991

Cancer is a tough one. The Global Burden of Disease, published in the medical journal – The Lancet, estimates that almost 10 million people die from cancer every year. One in six people in the world dies from cancer, making it the second leading cause of death after cardiovascular diseases.

Cancer leaves many patients in despair and bankruptcy before their death.

And just like that, it dealt a terrible blow to the Nigerian music and creative industry that was only starting to find its feet. It brought an abrupt end to Tyna Onwudiwe’s reign as an amazon of Nigerian pop music on June 29, 2001, just 17 days after her 47th birthday.

Tyna may have been away from the Nigerian music scene years before her ailment, but news of her death sent shockwaves across the nation as though she had just dropped a hit song a week before her death. Fans mourned from Johannesburg to Lagos. Tributes poured in in torrents. Her friends were devastated. Many wept uncontrollably.

She may be gone, but she is never forgotten, if not for anything, for creating a legacy that continues to be a strong influence on pop music around Africa today.

Tyna was 38 when she came into national fame in 1992, off the back of her debut album – Afrikan Oyibo (Tabansi Records).

Her full name? Tyna Adaora Onwudiwe. Her mother was Scottish and her father, a Nigerian from Anambra State.

And her music? Constantly defying the boundaries of genre – delivering a mix of funk and pop that pundits could only term crossover. She entertained and influenced many generations of audiences and artistes.

“She had spunk, she had message, she was more aligned to African consciousness, blackism, getting out of colonial mentality, slavery and all that. A lot of people took up their activism from some of her philosophies and her penchant for socially relevant music,”

said Femi Akintunde-Johnson, FAJ, as he is fondly called, a veteran journalist and one of the most revered Nigerian entertainment journalists of all time. Her music was philosophical and according to FAJ, she had a penchant for socially relevant music.

“If she is talking about love, she’s talking about why love should be responsible and reciprocal, why it should be based on truth and facts and not on society whims and caprices. So she is always a didactic kind of person in African modernist way.”

It was not just her witty and charming music, unusual sets, and socially relevant message that endeared her to millions around the world. She left many in awe of her persona and art.

From warning against giving to indolence because time waits for no one on ‘Asiko lo laye, ara mi ema se s’ole…’, to condemning the violence, war and corruption that had left Africa ravaged by starvation and diseases in ‘Black on Black’ and putting her rap skills to test in her remake of Bob Marley ‘Turn your Lights Down Low’ from the 1977 album Exodus, the list of her musical interventions is unbelievable.

Another journalist, Jude Nwauzor, who covered the Nigerian entertainment scene for many years, described Onwudiwe’s music and creativity as futuristic and still trendy even two decades after her death. This must have informed Charly Boy’s stance that in the Nigerian music industry, “Tyna was in a class of her own. No one comes close.”

In the last two decades, there has been a global appeal for Tyna’s kind of music and the new generation of artistes from Nigeria and Africa are getting massive global recognition for it. If she lived, Tyna would have turned 66 this year, and FAJ believes if Tyna was alive, she would still be making music. Like Angelique Kidjo, she may also have been on the list of Grammy Award winners from Africa.

Her contributions to pop music were prolific, persisting through a challenging era when it wasn’t as easy and profitable as it is now – parents used to disown their children for doing music after years of investing in their education. Tyna was a major part of Nigeria’s TV and radio history in the 1990s. Her music and videos, which were way ahead of their time, enjoyed constant airplay as music interludes on many shows on the few television stations at the time.

She was also very vocal and courageous. FAJ recalls how she rejected awards presented to her at the Fame Music Award (FMA) in 1993, because she believed she deserved the ‘Crossover Award’ won by late Sunny Okosun.

“In 1993, despite the fact that we were close, she rejected some of the awards she was given right on stage. An award was given to Sunny Okosun’s ‘Motherless Child’, she felt being a reggae-influenced music, it shouldn’t be in the cross-over category where one of her songs was also nominated and she felt she should have won in that category because her song was more crossover than reggae.”

Tyna accepted only the awards she had won earlier and rejected other awards she won after the Crossover category went to Okosun. One of her closest friends and collaborators Charly Boy tells Neusroom she “was really a no nonsense person, she ‘no send’ anybody any message.”

Tyna had a penchant for unique fashion styles. In addition to being a musician and style icon, she starred in some Nollywood movies and was also known for her benevolence and support for other artistes. She notably opened the door for Charly Boy’s music career when it refused to take off.

“The most important quality I admire about her was her giving spirit,” he said. “She could give the clothes on her back to somebody who needs it.” Charly Boy’s encounter with Tyna during his visit to Tabansi Records office in Lagos to seek an endorsement deal in the 1990s, changed the fortune of his career.

“I saw her standing in front of Tabansi Records, I think she was waiting for a taxi. I had seen her face in a newspaper once and I couldn’t believe it was the same person I had seen in the newspaper I was seeing live. I wanted to say hello but I was just too shy, and to my surprise, she came and said ‘hello’ and the rest is history and like a puppy I followed her to her house that day.

“I didn’t really have a destination, she was going back home, Tabansi had told me to come back in a month and I didn’t know what next to do, where next to go and I was carrying my 18 months old son because my wife had returned to her country to work. Meeting her, she just restored my confidence and simplified things for me and together we were to plan and tighten the image that is Charly Boy.”

From that moment, their friendship bloomed into what could have led to a marital union, but Charly Boy said it wouldn’t have lasted. “Marrying Tyna wouldn’t have lasted because we were just two lunatics, in a nice way, we love good trouble not negative trouble.”

Tyna later relocated to South Africa where her life took a different turn in the early 2000s and in 2001, she was diagnosed with cancer of the lungs which according to cancer.org, is mostly caused by smoking. She was a chain smoker while she was younger but she later quit the habit. Nwauzor confirmed to Neusroom that Tyna loved her cigarettes. Austin Okeke, a legal practitioner, also described her as a chain smoker in his 2018 article ‘How we got Nigeria to rise to the Challenge’ published in Nigeria In South Africa.

Declan Okpaleke, CNN African Journalist of the Year (1999), who had visited South Africa in 2001 returned to Nigeria to publish the report about Tyna’s ailment. Her hospital photos flooded pages of Nigerian newspapers and other media in 2001 prompting her colleagues to rally support for her and the nation responded overwhelmingly to the call.

Charly Boy said his group was able to raise over $80,000 for Tyna but it was late. “A week after her birthday I just couldn’t take it, so I came back to Nigeria with hopes of raising more money. Three days after I came back, she left.” Tyna is survived by two daughters Camilla and Nigi and a son, Xolani. She knew she was going to die and had prepared for her internment by instructing her father and children to cremate her and her ashes should be in Charly Boy’s possession till he decides to release it to her parents.

“Her ashes were put in a small coffin-like box for me, which I kept in my sitting room and it was there for about a month and a half till I had to let go reluctantly. I gave it to her father so they went to do a proper burial,” he said.
With the tremendous amount of creativity she poured into her brand and the music industry through her talent and style, Tyna continues to be remembered for many things, but her music stands out among them all.

The early 2000s up till 2007 was a very dark era in the history of Nigerian politics. It was an era when evil wined and dined with the political class and walked on the streets of Nigeria unquestioned. Late human rights lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), described the spate of political assassination in Nigeria in that era as the darkest and saddest event in Nigeria.

Fawehinmi noted: “What we have been witnessing recently is not democracy by politicians, but a mindless display of craziness by members of the political class, and unless quickly checked, the democratic edifice will surely collapse and we would have ourselves to blame for the unprecedented flow of blood that will follow.”

Between 1999 and 2006, there were about 30 reported cases of assassinations and attempts in different parts of Nigeria. On the long list of politicians gruesomely murdered were a serving Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Bola Ige, National Vice-Chairman (South-South) of the PDP, Alfred Dikibo; a governorship aspirant in Ekiti State, Ayo Daramola, and Engr. Funsho Williams, the man many believed would succeed Bola Tinubu who was rounding up his second term as Lagos governor in 2007.

Williams was a thoroughbred gentleman and could best be described as a true ‘Omoluabi’. His cool and calm mien and his record of success in the public service earned him admiration and respect among the Lagos populace.

In an interview with The Punch in July 2013, his second son, Babatunde, described him “as a very private person…very dedicated to his job. A very quiet man and loving father.” Babatunde’s description confirms that Williams wasn’t Janus Faced, that was exactly the part of Funsho Williams many Lagosians knew, and were already rooting for him to succeed Tinubu in 2007 before he was murdered barely a year to the end of Tinubu’s second term in office.

Williams was born in Lagos on May 9, 1948 and had his primary and secondary education in Lagos. He contested in the governorship primary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) against Tinubu in 1998 and reportedly won, but was beseeched by party leaders to step down for Tinubu who won the governorship election in 1999. This is believed to be due to Tinubu’s contribution to the June 12, 1993 struggle while Williams was said to have been part of the oppressive military government.

He obliged and allowed Tinubu to run as AD’s candidate but moved to PDP to run against Tinubu. Before then, he was a member of United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP), the dominant political party that endorsed former military dictator General Sani Abacha to run for President in the August 1998 presidential election, but never held due to Abacha’s death in June 1998.

A civil engineering graduate from the University of Lagos with a second degree from New Jersey Institute of Technology, United States, Williams would later run for governor under the PDP in 2003 while Tinubu ran for second term but he lost to the incumbent, polling 725,000 votes against Tinubu’s 911,000. Before his political career beckoned, he had worked in the Lagos Civil Service as an engineer for 17 years and retired as a Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works in 1991. He ran his own private company and served on the board of several companies like Julius Berger, Ajaokuta Steel Company and Cappa and D’Alberto Plc.

He would later return to Lagos public service to serve as Commissioner for Works under the military administration of Olagunsoye Oyinlola (1993 – 1996) and that was when his vision to serve Lagos grew bigger – he wanted to be governor and he was well positioned as the leading contender for the 2007 governorship election.

“He was a very unique politician who truly desired to serve his people and to add value to lives,” ex-governor of Lagos, Babatunde Fashola, told William’s mother, Madam Abiodun (right) and widow, Hilda Williams (left), when he visited the family in July 2008.

“Politics for him was a natural progression. It was a means to an end for him and not an end in itself. The passion to continue public service was the driving force for him,”

Babatunde said. “After serving as commissioner, he felt the only way to realise his desire to further develop the state and touch the lives of Lagosians was through politics.”

Sadly, Captain, as he was fondly called, never fulfilled his dream to govern Lagos before becoming another victim of political assassinations that swept across Nigeria at that time. He was strangled to death in his Dolphin Estate home in Ikoyi on July 27, 2006.

“His hands tied and lying face down in a pool of blood on a dagger, wrapped with a newspaper,” Prof John Obafunwa, the Chief Forensic Pathologist of Lagos said in his witness before a Lagos High Court. He added: “Based on our findings, the deceased’s death resulted from asphyxia or lack of air intake, due to manual strangulation, while the wounds found on the deceased can be described as defense wounds.”

On June 30, 2014, the court acquitted the six suspects (Bulama Kolo, Musa Maina, David Cassidy, Tunani Sonani, Mustapha Kayode and Okponwasa Imariabie) standing trial over Williams’s death. 14 years after, many Nigerians are still puzzled with the question – who killed Funsho Williams as no one has been brought to justice.

He left behind his wife Hilda Williams and their four kids. He was laid to rest at the Victoria Court Cemetery in Lekki on August 10, 2006. To honour the man who would have become Lagos state governor in 2007, by popular opinion, the state government renamed the popular Western Avenue in Surulere Funsho Williams Avenue.

At Williams’ funeral, Rev Father Mary Vin Ubili described him as a politician who embraced politics of ideas as the basis for getting power to serve humanity. “He was a man who stood above men‚ literally and figuratively. He stood above six feet and usually wore a serious look,” Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour wrote in his tribute to Williams.

There is much more about Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti than just being the first Nigerian woman to drive a car. You may be pardoned if that’s all you know about her, it’s the part of her history celebrated more.

From primary school texts, Funmilayo’s story is narrated as the first Nigerian woman to drive a car. Whoever wrote that narrative is not fair to the activist and vociferous advocate.

What happened to her political activism, feminism advocacy and women empowerment?

Born October 25 1900, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a leading political leader, feminist and advocate of women’s right whose fearlessness earned her the ‘Lioness of Lisabi’.

She was the first female student at the popular Abeokuta Grammar School before travelling to England where she learned elocution, music, dressmaking, French, and various domestic skills at a finishing school for girls in Cheshire from 1919 to 1922.

On her return to Nigeria, probably after being served a full dose of racism in England, she dropped her birth names – Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas, and preferred to speak Yoruba.

In 1925 she married Rev Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, her senior at Abeokuta Grammar School who later became a school principal and Anglican priest. Like his wife, he was also instrumental in the formation of rights groups, co-founding both the Nigeria Union of Teachers and the Nigerian Union of Students. Their union lasted for 30 years until Oludotun’s death in 1955.

Between 1935 and 1936, Funmilayo and her husband acquired a secondhand car shipped to Nigeria from England, making her the first woman in Abeokuta and Nigeria to drive a car. This is the part of her life that became more celebrated.

Her active participation in activism started when she, alongside Eniola Soyinka (her sister-in-law and mother of Prof Wole Soyinka), founded the Abeokuta Ladies Club (ALC) in 1932 focused on women empowerment, charity work and adult education classes.

The ALC later became the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU) and went national in 1949 becoming Nigerian Women’s Union (NWU). The group promoted gender equality, raised awareness against the injustice that women were receiving, protested against taxation on women and organised several lectures across the country.

Some of the goals of the AWU, with an estimated membership of 20,000 women, included greater educational opportunities for women and girls, enforcement of sanitary regulations, and the provision of health care and other social services for women.

One of the popular protests of the AWU led by Ransome-Kuti was its continuous demonstration against the Alake of Egbaland, Oba Ladapo Ademola II at his palace over the imposition of tax on women, corruption in the administration of local authority. The protest forced Oba Ademola into temporary exile in 1949.

She was the only woman on the delegation of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC) which went to London to protest against a proposed Nigerian constitution in 1947.

She played a prominent role in the fight for universal adult suffrage and Nigeria’s battle for independence.

At a time when education of the girl child was seen as a waste, she was one of the very few women of her time who received post-primary education

It would not be out of place to describe her as the mother of feminism in Nigeria, as most of her advocacy and charity works were based on making life better for the women and girls and also raising their living standards.

She ran for a seat in the regional assembly as the NCNC candidate in 1951 but lost.

It would also not be out of place to say aluta spirit flows in the Ransome-Kuti’s lineage, their children, asides the eldest and only daughter Dolupo who has little public information, the males – Dr Olikoye Ransome-Kuti a former health minister, Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti and afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti became prominent activists and social crusaders.

Fela was famous for his vocal criticisms of the military government through his songs and on February 18, 1977 when 1,000 soldiers stormed his Kalakuta Republic to destroy the property and brutalise occupants, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was one of those brutalised while his kinsman General Olusegun Obasanjo was military head of state at that time..

Fela claimed his 77-year-old mum was thrown from the window of the one-storeyed building. She died in April, having never fully recovered from injuries sustained in the Kalakuta attack.

Fela narrated the incident in his song ‘Unknown Soldier’.”Dem throw my mama out from window. Dem kill my mama. Dem kill my mama. Dem kill my mama. Dem kill my mama. Dem kill my mama…” he cried in the song.

In his book, “For Women and the Nation: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria”, biographer Cheryl Johnson-Odim has this to say about her: “no other Nigerian woman of her time ranked as such a national figure or had [such] international exposure and connections.”

She was conferred with a national honour of the Order of Niger, in 1968, the University of Ibadan bestowed her with an honorary doctorate of law. In 1970 she received the International Lenin Peace Prize and remained the only African woman to have received the prize.

To celebrate her 119th posthumous birthday, Google honoured her with a doodle on October 25th 2019.

Although no part of the Nigerian constitution states any official role for spouses of political office holders, in the last three decades, wives of Presidents, Governors and Local Government Chairmen have created a special role for themselves called the Office of the First Lady.

Though unofficial, occupants of this office from the Presidency to the state and local government level, wield so much power that constitutionally recognised public officials fall at their feet, worship and pay homage to them to receive favour from their husbands.

The Office of the First Lady has been part of the Nigerian political system since independence, but it wasn’t relevant and influential until General Ibrahim Babangida overthrew the military government of General Muhammadu Buhari to become the Head of State in 1985.

His wife Maryam Babangida popularised the office, added glamour and poise that made it look attractive for those who would come after her. She transformed it from being just a ceremonial position to a position of power and influence.

Unlike other wives of former Heads of State and Presidents who kept a low profile life, the dark-skinned Maryam, born in Asaba, Delta State in 1948 to Igbo father and Nupe mother, announced her presence as the First Lady with the launch of Better Life Programme for Rural Women in 1987.

The programme was designed to empower and eradicate poverty among rural women. Despite the allure and fanfare that come with public office, Maryam was not blinded by them, the plights of the downtrodden was said to be germaine to her. Those who were privileged to walk that path before her must have envied how Maryam dignified and popularised Office of the First Lady.

It didn’t happen by accident, she had been laying the foundation and preparing herself for such opportunity from her days as President of the Nigerian Army Officers’ Wives Association when Babangida was the Chief of Army Staff under the regime of General Muhammadu Buhari. Becoming the wife of the Head of State gave her a better opportunity to consolidate what she was doing among the officers’ wives.

By November 1993 when her husband left office, the BLPRW was said to have established 9,492 co-operative societies for women to have access to finance and sundry re-sources; founded 1435 cottage industries; 1784 farms and gardens; 495 shops and markets; 1094 multipurpose women centres for skills acquisition and, 135 fish and livestock farms at different locations across the country. She also built the National Women Development Centre in Abuja.

BLPRW endeared Maryam in the heart of many grassroots women and made her more popular than other wives of presidents before her who lived behind the shadows of their husbands as passive spectators and ceremony attendees. She registered the position of the number one woman in the consciousness of the people with the BLPRW and also laid the structure which subsequent First Ladies (federal, state and local government level) have been cueing into nearly 30 years after her husband left office in 1993.

She, however, got intoxicated by the enormous power she wielded and was said to have abused power. One of such cases of her abuse of power was her confrontation against Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, the Minister of External Affairs during Babangida’s regime.

In an interview published in The News magazine on October 25, 1993, Akinyemi said Maryam summoned him one night to scold him over clashing dates for a cocktail reception she had organised for ECOWAS ambassadors and their wives.

So enormous was her highhandedness that, in the presence of her husband, she declared to Akinyemi that she had “a joint-right with the President to appoint a new Minister of External Affairs”. The Minister was said to have been sacked shortly thereafter. Akinyemi claims, the event signaled the beginning of a “joint imperial presidency”.

Maryam Babangida died of ovarian cancer on December 27, 2009 in the United States.

After Maryam Babangida, other Presidents’ wives who have occupied the office have been making remarkable impact through their pet projects geared towards women and children. Prominent among them is Titi Abubakar, though wife of the Vice President Atiku Abubakar, she also made a remarkable impact with her position.

Through her foundation, the Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF), she initiated and sponsored a bill that midwifed the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) in 2003. 13 years after leaving office, the agency has continued to remain relevant in the fight against human trafficking.

In her first novel – ‘Efuru’ which she published at age 35, Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa, better known by her pen name as Flora Nwapa, made a bold statement that did not only announce her entry into a male dominated literary world, but also gave the world a view of the literary motif that dominated her works – addressing the plight of African women and advocating for a change of the stereotype.

In many of her works published from 1966 till she breathed her last in 1993, she strongly advocated for a change in the way women in Africa were perceived and treated by the society and with her writings she gave many women the courage to break into the literary world as published writers.

Her first and globally acclaimed novel – ‘Efuru’ published in 1966 tells the story of a talented, brilliant, and beautiful woman who, living in a small community, is limited by tradition and had no power to make a decision of her own. In an interview, Nwapa said she used Efuru to explore how women are treated in the society.

For a woman who had studied in the United Kingdom, held political office and worked in Nigeria’s education sector in the East and Western part of the country, there is no doubt that Nwapa was already armed with the exposure that informed and influenced her writings and advocacy.

The novel Efuru carried her far, establishing Nwapa as the first African woman to publish a book in English and opening the door for the emergence of a new generation of Nigerian and African female writers who also adopted her theme; questioning stereotypes about women in African societies and changing the narrative about gender.

Born on January 13, 1938, in Oguta, Imo State, Flora was the eldest of six children of her parents – Christopher Ljeoma, an agent for the United Africa Company (UAC) and Martha Nwapa, a drama teacher. She was educated at Archdeacon Crowther’s Memorial Girls’ School, Port Harcourt in Rivers State, South-south Nigeria, CMS Girls’ School, Lagos, University College Ibadan (now University of Ibadan) in Oyo State and Edinburgh University in the UK.

In her early education, Nwapa read and admired the works of English novelists – Jane Austen, William Thackeray, and Charles Dickens. “My whole life has been a mixture of influences…and at school, we were encouraged to speak in our tribal language and to respect our traditions and heritage,” she told The Guardian in an interview.

Growing up in an African home as the first child exposed her to a lot of uncomfortable things about how the African society treats women and she knew she had stories to tell. But she had to struggle hard for her voice to be heard through writing.

When she returned to Nigeria, Nwapa was appointed a Women Education Officer in Calabar, Cross River State. She later taught English and Geography at Queen’s School, Enugu and would later become Assistant Registrar (Public Relations) at the University of Lagos.

She wrote Efuru while she was a teacher in Enugu but could not publish until 1966 while she was working at UNILAG. She sent the manuscript to one of Africa’s greatest writers, Chinua Achebe, who was the general editor of African Writers Series at Heinemann Publishing at that time. Achebe recommended the story for publication. The book which attracted a wave of criticisms and commendations from different parts of the world was adopted as a novel on the English curriculum for Nigerian schools.

In 1967, the year the Nigerian civil war started, Nwapa got married to an industrialist, Gogo Nwakuche and they both had two daughters and a son. The civil war caused a disruption that forced her to relocate to the then Eastern region that went to war against the rest of Nigeria. After the war in 1970, she was appointed a member of the East Central State Executive Council and was for a time Commissioner for Lands, Survey and Urban Development.

In 1976, she went into full time writing and founded Tana Press Ltd., later named Flora Nwapa Books Ltd. Some of her published novels include – This is Lagos and Other Stores (1971), Never Again (1975), Wives at War and Other Stories (1980), and One is Enough (1981). Nwapa also self-published two lengthy poems called: Cassava Song and Rice Song (1986), and a number of children’s books.

In 1989, Nwapa was appointed visiting professor of creative writing at the University of Maiduguri and became a member of the University of Harin Governing Council. She also received invitations for a lecture tour to universities in the United States. Some of the institutions include – Loyola, Trinity, Rutgers, and New York University.

Before she died of pneumonia at the age of 62 on October 16, 1993 at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu State, her works had influenced the writings of a new generation of female writers who have been emboldened to tell their stories and carry on with the legacy of telling the story of African women.

Although it was easy to label her a feminist based on the theme of her writings, Nwapa constantly denied being one until she finally admitted in an interview where she said: “Years back, when I go on my tours to America and Europe, I’m usually asked, ‘Are you a feminist?’ I deny that I am a feminist. Please I am not a feminist, oh please. But they say, all your works and everything is about feminism. And I say, ‘No I am not a feminist.’ But having heard Obioma (a fellow author) on Monday, having heard Ama today, I think that I will go all out and say that I am a feminist with a big ‘f’ because Obioma said on Monday that feminism is about possibilities; there are possibilities, there are choices. Let us not be afraid to say that we are feminists. We need one another, we really need one another. Globally, we need one another”.

“Being a public figure, she never failed in her role as a mother,” Nwapa’s son, Uzoma said in an interview with Daily Independent. “She imbibed in us a great sense of respect for women. I admire her way of dealing with people and things. We will surely promote her legacy.”

Today, April 22, 2020, marks the 10th anniversary of the late Nigerian rapper Dagrin’s death. And while it might seem like Nigerians have moved on from the loss of the rising star, his memory keeps coming back to a lot of Nigerians who were touched by his music.

Before he was involved in a ghastly accident on April 14, 2010 that claimed his life on the evening of April 22, 2010, Barrack O’grin as he was fondly called was on his way to becoming Nigeria’s finest rapper after many years of struggling to make a name for himself. Ten years ago when NET broke the news of his death, it only took minutes before the website crashed due to overwhelming traffic. Many hearts were broken after many prayers for his survival came to nothing over a period of eight days that he struggled for his life.

Born Oladapo Olaitan Olaonipekun, on October 25, 1984, to Mr. and Mrs. Olaniyi Abolaji Olaonipekun, Dagrin began his life in Meiran, Alagbado area of Lagos. The Ogun native did not have a smooth childhood. A close friend had told NET in 2013 that he ran away from home at the age of 14 after a misunderstanding with his father. Having practically lived on the streets with friends while ‘hustling’, fortune finally smiled on him when his music career took off in his early twenties.

“The beginning was very rough, financially. As a poor boy that just appeared from nowhere, nobody believed in me. I’m a boy that has hustled at computer village, collected people’s phones and sold them to someone else. I’ve swindled people. Collected my mum’s money. I’ve done so many bad things. I used to be very bad, but music changed my life,” he said in an interview in 2010.

He released his debut album, ‘Still on the Matter’ in 2007 to lukewarm acceptance. His epiphany will only come two years later after meeting with Ola Badmus who helped him create his own label Misofunyin Entertainment under the management of Edlyne Records. With singles like ‘Pon pon pon’ and ‘Kondo’, Dagrin released his ‘C.E.O’ (Chief Executive Omota) album in 2009 to critical acclaim. This established him as a force to be reckoned with.

People took notice and he was catapulted to a towering figure among inner-city youths, especially in Lagos. Dagrin’s unrelenting effort to record music with Yoruba and pidgin English set him apart and inspired the likes of Olamide and Reminisce, who went on to record incredible successes, among many others who came after them.

From his humble beginnings to a flourishing music career, Dagrin validated the dreams of many young Nigerians struggling to escape poverty.

He became more than just a rapper and performer. He was the poster child for the grass to grace story of the unpolished and the nameless youths. He made every hustling Nigerian kid out there believe there was ‘hope’. As a result, many of them associated with him or preferably, his success.

But just as he was finally getting used to his new life of fortune and fame, tragedy struck. On April 14, 2010, The late rapper’s car, a Nissan Maxima 2008 model ran into a parked lorry in front of Alakara Police station, Mushin, leaving him with a fatal head injury. He spent eight days in the hospital before succumbing to the cold hands of death at the age of 25.

“I find his loss shocking and disappointing. It’s sad for the industry. Dagrin is irreplaceable,” Nigerian entertainment executive, Ayo Animashaun lamented.

“The Nigerian music industry lost a great legend and the fact that he made it should mean to anyone that is determined and has the zeal can make it too in life. RIP Dagrin, we’ll forever miss you,” his fellow rapper, M.I eulogized.

His song ‘If I die’ from the ‘C.E.O’ album left chills on many fans who believed that he almost knew he was going to die. The popular axiom that suggests that the most prophetic rappers die young seemed to be true with Dagrin, just like Tupac, who also died at the age of 25.

Despite the time that has now passed into a decade, many Nigerians will never forget Dagrin. He has remained evergreen in the minds of many, not just for his music, but for his authenticity and a daring demeanor that was as captivating as it was relatable.

Rest on, Barrack O’grin.

A time like this when Nigeria is throwing different measures in the frontline of the fight against COVID-19, brings back the memory of Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh’s heroics in 2014. Adadevoh’s heroics saved the nation from what could have become a catastrophic situation in 2014 when the Ebola virus was wreaking havoc in many African countries.

Call her a hero and you won’t be exaggerating, Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh deserves every posthumous honour she is receiving for the action she took “for the greater public good” in July 2014 – the year Ebola virus raced through West Africa and other parts of the world.

On July 20 2014, a certain Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American who was in isolation in Liberia after having contact with his sister who died of Ebola, flew to Lagos to attend a conference of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) billed to hold in Calabar, Cross River State. On his arrival, he collapsed at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos. It was a time doctors in public hospitals in Nigeria were on an indefinite strike and by a rare twist of fate the diplomat had to be taken to a private hospital. Among the arrays of private hospitals in Lagos, Sawyer’s best option was the First Consultants Medical Centre (FCMC) in Ikoyi, where Dr. Adadevoh worked.

Initial tests showed Sawyer had malaria, but his condition got worse. Adadevoh took interest in Sawyer’s case, alerted the Lagos State and Federal Ministries of Health and got him tested for Ebola despite his denial of having contact with an Ebola victim. At that time pressure was already mounting on the hospital from the Liberian Embassy and ECOWAS to release Sawyer to attend his conference in Calabar, but Adadevoh told them that “for the greater public good” she would not release him until the result of the test was out.

Sawyer died of Ebola four days after arriving at the hospital. The resilience of Dr Adadevoh helped the government to trace all those who had contact with the index case and helped nip the outbreak in the bud before it escalated. While Ebola virus killed more than 11,000 people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone that year, Nigeria had 20 cases. 11 were healthcare workers and of those healthcare workers, six survived and five died, including Dr. Adadevoh.

Adadevoh tested positive for Ebola on August 4, 2014 and died on August 19. Her heroics helped Nigeria avert a major outbreak and spread of the virus beyond the hospital. It also made the fight against Ebola look so effortless and gave Nigeria the courage to prepare for COVID-19. This is why many Nigerians are always quick to make reference to how the country handled Ebola whenever there is a discourse on the fight against COVID-19.

Though she became famous for helping Nigeria stop Ebola from finding its way into the city center, Dr Adadevoh was the first doctor to diagnose and alert the country’s Ministry of Health to a case of swine flu (H1N1) in Lagos in 2012. The Swine flu, a respiratory disease caused by type A influenza virus in pigs, swept through the world from 2009 to 2010 with over 200,000 fatalities worldwide.

A fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. Her father, Prof Babatunde Adadevoh, was also a renowned physician and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos. He was a consultant and advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) and several United Nations agencies and commissions. Her grandfather Sir Herbert Macaulay was one of Nigeria’s nationalists.

Adadevoh was an alumnus of the University of Lagos. She has been honoured with several posthumous awards. A Nollywood film “93 Days” which tells the story of the treatment of Sawyer by Adadevoh and other medical staff at First Consultant Medical Center, was dedicated to Adadevoh.

In a few weeks, Muslims across the world will enter the month of Ramadan and begin a 29/30-day fasting. The holy period comes before an obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca, another of the religion’s five pillars.

It’s a perfect time to remember Bilkisu Yusuf, the Nigerian journalist and feminist who died in a tragic stampede in Mecca five years ago.

Before Yusuf made the long trip across many oceans to the holy land as her religion instructs, she had made a name as one of Nigeria’s finest journalists.

After going through her primary and secondary education at Ansar Primary School, Kano (1964) and Government Girls College, Dala, Kano respectively, Yusuf went on to obtain her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. And in 1986, she also earned an advanced degree in journalism from the International Journalism School at Moscow State Institute of International Relations in Moscow, Russia.

Yusuf later worked with several reputable new organisations such as Sunday Triumph in Kano, New Nigerian and Citizen Magazine in Kaduna, as well as Daily Trust and Leadership in Abuja.

As a journalist, her dedication to truth, accountability and fight for women’s rights and liberation set her apart from her peers.

It was her devotion to providing solutions to societal issues directly affecting women that led her to found several NGOs including the Women In Nigeria (WIN), the Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN), among others. She also held the position as Executive Director of Advocacy Nigeria and was appointed as the adviser to the Nigerian President on International Affairs.

Hajiya Bilkisu Yusuf (right) at a conference before her tragic death.
Through her many NGOs, Yusuf built schools, hospitals, orphanages, and conducted numerous adult literacy classes, skills acquisition workshops and income generation projects nationwide.

At the AUN-API International Conference on Peace and Development, where scholars, public service officers, and students discussed the ‘Role of the Media in Peace’ on June 12, 2014, Yusuf said, “the media is in the position to promote peace— we (the media) manufacture conflict, promote conflict, and sustain conflict, but we are supposed to inform the people, and not misinform them,” before going on to add that “the challenge before us is to promote journalism that has the peace element in it and also the truth.”

Tragic death

On September 24, 2015 Yusuf, alongside 200 other Nigerians, breathed her last during a tragic incident while observing the holy pilgrimage in Mecca. The 62-year-old was one of the pilgrims who were on their way to cast stones at pillars to symbolize the stoning of the devil before heading to the Grand Mosque in Mecca, when a stampede occurred. Over 2,000 pilgrims were trampled to death during the stampede.

President Muhammadu Buhari, while reacting to the tragic news, eulogized Yusuf as an “exemplary, dedicated, knowledgeable, very credible, highly-respected, outstanding editor and columnist who, even in death, will remain a glittering role model for journalists, within and outside Nigeria.”

Former minister of education, Oby Ezekwesili also said, “Bilkisu fought all her life for child education. She has been consistent in her advocacy. She never wearied until it was time to go.”

Covid-19 impact on pilgrimage

A lot has happened since Yusuf’s death at the holy land five years ago. This year, for the fifth time in the last 1,400 years and the first time since 1892, the annual holy pilgrimage which sees about 2.5 million Muslims from around the globe visit Mecca every year may never hold.

On March 19, 2020, Saudi Arabia became one of the first countries in the world to effect a lockdown in order to enforce social distancing and limit the spread of Covid-19. Authorities suspended the holding of daily prayers, the weekly Friday prayers inside and outside the walls of the two mosques in Mecca and Medina, as well as the Umrah year-round pilgrimage, after the kingdom recorded its 274th case of the virus. The 2020 pilgrimage is supposed to start in late July but authorities have advised Muslims to wait for a while before making travel plans.

Hajiya Bilikisu Yusuf may have died under tragic circumstances in the course of serving God, but she’ll never be forgotten for her advocacy for women’s rights, child education, and justice.

Feminism may be gaining so much popularity now, but it is not new in Africa. Nigeria has a long list of several women activists who founded groups and mobilised other women to fight for rights.The list has the likes of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the mother of legendary Afrobeat founder Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Margaret Ekpo, a Nigerian women’s rights activist and social mobilizer who was a pioneering female politician and Alimotu Pelewura, a Lagos fish seller who led a massive protest against colonial officials over imposition of tax on women.If you’re in doubt of what women are capable of doing, the story of a prominent Yoruba monarch who had a taste of the power of women would give you a better understanding.Oba Oladapo Samuel Ademola (Ademola II) was the Alake of Egbaland from 1920 before he was forced into exile in 1948 by women activists led by Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti who staged daily protests at his palace for months.As the Alake of Egba, he was the paramount ruler of Abeokuta, the capital city of Ogun State.Ademola was an educated monarch with strong business acumen. His reign as Alake was punctured by his controversy with women in the city which forced him to go into exile for two years.Trouble started for Oba Ademola when the Abeokuta Women’s Union (a group with a membership of over 20,000 women), led by Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and supported by Eniola Soyinka her sister-in law and mother of Nobel Laureate Prof Wole Soyinka, campaigned vigorously against the imposition of taxes and price control. The women argued that their economic roles were declining, while their taxes were increasing.Some of their demands included: “Proposals to replace the flat rate tax on women with taxation on expatriate companies, investment in local initiatives and infrastructure including transportation, sanitation and education and the abolition of the Sole Native Authority (SNA) and its replacement with a representative form of government, including women.”On 5 October 1946, an AWU delegation met with Oba Ademola but there was still no result. The situation then turned worse when the Alake increased the flat-rate tax on women, an action supported by the British colonial officials.A relentless AWU began their mass protests in 1947, such as marching outside the king’s palace. In October 1946, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti led a large number of women in a march to the palace to protest the increase. The response from the colonial authorities was brutal. They deployed tear gas and assaulted the women.The brutality didn’t deter the women, they pressed on and held another demonstration that lasted for two days at the palace where they sang their popular protest song ridiculing the Alake. “Alake, for a long time you have used your penis as a mark of authority that you are our husband, today we shall reverse the order and use our vagina to play the role of husband.”The women were assured that their demands would be addressed, but it turned out to be another empty promise. Rather than meet their demands as promised, the local authorities empowered by the British colonial officers arrested the protestersIn November, 1947, the women closed down local markets and staged a protest at the palace of the Alake, blocking the entrance. Another demonstration was held in December, with the women holding vigils at Ademola’s palace, they didn’t leave until their members who had been arrested were released.By 1948, the women’s protests compelled Ademola to suspend the taxation of women and by the end of 1948, he went into exile to keep the peace in Abeokuta. He, however, returned in 1950 and died in 1962.The demand of the women seeking representation in the local administration was also granted as the Sole Native Authority system was changed and four women were included in the new system of administration.Oba Ademola’s son, Justice Adetokunbo Ademola, became the first indigenous Chief Justice of Nigeria in 1958 replacing Sir Stafford Foster Sutton. He occupied the office for 14 years. The monarch’s grandson Justice Adenekan Ademola was a judge of the Court of Appeal while his great grandson Justice Adeniyi Ademola was also a judge of the Federal High Court.

On a fateful Saturday afternoon on December 10, 2005, a Sosoliso aircraft traveling from Abuja encountered difficulties as it attempted to land on the runway at the Port-Harcourt International Airport. The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 lost its traction in the heavy rain and crash-landed, hitting a drainage culvert before splitting into parts and bursting into flames.

Of the 109 crew and passengers aboard the airplane, only two made it out alive with severe injuries. The victims, many of whom had their families at the airport awaiting their arrival, were mostly teenage students of Ignatius Loyola Jesuit College in Abuja.

Another victim of the crash that sent shivers down the country’s spine and left citizens cowering in the corner of their rooms in shock was a popular teacher, Pastor Bimbo Odukoya, who died from her injuries six hours later. No one in the country could make sense of the extremely painful loss.

Bimbo Odukoya’s husband and founder of Fountain of Life church, Pastor Taiwo Odukoya, recalled in his 2015 book ‘Gracious Legacy-The life and times of Bimbo Olukoya’ a decade after her death that her last words to him were “I will call you when we land.”

“She had called from the Abuja Airport to inform me of a slight delay with her flight. It was her last scheduled trip for the year; a two–part ministration, first in Abuja, with a connecting flight to Port Harcourt for the second,” he recalled.

The country’s reaction to the news of Pastor Bimbo’s death was understandable. Fondly referred to as Bims, she was a charmer who touched lives in more ways than one. She provided light to millions of Nigerians’ dark paths through her ministry. And indeed, to know Pastor Bimbo was to know joy and purpose.

She was more than just a pastor’s wife. By the time she got married to her husband Pastor Taiwo Odukoya with whom she co-founded The Fountain of Life Church, Pastor Bimbo, a History and Archaeology graduate from the University of Ibadan had fully dedicated her life to winning souls and saving lives. She served as the head of the counselling department at The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM) from 1987 to 1999.

Pastor Bimbo Odukoya would have celebrated her 60th birthday today.
She was born Abimbola Rosemary to the family of Mr and Mrs Oladipupo Segun-Williams on September 12, 1960. The Ogun State native who had her early education at St Mary’s private school, secondary school education at Holy Child College, Lagos and her ‘A’ levels at Federal Government College Ijanikin, would have celebrated her 60th birthday this Saturday.

“If she was alive, it would have been a big party – a landmark birthday,” Pastor Bimbo’s first daughter, Tolu Ijogun, tells this Neusroom writer.

At the Fountain of Life Church, the charismatic televangelist was her husband’s right-hand man for several years before her death, as she took up the mantle as associate senior pastor as well as the President of Discovery for Women. Pastor Bimbo quickly became a staple in millions of households through her television program Single and Married, which was broadcast locally and internationally. Her experience as a counsellor was brought to the fore as the uniquely produced program, backed by biblical principles, sought to be a guide for people in relationships and marriages.

But it wasn’t just the Christians who looked forward to listening to Pastor Bimbo’s teachings. People with different religious beliefs found her words helpful and inspiring. She racked up several honours while preaching the gospel and authored books on relationship and marriage. She was one of three Nigerian representatives chosen to carry the Olympic Torch in Athens, Greece at the 2004 Olympic games.

In death, Pastor Bimbo’s influence hasn’t waned. She has influenced the birth of a plethora of similar relationship and marriage programs.

“I normally think if she was around today, in this social media era when people can just go online and write comments; how would they have received her and her message,” Tolu wonders.

The daughter, herself an evangelist, is however thankful for the impact her mother has had on a younger generation. “She really set a good foundation that people like us and many other young Christian ministers can really stand and build on,” Tolu says. “And I’m really grateful because I look around today and see the Single and Married ministry is everywhere. She was a pioneer, she was well ahead of her time and she lived like she was living in the 2000s.”

If you go to YouTube, you’ll find several videos of Pastor Bimbo’s teachings. Many young people (married or about to) still rush to the video-sharing platform as they continue to find these videos useful. Pastor Bimbo’s first daughter is not as enthusiastic.

“I think my siblings do [watch the videos], but I don’t. It’s not because I don’t want to but it’s still a bit difficult for me,” Tolu says. “When I see her preaching, it’s like she’s alive. For my mind I can’t really reconcile it [her death]. I still have not been able to do that till now but I do hope in the future, I’ll be able to.”

Pastor Taiwo Odukoya lived with Pastor Bimbo for over 20 years before the cold hands of death struck. The university sweethearts had gotten married at the Yaba Baptist Church in 1984 after five years of courtship. Tolu says he “misses her dearly, he does talk about her.”

“But we know she’s in a better place and God called her. We don’t dwell on the past and we believe God has a plan and purpose and a greater future for us,” she adds.

If Pastor Bimbo was around today, she would be proud of her three children’s accomplishments. Tolu has taken in her footsteps as a passionate evangelist and is a marketing and communications expert, while her son Jimi is also an accomplished evangelist and an AMVCA nominated actor. Her second daughter, Tobi holds a doctorate degree in Psychology.

Pastor Bimbo, if she were here, would also have had her hands filled with her bubbly grandchildren. Tolu has three.

“I just had my third child. I know she would have loved her grandchildren, that’s something I do think of from time to time. They see her photos around the house and scream ‘grandma!’” Tolu says.

It’s been nearly 15 years since the tragic Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 crash that killed all but two aboard, but Pastor Bimbo who is resting gracefully at the Victoria Court Cemetery, Lekki, remains a shining light who will never be forgotten for her passion, selflessness, and impact.

The prayer of every parent is to have a child that would carry on with their legacy when they depart this world. This must have been atop the prayer list of popular Nollywood actress Funmi Martins before her untimely death, and it is safe to say her solemn prayer was granted.
Funmi Martins was one of the few Nollywood actresses who fans loved to see in movies. Their pictures on the poster of a new or yet-to-be-released movie is enough to sell out a movie and producers chase after them to feature in their movies.
Born in Ilesha, Osun State in Southwest Nigeria in September 1963, she had two children – Nollywood actress Mide Funmi-Martins and Ayo Martins for her first husband before their marriage crashed and in 2002, she gave birth to her third and last child Akanbi Ayomipo Peters for popular Afrojuju singer Sir Shina Peters.
She spent her early life in Lagos, Ibadan in Oyo State and attended Oke-Ona Primary and Grammar School in Abeokuta, Ogun State. After her secondary education, she was admitted at Beepo Secretarial Institute in Ibadan where she bagged a diploma in secretarial studies. Thereafter, she went into modeling before finally settling for a career in the make believe industry.
She landed her first movie role in 1993 when she starred in ‘Nemesis’ a movie directed by Fidelis Duker, one of Nigeria’s foremost filmmakers. She would later feature in several movies that made her a household name and one of the most sought after in the industry in the 1990s.
Some of the popular movies she starred in included – Eto Mi, Pelumi, Ija Omode, Eru Eleru among many others.
Her first Yoruba movie role came from veteran actor, Adebayo Salami popularly known as Oga Bello and she was one of the few actresses during her time who could act in both Yoruba and English movies.
The beautiful actress died four months to her 39th birthday, in May 2002, the same year Nollywood lost another talented star actress Adebimpe Adekola aka Ireti. 2002 wasn’t a good year for the Yoruba movie industry, it was the year they lost some of their best to the cold hands of death.
Her death came barely two months after giving birth to her last child. After complaining of dizziness, Funmi Martins was rushed to a hospital around Iju area of Agege in Lagos on Sunday May 5th, 2002, where she died of cardiac arrest the next day.
Though she left the stage early at 39, and may not have left a lot of wealth and riches but she left a heritage that her daughter Mide Funmi-Martins built on and has continued to open doors for her.
As soon as she left the stage, the industry quickly rallied round her successor and replica. Fans didn’t find it difficult transferring the love they had for Funmi Martins to Mide who looks and speaks just like her mom.
Mide who was just 23 when her mom died never had any interest in acting. The death of her mother forced her into the industry.
“This job is something I never thought I could do until my mum died and I felt I should take it up so that the name, Martins, will continue to be on fan’s lips. Ever since then, God has been awesome,” Mide said in an interview.
She would later get married to Nollywood actor Afeez Abiodun who was her mother’s manager when she was alive. She has starred in several movies as she carries on with her mother’s legacy.
Though her career was cut short very early, Funmi Martins left a legacy and lasting impression in the industry that has stamped her name in the consciousness of fans and colleagues.

Most times when the world celebrates and talks about the legacies and exploits of ‘great men’, we often fail to mention the women in their lives who stood as pillars of support, cheerleaders and caregivers as they conquer their world as big stars.

The popular saying “behind every great man stands a woman” may sound as a cliché, but its relevance is not in doubt. The death of reggae music legend Majekodunmi Fasheke popularly known as Majek Fashek is another good time to look at the women in the lives of Nigeria’s two reggae music legends Majek and his former music group (Jastix) colleague, Oseloke Onwubuya aka Ras Kimono.

Sometimes to understand the lives of some legends in any field, there is a need to look at the women who stood with them and the role they played in their lives that impacted their careers.

Rita Fashek:

Rita Fasheke was Majek Fashek’s first and only wife, they were married for more than 30 years before drug and alcohol addiction put asunder in their beautiful love story that started in ancient Benin City.

Their love story dates back to the early 1980s before Majek rose to fame. They met at a holiday job camp in Benin, Edo State and from there they built a union that lasted for over three decades.

“We were both hired as interns and something in both of us stirred as we worked together as summer interns. Soon after we met, we fell in love in the great ancient Bini kingdom,” Rita said as she narrates her love story in an interview with The Punch in 2015. They got married before Majek released ‘Prisoner of Conscience’, the album that shot him to global limelight in 1988 and their marriage produced three boys.

To understand how their love blossomed, his song ‘Without You’ from the album ‘I & I Experience’ is a perfect reference point. Majek and Rita’s love story inspired the song before their union hit the rock.

In an interview where Rita shared fond memories of the music legend, she described him as a very caring father and husband. “Before the illness, Majek’s heart was a pot of platinum. He is a very kind and loving person. He was a great husband and lover. He cared very much for the children and I. We felt his essence of fatherhood and husband whenever he was sober,” she relished.

“Majek did everything for me. He took care of me and treated me like a superstar. Whenever he went on a music tour of Europe, Majek would buy us boxes of clothes and everything else. But his alcoholism and drugs addiction denied us his love, care and humanity.”

Their love and marriage later came under threat due to Majek’s addiction, and Rita did much more than just being his wife to save him from the monster called drug addiction. According to her, after 15 years of battling for his redemption, taking him from one rehab centre to another in Nigeria and New York in the United States, she gave up on him when she became convinced that he was irredeemable.

Lamenting how she lost her husband to addiction, Rita said “I don’t know what went wrong with Majek. I may never know. He is deep into substance abuse. I discovered this after the birth of our second son, Seun (now 29 years old)”.

What is not in doubt is that Rita made a strong mark on Majek’s life and also struggled hard to save him. Despite their divorce five years before his death, her influence remains indelible.

“I never thought I would divorce Majek, I thought we would live together forever; but as we grew into different rhythms of life’s challenges, I discovered that forever was not enough time to spend with him,” she said after their divorce in 2015. Majek didn’t remarry before his death.

After their separation, Rita returned to Nigeria from New York where she is based with her children to rally support for Majek in July 2015, and took him off the streets to a rehab centre in Abuja.

Sybil Kimono:

Like Majek Fashek, his former music group mate, Ras Kimono also moved his family to the United States at the height of his career. He lived in the U.S with his wife Sybil Kimono and their three children before he decided to return to Nigeria.

Sybil and Ras Kimono met at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) where the singer used to go for rehearsals and they sealed their love by tying the knot in 1990. She was a dancer and played more than the role of a wife, he was also Ras Kimono’s manager for many years before their divorce around 2013.

In an interview in 2012, he declined a question asking about his family, “Actually, I do not talk about my family because I want to give them their privacy. They can talk about themselves wherever they go,” he said.

Although Kimono had five children (all girls) from three women before his death in 2018, he spent a greater part of his life with Sybil and they had three daughters together. As his manager, Sybil played crucial roles that greatly influenced Kimono’s career and contributed to his status as a legend in Nigeria music scene. He does not like to admit he is a legend during his lifetime.

Like many celebrity marriages, their union also came under obstacles that put an end to their love story. The couple relocated to the U.S. in the early 2004 but to the surprise of many, Kimono returned to Nigeria in 2010 without Sybil and there were reports that the couple separated while they were together in the U.S. The details of their divorce are scanty, but after his return to Nigeria without his family, the singer remarried and had another child with his new manager Efemena Okedi (his new manager), in 2013. Efemena died in 2018, just three months after Kimono’s death.

For any average Nigerian, the prospect of being a king and having subjects at their beck and call is a life dream. But not for Usman Baba Pategi, a prince and rightful heir to the throne in his native town in Niger State where his grandfather and father had proudly worn the crown as Etsu Pategi.
Rather than use his influential family’s status to climb the ladder of success, Usman, born in Pategi on May 20, 1942, preferred the harder and uncertain route. He gave up his spot to be king for his younger brother Etsu Umar Chata, preferring instead to focus on his burgeoning career in broadcasting. In 1969, when Usman was still in the process of building his career in drama as a staff of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), he made another sacrifice by volunteering to join the Nigerian Army in the Civil war.
While on the battlefront, Usman’s sight remained fully set on becoming a respected actor and after his retirement from the Army in 1985, he joined the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Kaduna broadcasting station. By the time Usman retired from the Army, he had seen more than enough to be able to expertly dramatise Nigerian soldiers’ common practices.
Usman, who had his early education in Pategi and later Ilorin Middle School, said in a 2017 interview, “It was while in the Army that I started observing how our Sergeant Major controlled the other ranks and related with his superiors. And as an active soldier, it was easy for me to gist and interact with the rank and file. And so after the war, I left the Army and returned to my first love, which is drama. Acting gives me joy. It makes me happy.”
And then Samanja was born. In the late 80s, the mock military drama series which focused on the lives of soldiers, off, on and in the barracks, quickly became a fan favourite on NTA. As Samanja, Usman gave Nigerians more than enough to cheer. His ungroomed moustache, amusing mix of English, Hausa and pidgin, as well as his antics on the series set in the barracks fascinated the audience.
In one hilarious episode, the brash soldier got swindled by a conman and he slumped to the floor of the conman’s empty room upon finding out, while his juniors desperately tried to revive him by fanning him with their military hats. The series went on to get an unusual endorsement from the military, with Usman and his team getting flown from Kaduna to Lagos by General Ibrahim Babangida to perform during the Army Day celebration and later to Aso Rock by General Sani Abacha’s wife, Maryam.
Sadly, Usman’s bad eyesight and the lack of sponsors meant that the producers of Samanja would pull it off air after a short period. “The fall [of Samanja] was the lack of sponsorship and my failing eyesight, as it will deny me the ability to act on action scenes during drama,” Usman said in his 2017 interview when he was shortlisted among distinguished theatre practitioners to be inducted as Fellows of the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP).
Although he wasn’t able to regain his sight after two medical trips to India sponsored by billionaire businessman Aliko Dangote, Usman has expressed his desire to help a new cast bring the series back to life. Whether that becomes a reality or not, Nigerians will never forget the soldier who made them laugh.

If you were ‘fortunate’ enough to hear the fabled tales of the extraordinary match that the Nigerian Super Eagles lost to India in an ‘heroic’ fashion as a child, then you’d have had an impression that Sam Okwaraji was one of the stars of the show. The sensational story that travelled far and wide tells how the football turned into a heavy stone for Nigerian players to kick and lion for the goalkeeper to catch as a result of the Indian team’s voodoo. Nigeria was whitewashed 99-1, with the only goal coming from Segun Odegbami or Mudashiru Lawal (depending on who or where you heard the story from). The aftermath was that the Indian national team got banned for life from participating in football games.Although that sensational game and all its dramatics never happened, Sam Okwaraji was a star of the beautiful game that shone brightly nonetheless.Samuel Sochukwuma Okwaraji

Born on May 19, 1964 in Orlu, Imo State, Okwaraji was nothing like his colleagues in terms of refinement. Before he kicked a ball with passion for the Nigerian national team formerly known as Green Eagles, he had studied and earned a master’s degree in international law from the Pontifical Lateran University of Rome. For many of the Nigerian players who didn’t attend school or who dropped out to focus on football, Okwaraji’s educational achievements looked like an impossible feat.

Okwaraji’s father, David and mother, Jane had only lived together for nine years after they wedded in Kano in 1950 before David died in a war that broke out at the time. The sixth of seven children – five boys and two girls – Okwaraji moved to Enugu with his mother and siblings following his father’s death.

He was a brilliant child and Jane used some of her savings to send him to Italy to study. “He was so brilliant that making him stay here was going to be a waste of time, so I had to send him,” Jane recalled in a 2014 interview.

It was in Italy that Okwaraji combined football with education.

And unlike most of his colleagues who started their playing careers with local clubs in Nigeria, Okwaraji had had a fairly successful career in Europe before he got his first call to the national team. He played for AS Roma between 1984 and 1985, NK Dinamo Zagreb between 1985 and 1986, and Austria Klagenfurt between 1986 and 1987. He was on the roster of VfB Stuttgart in Germany on a six-year contract and on loan to second division team, SSV-ULM 1848 when he was first given the chance to play for the Green Eagles in 1988.

In fact, Okwaraji fought tooth and nail to waer the green-white-green colours of his fatherland. When ULM’s manager asked the Nigerian Football Association to pay an “estimated cost of $45,000” for Okwaraji’s match bonus and an expected loss in the club’s gate tickets for the period in which Okwaraji would be on national duty, the player stood up against the club, reminding his employers that he understood what his contract stipulated.

“You or the club cannot stop me playing for my country. Let me tell you, I am going to represent my country in the World Cup in Italy whether you like it or not and I would very much like for you to be there,” John Obakpolor, then newly appointed NFA Chairman, quotes Okwaraji as saying to the club manager. Obakpolor had travelled to negotiate the price to get Okwaraji down to Nigeria to play for the Green Eagles, but the player, who had written several letters to the NFA for a chance, was having none of it.

True to Okwaraji’s words, he was in Nigeria in no time. His first game for the Eagles was against Algeria at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu on January 30, 1988. It was a Seoul 1988 Olympics qualifier. And as expected, he was the star player as Nigeria won 2-0 to qualify 2-1 on aggregate. Later in the same year, he scored one of the fastest goals in the history of the African Nations Cup against Cameroon. The Eagles would later lose the final match to the Cameroonians by a lone goal.

And that’s when everything changed. Okwaraji, after only a few games for the national team, had warmed his way into the hearts of millions of football lovers, with his guile and dreadlocks that set him apart on the field. His name was on everyone’s lips.

Death

But the joy was cut short less than a year later, when his bright lights were put out abruptly at a young age of 25.

In what would become one of the saddest days in Nigerian sports, hundreds of thousands of football fans watched agonisingly as Okwaraji slumped on the pitch less than fifteen minutes from the end of a 1990 Group C World Cup qualifier against Angola in Surulere, Lagos on August 12, 1989. He never got up. The players from both teams, matchday officials, viewers and even commentators were dumbfounded.

His mother, who was also watching the game when he slumped, wasn’t immediately aware of the tragedy.

“I didn’t know that my son had died. It was a mystery really, because when he was playing, the TV suddenly went blank. And because it was in the evening, I abused NEPA and the people transmitting the game and went to sleep,” Jane recalled. It wasn’t until the following morning that she received the shocking news.

Okwaraji, wearing the jersey number 6, was pronounced dead from possible complications of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The autopsy report showed that he had been playing with an enlarged heart and high blood pressure that neither he nor the Green Eagles’ doctors were aware of.

Days before he died, Okwaraji, who was completing his Ph.D thesis, had signed a $450,000 contract with a Belgian club. Nigeria never qualified for the global football competition that year, until five years later when Stephen Keshi led his teammates to USA ‘94 for the first time in World Cup history.

Keshi, himself now late, once said it’s going to be “difficult for the Nigerian public to forget Sam Okwaraji.”

It took Okwaraji only 10 games to be hailed as one of the country’s finest footballers but he was also respected for his rare honesty, dedication and accountability. On numerous occasions, the footballer who spoke Igbo, English, Italian, Spanish, and German fluently, paid with his money to play for Nigeria without asking for a refund. He was indeed not afraid to put his career on line for his country.

Though Okwaraji had life insurance from a Belgian firm, it came with a clause that stated that if he played outside Europe and America, he’d lose the cover. And that was exactly what happened: he died playing for Nigeria. For that particular match during which he died, Guinness Insurance had offered the players an insurance of N10,000 each. And that was all Okwaraji’s family received.

The footballer’s ageing mother and his older brother, Patrick, have both gone on record at different times to lay blame at the feet of the Nigerian government for neglecting their family since his unfortunate passing over 30 years ago.

“Nigerian government forgot all my son sacrificed. That has been my pain. They didn’t do anything to immortalise this boy. He gave his life, money, education and everything for his country,” Janet said regrettably in 2014, condemning a bronze bust erected in his honour at the National Stadium where he died.

In popular culture, Okwaraji has been eulogized by Fuji musician Ayinla Kollington with a song that became hugely popular among Nigerians. He is indeed a national hero.

The agitation for Nigeria’s independence from the British Colonial government took many dramatic turns and had many other effects, but the role played by the different actors didn’t go unnoticed. The role played by this monarch, despite being aware that independence would limit his administrative power as a monarch made him a great beneficiary when the demand for self government was granted.Oba Adesoji Aderemi, the 49th Ooni of Ife land in Ile-Ife, Osun state, Southwest Nigeria had an engaging personality that elevated him to the very top of the society, breaking all tradition and cultural protocols to become the first and only Nigerian to be a monarch and a governor – combining traditional and political power.In July 1960, Sir Aderemi was appointed Governor of Western Region which consists of the present day Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti, Edo, Delta and Lagos States. Lagos being the seat of power and the base of the colonialists at that time was not part of the Western Region.The saying that monarchs don’t get involved in politics was proved wrong by Oba Aderemi. He didn’t just hold political power, he used it well to global acclaim. He was not just a Governor-King, he was the first Black man to be appointed governor across the Commonwealth – the empire controlled by British colonialists across Africa and beyond.

Born November 15, 1889, to the family of Adekunbi Itiola and Osundeyi Gbadebo – an Ifa priest, young Aderemi started life as a Prince without growing under the tutelage of his father who died when he was eight years old. He was raised by his mother who ensured he fulfilled destiny and the prophecy that he was going to be a King.

He was enrolled at St Philip’s School, Ife in 1901 as one of the pioneer students and later enrolled in an overseas correspondence school as a private tutor. Before politics and kingship came calling, he had a stint in the public service working with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC). He later went into private business running a transport company and trading in palm oil, cocoa and other agricultural produce that were the ‘crude oil’ of that era.

By 1930 when he was selected as the 49th Ooni of Ife following the transition of Oba Ademiluyi Ijagun, he was acclaimed to be an outstanding choice and a perfect candidate for the throne.

As a product of education and one with a good understanding of its importance, he empowered his people with knowledge by founding the town’s first secondary school, Oduduwa College, in 1932, reputed to be the first privately owned college in Nigeria. He also influenced the citing of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) to Ile-Ife through his close relationship with the then Premier of Western Region, Obafemi Awolowo.

As a member of the Action Group (AG), a foremost political party dominant in the Western Region under the leadership of Awolowo, Aderemi became a member of the Legislative Council of Nigeria in 1946 and was there till 1951. The monarch would later become a member of the Nigerian Federal House of Representatives as well as minister in the Central Government from 1952-1954.

In March 1953, when Sir Anthony Enahoro moved the motion for Nigeria’s independence by 1956, the motion was opposed and defeated at the Federal House of Representatives by the Northern People’s Congress, to the delight of the British colonialists. The Action Group and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) staged a walkout from the House and prominent figures like Oba Aderemi resigned from the Council of Ministers.

Despite overtures from the Governor-General, John McPherson, who lobbied him to see reasons why independence will not be in his interest as a monarch because it will take away his administrative powers, Aderemi chose national interest over personal aggrandizement and insisted on independence.

Three months before independence on October 1, 1960, Aderemi was appointed governor of western region in July 1960 and held the position till 1962.

His personality brought dignity, global recognition to the Yoruba nation. He was one of the most famous monarchs in Africa during his time. In a caption on a photo taken during his visit to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, in 1968, at the UN Headquarters on July 31, 1968, the UN described Aderemi as the ‘Spiritual leader of the Yorubas of Nigeria’.

He didn’t only earn global recognition for Yorubaland and Nigeria, he made remarkable achievements and established lasting institutions that changed the fortune of the land and the people. As the first educated Ooni of Ife, Oba Aderemi facilitated telephone services to Ile-Ife in 1938, and built an official residence for the Ooni. He also established the Ife museum of antiquities in 1938. In 1947, he established a newspaper – New times of Nigeria with Awolowo as the managing editor. The newspaper birthed the Nigerian Tribune owned by Awolowo and was established in 1948.

Sir Aderemi played a crucial role in the political crisis of the western region in 1962 which led to the removal of Chief Ladoke Akintola as the Premier. It was Aderemi, in his capacity as the governor who removed the Premier while acting on a letter signed by some members of the House and promptly inaugurated a new Premier, Alhaji Dauda Adegbenro,

He spent 50 years on the throne as Ooni of Ife and was a globally recognised and respected monarch who was knighted twice by Queen Elizabeth before his transition in July 7, 1980, just four months before his 91st birthday.

Awolowo who is also now late described Aderemi as a rare breed who put the interest of his people first and never allowed selfish interests drive him.

“During all our innumerable meetings, discussions and conversations, the late Ooni did not, even on a single occasion, raise any issue of personal benefit to himself. His sole concern at all times was the welfare of his dear people in Ile-Ife, and in Nigeria as a whole,” Awolowo wrote in his tribute titled: ‘A Rare Breed of Monarch’.

The role of mass media in a time of crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic presently threatening global peace, cannot be overemphasized. From time immemorial, the mass media has been instrumental in setting agenda and making people act in a desired way. Harold Laswell’s Magic Bullet Theory of Mass Media which explains how media controls what the audience views and listens to and the effects, aptly describes the impact of media in a time like this. By constantly giving prominence to a topic, the media creates a uniform thinking among people to make them take a particular action.During the 1918 influenza epidemic, which killed an estimated half a million people in Nigeria and infected a third of the world’s population, the people of that era had no access to the common means of communication we now have in 2020. They only had very few newspapers and the town criers who disseminated information across communities, unarguably, their reach would be very minimal compared to the reach of the numerous means of communication in the world today. Nigeria didn’t have a radio and television station until 1939 and 1959 respectively. The first television station in the country, the Western Nigerian Government Broadcasting Corporation (WNTV) began broadcasting on October 31 1959, while the first radio station was established in Ibadan in 1939.The major form of mass communication available to British colonial administrators at the front line of battling the influenza in Nigeria was the newspaper. At that time they were already overwhelmed by the exponential rise in the number of casualties and had to seek local help from the natives. The populace on their own part were not complying with measures put in place to address the epidemic, they didn’t trust the colonialists and believed their actions had sinister motives. An example is the manner in which many Lagos residents fled from the colony when safety officers started visiting homes to ascertain the level of casualty and disinfect houses. It was difficult to make the natives comply with safety measures.

While all the newspapers at that time had a common goal – to condemn colonialism and lead a call for independence, The Nigerian Pioneer owned by Sir Kitoye Ajasa towed a different path which earned it the tag of official mouthpiece of the British colonial government. Despite the labelling, the newspaper stood out in its reportage which helped to sensitize the populace when Spanish flu was wiping away thousands of Nigerians between 1918 and 1919. The message became more important than the messenger during the crisis.

Sir Kitoye Ajasa was a legal practitioner, politician and newspaper publisher born on August 10 1866. He was one of the leaders of the first political party in Nigeria – the People’s Union, and founded the Nigerian Pioneer newspaper in 1914.

He enjoyed a cordial friendship with the colonialists and was a friend of Nigeria’s Governor-General, Lord Lugard who reportedly facilitated his knighthood. Kitoye Ajasa was the son of Thomas Benjamin Macaulay from a branch of the Saro family who migrated to Lagos from Ajase in Dahomey after gaining freedom from a slave ship in Sierra Leone.

He studied at CMS Grammar School, Lagos before moving to Dulwich College in London and later studied to become a qualified lawyer at the Middle Temple (London), where he was called to the Bar in 1893 before returning to Lagos to begin his legal practice. He married Oyinkan Moore – the granddaughter of the celebrated Abeokuta trader Osanyintade Williams. After spending 12 years in London where he qualified as a lawyer, Ajasa decided to drop his original name Edmund Macaulay and adopted Kitoye Ajasa.

In 1906, he became an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, and in 1914 was made a member of the Nigerian Council of Governor-General Frederick Lugard. He was widely criticised by many nationalists and his contemporaries for his idiosyncrasies and advocacy for the full adoption of European ideas and institutions as the fastest way to make progress.

“We in West Africa have been for generations under British rule and with that rule we are satisfied,” he said on September 9, 1917. In 1923, he explained that his motive for founding the Nigerian Pioneer newspaper was “to interpret thoroughly and accurately the Government to the people and the people to the Government”.

In their description of the role of Ajasa’s newspaper, Toyin Falola and Ann Genova wrote in their book ‘Historical Dictionary of Nigeria’: “The Nigerian Pioneer, established by Sir Kitoyi Ajasa and distributed from Lagos from 1914 to 1934, had little success. On the one hand, it was criticized for appearing pro-government; on the other, it was praised for thoroughly interpreting government policy to its readers.”

As a good ally of the British colonialists, when the government met stiff restriction from the natives during a house-to-house visit as part of measures to combat the 1918 epidemic, the support of Kitoyi Ajasa was solicited by the government to use his newspaper to publicise the scheme and sensitize the people.

“The Nigerian Pioneer newspaper from 1918–1919 devoted more space to the epidemic than any other news medium in the Lagos colony,” Jimoh Mufutau Oluwasegun wrote in the Journal of Asian and African Studies. “After much publicity made by the government by means of press reports and advertisement, more natives became sympathetic with the government attempts at controlling the disease and volunteered to assist them in their action.”

His fraternity with the British colonialists would later make him the first Nigerian to be knighted by the British Empire when he was made a knight in the 1928 Birthday Honours, four years before then he had been conferred with an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1924.

He was a legislator until 1933 and also became a Judge of the High Court of Lagos. He died in 1937. Kitoye Ajasa’s daughter Oyinkan Abayomi was a prominent educator and feminist who founded the Nigerian Women’s Party which advocated for equal rights for women.

“I can spot potential after meeting some people for just a few minutes; even when they never imagined that they’ve got anything to offer.”
That was Tade Ogidan, according to Punch, answering questions from some of his curious colleagues on the Ibadan Film Circle, a WhatsApp forum initiated by director and film teacher, Niji Akanni, in 2016.
Born in Lagos in July 1960 to middle class parents – Akinola and Rachael Ogidan – Ogidan’s journey to becoming an acclaimed filmmaker and producer was one filled with belief, sheer dedication, and hard work. After undergoing his primary education at Government Demonstration School and Surulere Baptist School in the 60s to 70s, and a secondary education at Maryland Comprehensive Secondary School, Ikeja, in 1978, Tade Ogidan envisioned a world where storytelling and cinematography could be pivotal in changing millions of lives.
By the time he returned from the United States where he had gone to study Film, Radio and Television Production at Eastern New Mexico University and Theatre Arts at the State University of New York, Ogidan found a spot as an intern at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) to observe the mandatory National Youth Service in 1982-83.
At NTA, a young Ogidan honed his skills and rose to become a full-time Producer/Director with NTA Channel 10, and a Continuity Announcer with NTA 2 – Channel 5. Within 10 years, he had produced/directed several episodes of successful drama series including Play of the Week, Tele Theatre, Legal Angle, and The New Village Headmaster. He also won awards for his work on Blinking Hope, The Boys Next Door and The Reign Of Abiku.
After almost 10 years of overseeing some of the best content on NTA, Ogidan decided it was time to run his own show. He left the station in 1990 and formed the OGD Pictures LTD. His company’s first production, Hostages, took six months to shoot but wasn’t released until 5 years after – in 1998. One of the reasons for the movie’s delay, besides financial restriction, was because Ogidan had to wait for over one year to get approval from the Police IG before shooting the spectacular police scenes which included the use of helicopters. It was a masterpiece.
Before Hostages was released, his directorial work on Owo Blow (1995) made Taiwo Hassan aka Ogogo a superstar, Out of Bounds (1997) made Bimbo Akintola a sought after actor for romantic roles, and Diamond Ring (1998) made Nigerians fall in love with Teju Babyface. Ogidan’s reputation grew and he went on to direct and produce even more blockbusters. His dedication to quality works were also very evident in Saving Alero (2001), Ayomida (2003), Dangerous Twins (2004) and Aya mi òwòn: Madam Dearest (2005).
But for all the critical acclaim and praises, Tade Ogidan struggled to make money from his movies. He told his colleagues on Whatsapp in 2016 after a decade-long hiatus from producing major movie projects, “I have not shot a major main-stream project in a while. My worry is: where will I sell the new works into? I may pride myself in making good films; but I am not a marketing person. So it is one thing to make a good film and another matter to spend adequately on publicity and market the product. Most practitioners make modest projects for the cinemas and TV screens. I don’t have modest projects. I have not said that in foolish pride.”
“I have certainly been doing other things that keep my team surviving. In fact, those are the real projects that we make money from. I have hardly ever made money – sensible profit – from my movies” he added, crediting Mo Abudu, Kunle Afolayan and Judith Audu as producers who know how to market and make great noise for their projects.
Truly, the seasoned filmmaker earned from his other ventures, working on a number of TVCs for advertising agencies like Prima Garnet, Verdant Zeal, Lintas, as well as packaging TVCs for Crystal Bank, First Bank, FCMB, ABC Wax, Nigeria Export Processing Zone, Nigeria Airways, Royco, Maggi, Ajinomoto Seasoning and many more. He also worked on other projects such as Crime Fighters and the Teju Babyface Show.
He made a brief return to movie production after another hiatus to release the movie, Gold Statue in 2019.
Though Tade Ogidan continues to dedicate his time to other projects, his seat at the table of Nigeria’s most respected filmmakers is high and untouchable.

Today, it’s hard to find local TV shows dedicated to children with a strong storytelling content but back in the 90s that was all the rage. Shows like “Speak Out” and “Storyline,” which aired on Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), taught important life skills to children via stories and similar content. But the king amongst these shows was Tales By Moonlight, a 30-minute children’s programme that narrated traditional African folklore.
Tales By Moonlight was an absolute hit and in the 90s when on-demand content didn’t exist, hundreds of thousands of kids and their parents tuned in to NTA each Sunday at 6:30pm. There was something for everybody. It was superior to anything on TV at the time and NTA was THE station of the day.
Launched in 1984, each episode featured a woman, known simply as ‘Aunty’, narrating different tales from folklore to a group of kids seated underneath a tree. At the end of each episode, the kids identified the lessons they picked from the story and also asked questions about things they were not clear about. Each episode typically ended with a dance battle of sorts.
Running into the 90s, Tales By Moonlight keyed into the age old tradition of storytelling and leveraged local folklore to teach critical life lessons that impacted the lives of children all over the country. Back then there were no PVRs or streaming but this show had people scrambling to their television sets every night.
It’s been a couple of decades since Tales By Moonlight went off air but the children it raised are out in the world doing many incredible things and changing the world. What a fantastic representation of the power in stories.

On June 4 2001, the administration of former governor Bola Tinubu rolled out drums to rename the newly-dualised Oregun road after Kudirat Abiola, the second wife of MKO Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election.Dualised at N990 million, the road from Ojota to Oregun in Ikeja local government area of the state will now be known and called “Kudirat Abiola Way”, the state declared at the ceremony which attracted activists and pro-democracy campaigners who led several campaigns and protests against the military junta which ended with the death of the tyrannical dictator Gen Sani Abacha.At the centre of the road’s name is the heartbreaking story of Kudirat Olayinka Abiola, who was assassinated at age 44 in Ikeja by gunmen on Abacha’s killer squad. The arrest of Abiola on treason charges in 1994 after declaring himself winner of the annulled 1993 election threw Kudirat, who was ordinarily tuned to private life, into activism. She stood in gap at a time when her husband’s political family was in disarray with no coordinating figure to lead their demand for the release of the incarcerated business mogul.She led several campaigns and joined forces with other pro-democracy campaigners like Chief Anthony Enahoro and other groups to mount pressure on the government for the release of her husband. According to a website dedicated to her memory, in the summer of 1994, Kudirat was actively involved in sustaining the oil workers’ 12-week strike against the military regime. The strike, which succeeded in isolating and weakening the government, was one of the longest in Africa’s history by oil workers. In December of 1995, when the pro-democracy groups decided to march for freedom in Lagos, Kudirat joined Enahoro at the forefront of the march, braving the intimidation and bullets of heavily armed government forces sent to disperse them.With her rising profile, the military government believed she was growing too influential and becoming popular like her incarcerated husband, they decided to silence her as the only politically outspoken and the most senior among Abiola’s wives, after the death of Simbiat Abiola in 1992.Several accounts say Kudirat left Abiola’s residence in Opebi, Ikeja on June 4, 1996 in her husband’s white Mercedes Benz 300 S-Class car. As they approached the 7-Up end of Oregun Industrial Estate to link the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway around 9:40am, her assailants who had been trailing opened fire on the car, killing Kudirat and her driver, while her protocol officer, Lateef Shofolahan was said to have ‘miraculously’ escaped unhurt.According to a June 1996 African Research Bulletin report, a group calling itself the “Committee for the Release of Moshood Abiola” reportedly “claimed responsibility for the killing, stating that it killed Mrs. Abiola because ‘her campaign to free Moshood Abiola was driven by a consuming ambition for political limelight at the expense of her husband”. The police also placed a $45,000 bounty on the killers of Kudirat. Shofolahan would later be indicted as the insider who connived with Major Hamzat Al-Mustapha, Abacha’s former Chief Security Officer (CSO), Abacha’s son, Mohammed; and former head of Mobile Police Force Unit, Aso Rock, Rabo Lawal.Her assassination sparked outrage in the country, members of the civil society groups were the worse hit by the pain. At a book launch in November 1995, Kudirat who was firmly committed to her husband’s political aspiration, was quoted to have said: “June 12 is worth defending with our lives, otherwise our children will continue to be slaves in their own fatherland”.In honour of her rare bravely and exemplary heroic, the Lagos state government named the popular Oregun road after her in June 2001. At the inauguration of the road in 2001, Tinubu had said the road renamed after Kudirat “is our authoritative declaration of her triumph over her killers and another monumental testimony to her march into immortality”.Not just in Lagos, in faraway New York City in the United States, the north-east corner of Manhattan’s 44th Street and Second Avenue opposite Nigeria’s United Nations Mission in New York was also renamed as “Kudirat Abiola Corner” in January 1998. The move sparked a series of controversies among Nigerians in the United States. Abacha’s regime was also “furious that the street on which Nigeria’s U.N. mission and New York consulate is located was to be named after her,” the IPS News Agency reported on September 25, 1997.According to the account of Joe Igbokwe, an 83-page book to discredit the heroic of Kudirat was produced by apologists of the military dictator, Nigeria’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations (1990-1999), Professor Ibrahim Gambari (now Chief of Staff to President Buhari) and other senior staff of the Nigerian Embassy were mobilized to discredit Kudirat in a bid to stop the naming of a New York street after her. The street is the only place in the U.S with a Nigerian name.Born in 1952, in Zaria, Kaduna State, Kudirat was one of the high flying students at Muslim Girls High School, Ijebu Ode, Ogun State where she was the Head Prefect in her final year. According to her memorial website, she married Abiola at 21, and their union produced seven children – Hafsat, Abdulmumin, Yusau, Kafilat, Jamiu, Hadi and Moriam.Kudirat’s daughter, Hafsat Abiola-Costello, who is also a civil rights activist, while speaking on her mother’s murder has said “If the only way we could have saved her life was to have her silent in the face of tyranny and oppression, then there is no point”.

For those who knew Clifford Nwa Orji as a razor blade seller at the bustling Oshodi market, they’d never have imagined he’d turn out to be a deadly man eater.When Lagos residents moved past the highway bridge near Toyota bus stop, Oshodi-Isolo expressway, it was not unusual to dismiss Orji as a destitute striving for a living. Until the morning of February 3, 1999, when a faint cry for help from a self-created grotto under the highway bridge alerted passersby.The shocking discoveryOnce inside the cave, the people were shocked to their marrows as they were met with a putrid smell, with freshly cooked human limbs, wrists, thighs and a dying woman lying helplessly by metal pots and firewood. The victim whose cries gave Orji away was identified as Awawu, from Agege, and she was immediately rushed to the hospital in Ikeja.Orji was incoherent in his statement when police arrived at the scene and was taken to the Makinde Police Station in Oshodi, where reporters drilled him for answers all Lagos residents were asking.The confessionFew days after his arrest, Orji was paraded before the media with roasted parts of human beings, including skulls, legs, hands and abdomen. One severed head of a lady identified as Eno, a trader from Akwa Ibom, was also on show. It was a chilling sight.A disheveled Orji told interviewers he hailed from Enugu state. And that he had been eating human flesh for years.Concord newspaper quoted him as saying, “We have been eating human meat for the past seven years before coming to Lagos. It is our culture to eat human meat. We have killed over three people, especially young girls who hawk wares. We always lured them to our enclave under the pretext that we wanted to purchase their wares. Once they are in our net, we pounce on them and kill them for eatable meat. My colleague is the human hunter while I am the butcher.”Orji and Tahiru during the parade.
Orji’s answer to the question on whether he’d continue to eat human flesh if he became a free man led many to believe he was suffering from mental illness. “Yes, to me there is no difference between human and goat meat,” he said. Others simply believed he was putting on a show to escape the wrath of the law.The unsolved mysteryThough police had reasons to believe Orji and his accomplice, Tahiru were not just human eaters but also human spare-parts sellers, as a huge sum of money, phone, cheques were also found in the cave, the case led to dead ends.Orji was later arraigned in court for alleged murder and was remanded in prison. He even filed a one million Naira lawsuit through his representative, Abiodun Odusote Chambers, against the Lagos State Attorney-General, Ade Ipaye, over his continued detention in prison for about 12 years without trial.DeathClifford Orji remained in the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons in Lagos for nearly fifteen years, until he was pronounced dead on August 17, 2012 aged 46. He was said to have demonstrated extreme signs of insanity before his death. No one came forward to receive his corpse, which was deposited at the Isolo General Hospital mortuary.Reported cases of robbery and rape continue to increase at the spot which was once Clifford Orji’s hideout. The flyover that connects Apakun to Oshodi from 7/8 bus stop on the airport Road, Lagos, has become one of the criminal hotspots Lagos residents have been warned to be wary of, especially at night.

As it was when Fela Anikulapo-Kuti breathed his last in 1997, it’s an incredibly dark day for Afrobeat. And an incredibly sad day for music. Tony Allen, the legendary drummer and co-founder of Afrobeat, is dead.Allen died in Paris on Thursday, the last day of April, 2020. His death was sudden. According to his manager Eric Trosset who spoke with the 79-year-old master drummer shortly before his death, Allen sounded as fit as a fiddle just two hours before he was pronounced dead.“He was in great shape, it was quite sudden,” Trosset told AFP. “I spoke to him at 1pm then two hours later he was sick and taken to Pompidou hospital, where he died.”It would be a disservice to Allen to describe him as anything other than a pioneer of Afrobeat for his contribution to the unique genre which incorporates elements of highlife, as well as traditional Nigerian and African music.Hours after the devastating news, the Egypt 80 band led by Fela’s son Seun Kuti with whom Allen continued to perform, said in a short but powerful statement on Twitter, “The king of sticks is no more.”Born in Lagos in 1940 to a Nigerian father and a Ghanaian mother, Allen, the oldest of six children, was only 24 when he became an acquaintance of Fela in 1964, becoming an original member of Kuti’s “Koola Lobitos” highlife-jazz band. Six years before the historical union between the pair, an 18-year-old Allen had been mesmerized by the talent of American jazz drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach, and he sought to beat them at their own game by self tutoring. It wasn’t long before his talent began to manifest.In his 2015 autobiography, Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat, Allen recalled his meeting with Fela, “The first thing he asked was ‘Are you the one who said that you are the best drummer in this country?’ I laughed and told him, ‘I never said so.’ He asked me if I could play jazz and I said yes. He asked me if I could take solos and I said yes again.”Allen also said in the book, “I was looking for something. I wanted to be myself. I played like everybody already but there was no point in continuing doing that because I’d be bored completely.”And find himself he did. By the turn of the 70s, Allen’s dexterity on the drums had endeared millions of people across the world to the unique music genre, as he went on to create over 30 critically acclaimed albums with Fela and his Africa ‘70 group, including Gentleman, ‘Yellow Fever’, ‘Sorrow, Tears and Blood’, and ‘Zombie’.Like the sun and the moon obey God’s command with glee, so did the sticks obey Allen’s command. Where Fela’s rebellious voice reverberated in halls and arenas full of thousands of music lovers, Allen’s message was loud and clear through his sticks and drums. The rhythm the drummer’s exuberant sticks created when they hit on the tough leather pinned to a round box with clips, jostled lovers of music out of their seats as Fela’s fierce revolt sunk in.The joy in Allen’s eyes when he drummed was unquantifiable, it was as if only his sticks could do no wrong in his eyes.Sadly, the peerless synergy between Allen and Fela that promised to forever bond them as ‘brothers’ began to show signs of weakness in the mid 70s, when dissension began to grow in the ranks of Africa ’70 and arguments over royalties and recognition grew in intensity. The pair would eventually split up in 1978, even as Fela would go on to have sizable contributions on his former ally’s first three solo albums – ‘Jealousy’, ‘Progress’, and ‘No Accommodation For Lagos’. Fela struggled to fill the void created by Allen’s departure.In his autobiography, Allen cited the increasingly volatile situation around Fela’s political activism, particularly the army’s attack on the musician’s compound in 1977, as what led to the final nail in the coffin of their separation.“With me and Fela, it’s a question of telepathy,” Allen said of his relationship with the musician. “That is why I was able to stick around this guy for 15 years — you know, I never did that with anyone before; the maximum time I stayed in a band was one year.”Shortly after the separation, Allen formed his own group and recorded ‘No Discrimination’ in 1980 and ‘N.E.P.A.’ in 1985. During that period, Allen also worked with renowned musicians such as King Sunny Adé, Ray Lema and Manu Dibango. After relocating to Paris, the drummer continued to work on new projects, armed with an even more refined ‘afrofunk’ sound. He would return to his Afrobeat roots in 2006, releasing the critically acclaimed ‘Lagos No Shaking’ on June 13 of the same year. In his Tribute to Art Barkley performance in 2016, Allen who was thoroughly enjoying himself, cut a sheepish grin as he nodded his head in approval to the crowd’s boisterous reception to the sound of his drums. Such was the man’s confidence in his talent.It is in no way an embellishment of Allen’s talent on the drums that he is described by UK musician Brian Eno as “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived”.In death, Allen has been hailed for his role in changing the history of African music by Beninoise singer Angelique Kidjo.Flea, the bassist for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, who spent time with Allen in London, called him “one of the greatest drummers to ever walk this earth” in an Instagram post. “What a wildman, with a massive, kind and free heart and the deepest one-of-a-kind groove,” Flea said.Tony Allen spent over five decades creating magic in a genre only a handful of musicians in the world can lay claim to, and he has consequently left an indelible mark in the history of music. In the words of his partner, friend, and brother, the late great Fela Kuti, “without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat.”

Wale Adenuga is the brains behind Papa Ajasco and Company and Super Story, two TV series that have been on the airwaves for over 40 years combined.Adapted from Adenuga’s successful Ikebe Super comics from the 80s, Papa Ajasco and Company has been on air since 1996 while Super story, also adapted from a magazine of the same name Adenuga ran in the 80s, has been on air since 2001. How did the son of a tobacco seller become one of Nigeria’s most prolific TV producers?Born on September 24, 1950 just outside Ile-Ife, Adenuga had his primary education in Ile-Ife before moving to Ibadan to attend the Ibadan City Academy for his secondary education. The son of a tobacco merchant, Adenuga was a brilliant student and ended up studying Business Administration at the University of Lagos (UNILAG).It was during his time at UNILAG that he joined the school magazine as a cartoonist. Soon he was made Chief Cartoonist. After graduation and NYSC service, he launched his own comic called Ikebe Super. It was in this comic that he introduced characters such as the womaniser Papa Ajasco, illiterate Pa Jimoh, and playboy Boy Alinco. The gold digger Miss Pepeiye was introduced in later editions.Ikebe Super was successful and Adenuga soon launched Super Story, which focused on satire, and Binta, a children’s publication. They were both successful in their own right but a downturn soon came with the economic conditions of the late 80s forcing Adenuga to switch gears and dive into film instead. In 1984, he launched Wale Adenuga Productions (WAP) through which he produced a Papa Ajasco movie before following up with a movie adaptation of the Binta comics, renamed Binta My Daughter, in 1995.But movies weren’t cutting it so Adenuga created the Papa Ajasco and Company (originally The Ajasco Company) television series in 1996. He followed that with other series: Super Story, This Life, Binta My Daughter and Nnenna and Friends. Along with his wife Ehiwenma, he co-founded Binta International Schools on September 24, 1994 and launched the Pencils Film and Television Institute (PEFTI) in 2004. Wale Adenuga launched the WAPTV cable channel in October, 2012 and today it shows on 6 different cable platforms.Over his illustrious career, Wale Adenuga has impacted many lives, achieved a lot of success and his creations are still reflecting in pop culture today, over two decades later. As a businessman and creative, there is a lot of inspiration to glean from Wale Adenuga. We stan.

Walter Carrington, a former Ambassador of the United State to Nigeria, described as a lifelong African specialist by the New York Times and as a ‘Friend of Nigeria’ by many Nigerians, died on Tuesday August 11, 2020, at age 90.His wife Arese Carrington announced his death on Wednesday. She said: “He passed away peacefully, surrounded by loved ones at the age of 90 years old on Tuesday, August 11th, 2020.”Carrington was appointed the U.S envoy to Nigeria in 1993 by President Bill Clinton just after the June 12, 1993 election, adjudged the most credible election in Nigeria’s history, was annulled by the military government of Ibrahim Babangida.Arriving Nigeria at a time of political upheavals, Carrington knew he was coming to face an herculean task, but it was not unfamiliar terrain for him. From his early days as a student, he had committed himself to activism and speaking against oppression in the society. This made him the first student elected to the National Board of Directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) where Martin Luther King Jr. was also a prominent member. It wasn’t surprising that Carrington had constant headbutting with the military regime of General Sani Abacha from the period he started his diplomatic assignment in November 1993 (12 days before Abacha took over power) till he left in 1997.Born July 24, 1930, in New York City, to Walter R. Carrington, a Barbadian immigrant and Marjorie Irene Hayes. Carrington was the elder of his parents’ two children (a male and a female).A graduate of Harvard College in 1952 and Harvard Law School in 1955, Carrington was drafted into the U.S Army when he finished from the law school, and he was there for two years. After then he started his law practice in 1957 and at age 27 he was appointed by the governor of Massachusetts as the Commissioner of the Commission Against Discrimination, Massachusetts. The appointment made him the youngest commissioner the state ever had.Before his arrival in Nigeria in 1993 as a diplomat, the activist-envoy had visited Nigeria in 1959 as an international student for a programme called the Experiment in International Living where the students toured major cities in Nigeria before independence in 1960. He had also been a Professor of African Affairs and written extensively about the continent ahead of his appointment. He also served as a Director of all Peace Corps Operations in Africa (1961 -1969), and as the United States Ambassador in Senegal (1980 -81).In Nigeria, Carrington went beyond the call of duty, integrated himself into the local affairs and culture and immersed himself fully into championing the call for democratic rule in Nigeria. He openly supported the pro-democracy protesters against the Abacha regime, identified with the activists labelled as rebels by the military. In words and in action he opposed the military regime and gave anti-Abacha speeches at several events. At the time when the anti-military activists were being hunted, the American Embassy became their place of refuge.By doing this, Carrington etched his name in gold and his rare activism as a diplomat earned him the moniker – ‘Omowale’ (the son has come home) from the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) chieftains who were the most wanted activists by the Abacha regime. Before him, another prominent foreign figure named ‘Omowale’ in Nigeria was American activist Malcolm X by the Muslim Students Society of the University of Ibadan, during his visit to Nigeria in 1964.As expected, oppressors and liberators are never on the same page, the Abacha regime made several moves to hound Carrington for associating with pro-democracy advocates. His diplomatic immunity was the only shield that protected him from ending up like the activists jailed and others like Kudirat Abiola, Shehu Musa Yar’adua, Alfred Rewane who were killed by the military. Expelling him from Nigeria also proved abortive, he was a pain in the neck of Abacha.During a wave of bombing incidents in Nigeria in 1996, Carrington was summoned to Abuja by the Foreign Minister on Christmas Eve for an official dressing down. The military regime also accused him of having knowledge of the attacks due to his close contacts with opposition groups.In September 1997, when he was set to leave Nigeria as a diplomat, heavily armed policemen mounted a blockade at the venue of a farewell reception organised in Carrington’s honour in Lagos. When the location was changed, the security operatives burst into the new venue threatening to shoot a speaker and ordered the foreign guests, including the envoy himself, to leave the premises.He was quoted by The New York Times as saying the incident as ”the most surrealistic experience I have had here yet” in Nigeria.After this incident, the Minister for Special Presidential Affairs at the time, Wada Nas, was quoted by AFP as saying Carrington’s ”stay in Nigeria must be described as four years of waste during which nothing was accomplished between the two countries in economic, cultural or political terms.”Nas’ unpopular opinion about the diplomat didn’t change the name which had been etched in gold in the hearts of millions of Nigerians who saw Carrington as a ‘Friend of Nigeria’.President Muhammadu Buhari, in a tribute on Wednesday, described Carrington as a “long time friend of Nigeria and an astute and courageous diplomat” who “openly supported the people of this country when they fought for the return of democracy following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections won by the late Moshood Abiola.”Senator Shehu Sani, a former Senator and activist who was also jailed by the military under Abacha said Nigeria “owe a debt of gratitude to the man who courageously stood on the side of democratic forces during the struggle against military dictatorship.”Abdulmahamud Aminu, a former President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), also described Carrington as “a great friend of oppressed Nigerians during the halcyon years of military dictatorship and remained so years after.”Carrington was more than a friend of Nigeria like many like to describe him. Beyond all cultural and geographical barriers, the American fell in love with a Nigerian Arese Ukpoma. If citizenship were issued by marriage like it is done in other developed societies, Carrington qualified to be called a Nigerian.“It is true in my case, that most black Americans come to Africa to seek their heritage. I came and found my destiny,” Carrington said in an interview in 2013.He met Arese, a Medical Doctor and Public Health Consultant, at his first diplomatic function in Nigeria. She had also worked as the Associate Director of the Harvard School of Public Health’s AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria.The U.S Consulate in Nigeria described Carrington as a champion of civil liberties, democracy and closer ties between the U.S. and Nigeria.That was the cause for which Carrington stood throughout his time in Nigeria as U.S envoy. He fought for democracy with the enthusiasm expected of a patriot. In another day and age, he might have been destined to be an African as many have said he had an African heart.

When he eventually left Nigeria in 1997, he continued to lend his voice to the democracy struggles and played a crucial role in the renaming of the street on which Nigeria’s U.N. mission and New York consulate is located after Kudirat Abiola, the most politically active wife of MKO Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election.

Carrington told the New York City Council in October 1997 that he was “convinced” that the Abacha government assassinated Kudirat Abiola in 1996. He said: “She was indefatigable in her efforts to unite all those who fought for a return to democracy in Africa’s largest and potentially richest country.”

Before his death at 90, he witnessed Nigeria’s transition to democratic government and the 20 years of democracy in Nigeria Carrington said this is one of the events that made him feel fulfilled, “I feel fulfilled about the end of apartheid in South Africa, I feel fulfilled about the return of democracy to Nigeria.”

Shortly after he was sworn in as Lagos governor in May 1999, Bola Tinubu, renamed the street housing several foreign embassies in Victoria Island after Walter Carrington. In 2003, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo conferred on him the national honour award of Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR).

In fulfilment of her father’s dream to honour Carrington for the role he played in enthroning democracy in Nigeria, Basirat Fawehinmi-Biobaku, daughter of late human rights lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi, launched a book – ‘A Duty to Speak: Refusing to Remain Silent in a Time of Tyranny,’ at his 80th birthday in Lagos in 2010.

Also in his honour, the U.S Consulate General in Lagos initiated the Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative (CYFI), a youth-based initiative launched in 2011 to “bring together Nigerian youth of exceptional vision, skills and experience to design and implement projects that have a positive impact on Nigerian society.”

When ‘Taxi Driver’ comes up on your stereo as you frantically search through radio stations for traffic updates while you sit behind the wheels on a hot Monday afternoon in Lagos, you’d be forgiven for not quickly changing the dial.The horns and trumpet at the start of the song are soothing enough to escape your worries for a moment, but the voice that follows is one that casually reassures you that your troubles are not peculiar and definitely not insurmountable. That voice is Bobby Benson’s.Bobby BensonBobby Benson was born Bernard Olabinjo Benson in April 1921 in Ikorodu, Lagos. Benson didn’t immediately set his sights on getting his voice heard across the world, as he was content with learning a craft in fashion designing while in Secondary School. He would later try his hands in boxing, before he travelled abroad for a stint as a sailor in the Merchant Navy.Benson’s world would eventually take a huge turn.He became a master in playing the guitar, piano and saxophone, and in the early ‘40s, he made his entertainment debut with the Negro Ballet in London, touring several European capitals.Home Is Where The Heart – And Money – IsBy 1947, Benson had made up his mind to return to his home country. But he never returned from Britain alone. He stepped on his country’s soil with a lady named Cassandra – his wife of half Scottish and half Caribbean origin with whom he later formed the Bobby Benson and Cassandra Theatrical Party.His music reached millions in no time. He formed the Bobby Benson Jam Session and played swing, jive, sambas and calypsos. It was through this band he introduced the first electric guitar. Benson’s team quickly expanded to over 10 members in the 1950s, and he ultimately became a pioneer of the popular highlife genre.That was when Benson’s first big hit, ‘Taxi Driver’ was recorded.Benson also opened his own night club, Caban Bamboo in Ikorodu, which he later converted into the Hotel Bobby.The All-round EntertainerBefore Dapo ‘D’banj’ Oyebanjo earned the moniker, ‘The Entertainer’ in the early to late 2000s, Bobby Benson was known as the ultimate showman in music. He earned his stripes as a singer, comedian, performer and an overall entertainer. His happy go lucky demeanor earned him a show on NTA in the 1970s, where he performed as a stand-up comedian and magician, while he also sang.Benson, with his larger than life characters, was simply a joy to watch for all. And he had the hits to back his colourful persona – ‘Gentleman Bobby’, ‘Freedom’, ‘Mafe’, ‘Nylon Dress’ and ‘Niger Mambo’ to name a few.‘Taxi Driver’ went beyond the shores of Nigeria, becoming a classic hit in all of West Africa and arousing covers from several other musicians.But there was another side of Benson that his teeming fans didn’t see.“On stage, he was funny but at home, he was a very strict disciplinarian. I got some ‘supersonic’ beatings from him. He was a disciplinarian to the core and he took no nonsense at home,” Benson’s first son, Tony tells Punch in a 2017 interview.WomenWith the fame and money came the women, and Cassandra would later leave Benson and return abroad when Tony was only eight months old. “I think she could not cope with the adulation of women folks to my father,” Tony says.“He did not bring women home and if I remember vividly, my father never had more than one woman at a time living in the home. If he had his associations, it was outside his home. However, in the family home, there was only one woman.”LegacyBenson’s band opened the floodgates for many legendary highlife musicians Nigeria has come to know today, including Eddie Okonta, late Victor Olaiya, Roy Chicago and later, Rex Jim Lawson. Olaiya started out as a trumpeter with Benson’s band before going on to form his own band, the ‘Cool Cats’. Okonta, Chicago and Lawson also started out playing as members of Benson’s band.His first son, Tony would also be inspired to go into music, following in his father’s footsteps.

Benson became the first president of the Nigerian Musicians Union when it was formed in 1960. He died in Lagos on May 14, 1983 aged 62. He fathered as many as 10 children.

Though highlife as a genre of music is struggling for relevance among a younger generation, Bobby Benson’s name will remain engraved on the walls of Nigeria’s entertainment industry for eternity.

Nigeria commemorated the 50th anniversary of the end of the civil war on January 15, 2020, with many young Nigerians discussing the war which started in July 1967 and lasted for over two-and-half years.Historians say at least 100,000 military personalities had lost their lives to the war while Biafran civilians who died of starvation are estimated to be between 500,000 and 2 million. Millions of Nigerians still lick their wounds and rue the decisions that led to it.Since 1970, stories and tales of the civil war have been told in various mediums, with prolific writer Chinua Achebe’s last book, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, being one of the most important pieces of literature serving as the younger generation’s point of reference. But the youth want more.This sentiment is very well laid bare by Kenny Obinna, a young Nigerian who, in a tweet in commemoration of the civil war’s 50th anniversary, says “I’d love to hear about the Nigeria/Biafra civil war (Academic text or a novel). I want to know what it was like fighting from the Nigerian side. We have to tell our story with the intent to heal, to reconcile and to avoid the events that led us to that evil.”And though Nigeria has remained resolute in making sure there is no repeat of the war, the younger generation, who have had to depend on the hazy recollections of the major players and the history books, do not hold back in expressing their thoughts on what was and what could have been. In keeping the conversations around the critical time in Nigeria’s history going, some of the thoughts surrounding the 50th remembrance of the war have been expressions of dismay at the Nigerian government’s refusal to give a detailed account of the war, as well as discontent at the seemingly brash approach of the Igbo people in telling their side of the story.British travel specialist, Andrew McCabe while reflecting on the war, had said “Its history and myths have been predominantly written by the losing side”, a situation which he went on to describe as “unusual but not unique” as it is common to strong groups with grievances worldwide.But several Nigerians believe the Igbos shouldn’t be gaslighted into thinking they’re doing too much of the talking, even if the federal government would rather remain mute.“I don’t understand why people are mad that Igbos are telling their stories. Your family lost too? Tell your own story. I don’t understand why people feel the need to silence the Igbos. One day Someone will explain what this animosity is about cuz (sic) I don’t get it,” fashion designer, Bibi Adeniyi, wrote on microblogging website Twitter.“Common sense should make you ask why the Nigerian government always runs away from telling the civil war stories. At least someone that won a war should be proud to flaunt the stories of their victories and all. Why are they shying away from talking about it,” another young Twitter user lamented.While a number of people have attempted to understand the intricate details of the war, others think it was a needless venture that benefited no one at the end of the day.ID Africa’s Timilehin Adebiyi, a political enthusiast, says “the Nigeria Civil war was a needless war. It was reflective from the start, it was a war of ego rather than for prosperity and development. Sincerely, I believe that both the Head of State Gen Gowon and Col. Ojukwu were poorly advised and short sighted, both men were out to prove a point and validate their legitimacy. I did not experience the war, but I can still see its effects to this day. Nigeria is a divided nation, and the civil war was the catalyst for the division.”A tech developer, Laolu Aladejana echoes Timilehin’s sentiments, saying in a tweet, “The ghost of the civil war is still hunting the nation till today. Only the igbo chronicled the story of the event while the Nigerian Govt erases the history. We are now more divided than United because we didn’t address the root cause but to pretend it never happened.”“The Nigerian Civil War is an annoying topic because we’ve not talked about it enough to understand why it was unneeded or worth it. The fact that many people don’t feel free to give their insider info about the war is a failure of Nigeria’s democracy. We have a long way to go,” another young man says.Uche Okoye, who thinks the Igbos were provoked into the war, says “Two important pieces of information we must not miss while discussing this war. 1. Nigerian Biafran War was not a “Civil War”. Because, Biafra was a country operating on its own before Nigeria invaded. 2. The coup was caused by the Crisis in the South West and Civil war in Middlebelt.”One of the most intriguing factors around the civil war is the inaccuracy of the number of casualties, leaving many historians to rely on estimates, and this continues to be a point of concern for many Nigerians, seeing that Nigeria, in its 59 years of existence still struggles to compose verifiable data on its populace.“Today marks 50 years since the Nigerian civil war ended. Till date, there’s no official death toll from starvation and military violence but it’s estimated at millions of people. Never again,” graphic illustrator, Ayomikun says.Another political commentator, Kachi Oyeka, thinks it’s ridiculous that despite its importance in the country’s history, the end of the civil war is yet to be recognised as a public holiday by any state or federal government.“The civil war was a Nigerian crisis but Igbos were in the forefront. Igbos have to be at the forefront of commemorating it. If I were governor I wouldn’t need an invitation to declare a public holiday in remembrance of Biafra. This was how Tinubu started June 12 holidays in Lagos,” he says.Many other young Nigerians have expressed shock at the new findings on the civil war, while some have attempted to maintain what can be described as a balanced view on the available details.Bazil Azubuike, in reaction to claims that every Igbo person who had an account in any Nigerian bank before the Civil War was made to receive 20 Pounds at the end of the war, irrespective of the amount they had in the bank, expressed his shock at what he described as a brutal war strategy by the Nigerian government.A young woman who simply goes by the name Galileo on Twitter, says “There are no innocent victims in the Nigerian civil war. The minorities in the MidWest carried their own burden as a conquered territory,” while her position was corroborated in a separate tweet by another young man, Osaigbovo who says, “Many people have refused to believe atrocities were committed by both sides.”“Do you know the horrors the Biafran troops instilled in Benin?” Osaigbovo goes on to query.Web developer, Ebuka Chris Achonwa, also chimes in: “During the Nigerian civil War, Nigerian soldiers can hardly separate the Niger Deltans from the Easterners, they kill, rape and burn houses everywhere they see fit. It’s not only Igbo men who fought the war, Southerners fought with us. But they were captured earlier, before the East.”

In many parts of Nigeria, the Igbos pride themselves as being the most enterprising among the country’s over 200 tribes, and many young Nigerians have attributed the trait to the resilience and determination shown after the war ended.

“Shocking that all of Nigeria wasn’t full of Igbo beggars for a decade after the civil war. We saw the children who were starved, homes and businesses wrecked, yet the country didn’t get overrun by beggars. Really need to study what happened,” Clarence Onyeka says.

For many more young Nigerians, it is indeed time for the country to bury the past, unite as one and shun all actions that could further plunge her into division.

Uthman, a graphics designer, says “After reading about the Nigerian civil war and watching the @tv360nigeria tonight, I feel really bad about the situation and also realise that we’ve not learnt as a nation from the war. Let us all be United. God bless Nigeria.”

“There are so many unresolved issues about the Nigerian Civil War? How will a nation that refuses to look at its past heal?” writer, Laraba says.

But Emmanuel Omotayo has few words for General Gowon, a major player in the civil war who was recently quoted in the media as saying he has no regrets about leading Nigeria to war.

“It doesn’t matter what side you’re on, a civil war is a result of a failed state, you’re indirectly saying you don’t regret failing your people? Don’t even get me started on countless Nigerian souls that were lost on both sides. If man can’t hold you accountable God will, someday.”

Whatever pieces of information on the complexities of the civil war that is available for the new generation’s consumption, they will be hoping that those they have appointed leaders err on the side of caution and ensure history never repeats itself.

Ike Ibeabuchi ruled the boxing world in the 1990s with his intimidating physique, an unusual speed and power. He knocked out world champions, Olympic medalists and was on his way to global stardom, close to becoming one of the greatest boxers to ever come out of Africa.
He remains unbeaten up to this day, with 15 knockouts from 20 wins. Prospective opponents dread him. The media crowned him ‘Boxing’s Most Dangerous Man’. By 1997, pundits had begun to compare him to boxing greats like Mike Tyson and George Foreman while others tipped him as an undisputable champion and the next big name to rule the Boxing world.
Well, all these never happened, and no he is not dead neither has he announced his retirement from boxing.
Ibeabuchi has been in incarceration for over 20 years in the United States.
This is the story of how ‘The President’, as Ibeabuchi is fondly called, has remained in jail, in and out of six U.S prisons since fighting his last professional match in 1999.
Now 47, he moved to the U.S. in 1993 at the age of 19, settling in Dallas, Texas with his mother Patricia (who died of heart attack in 2015).
Less than two years after arriving in the U.S, he made his professional boxing debut on October 13, 1994, and in two and a half years he announced his greatness to the world with an unexpected win over David Tua, a New Zealand boxer. In the 1997 fight, Ibeabuchi was completely unknown to almost everyone in boxing. Tua on the other hand was the favourite: he was undefeated with a record of 27-0, 23 knockouts, and was being hyped as the next Mike Tyson.
Though regarded as the underdog, when Ibeabuchi met Tua at the Arco Arena in California in June 1997, pundits said he got out to an insanely fast start never seen before in the history of boxing. According to CompuBox, he threw 91 punches in round one, another 91 in round two, and 95 in round three. A Home Box Office (HBO) documentary described the stats as obscene numbers for a heavyweight. By the final bell, Ibeabuchi and Tua combined had thrown 1,730 punches in 12 rounds, breaking the heavyweight record earlier set by Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, who jointly threw 1,591 punches in 14 rounds. Ibeabuchi threw 975 punches, the most ever by a single heavyweight in a 12-round fight at the time.
The fight made him a global phenomenon.
Two months after the fight, Ibeabuchi’s late promoter Cedric Kushner and other members of his crew said the boxer started showing signs of a mental health crisis which they claimed was responsible for his series of run-ins with the law.
He was first arrested for kidnapping the teenage son of his girlfriend and badly injuring the boy by overspeeding. There was widespread belief that Ibeabuchi was trying to kill himself and he was sentenced to three months in jail for the action.
“There was definitely a paranoia with Ike. If he went down the wrong path mentally, he was very untrustworthy of people, and something would occasionally scare him,” said Greg Juckett, a former publicist with Cedric Kushner Promotions.
When he returned to the boxing ring on July 9, 1998, after three months in jail, he took on Tim Ray in Louisiana and it was like he never left the ring. He knocked out Ray in the first-round. He followed this with a ninth-round KO win two months later over Everton Davis.
With 19-0 wins and 14 knockouts, Ibeabuchi faced Chris Byrd who was widely regarded as the purest boxer in the heavyweight division with 26-0. As the fight neared, Ibeabuchi’s promoter said they had trouble getting him on a plane from Texas to Washington because he told them there were demons and evil spirits on the plane.
“Ike finally got a later flight that, I guess, didn’t have demons on it,” Eric Bottjer, a member of the Kushner Promotions, told HBO.
Before then, an American boxing promoter and TV producer, Lou DiBella, said Ibeabuchi’s mother had also blamed ‘evil spirit’ as the reason for her son’s weird actions.
In DiBella’s words, “I’ll never forget, I was with Cedric, we were doing a Boxing After Dark, and Ibeabuchi’s mother was staying at the hotel with him, she said, ‘Ike’s not going to fight, there are evil spirits in the hotel. And they’re coming in through the air conditioning system.’ So in typical Cedric Kushner fashion, he said, ‘Ma’am, turn off the air conditioning.’”
Ibeabuchi won the fight against Byrd and it was his last night before a cheering crowd of supporters.
How he got to jail:
Four months after his big win over Byrd, he was arrested following allegation of an attempted sexual assault on a stripper in Las Vegas in 1999.
On July 22, 1999, he was arrested in Las Vegas over alleged sexual assault attempt on a 21-year-old stripper. The lady told police Ibeabuchi tried to rape her in the closet when she asked for money up front. He denied the accusations and was initially released and placed under house arrest. Things, however, started falling apart when another case of alleged sexual assault was opened against him. It was said to have happened eight months earlier at another hotel. Amid concerns over his mental state, Ibeabuchi was examined by medical experts before proceeding for his hearing. They concluded he was not fit to stand trial on the grounds he suffered from bipolar disorder and was transferred to a state-owned medical facility where he was treated for eight months.
On November 8, 2001 he submitted an Alford plea – in American law it means pleading guilty without admitting to committing the crime on the basis that the evidence is unfavourable against the defendant. Ibeabuchi was sentenced to 2 to 10 years for battery with intent to commit crime and 3 to 20 years for attempted sexual assault, with the sentences to be served consecutively.
His sentence sparked outrage in the boxing world. Pundits and boxing fans raised questions. They wondered why Mike Tyson who was convicted of rape in 1992 was sent to six years in jail and eventually spent three and a half years in prison while Ibeabuchi convicted for attempted sexual assault was slammed with jail terms that could end his career.
He completed his jail terms and was released in 2014 from Nevada prison but it is safe to say he never regained freedom. He was picked up again two years after and the charges against him keep piling. Whenever he is close to freedom, reports say the government of Arizona in the U.S finds a way to dig up unknown charges to pin on his neck and keep him behind bars, faraway from the boxing ring.
He told The Nation in 2019 that he believes there are some forces that “seemed to be looking for any reason to keep me away from the ring.”
Could his mother be right that he was a victim of conspiracy?
Patricia, who made a mockery of the mental health crisis talks, claimed her son was a victim of the conspiracy of a boxing cabal.
In a letter, six years after the verdict against her son, she wrote: “These promoters went so far as to fly and bring false charges against Ike in Gilbert and Scottsdale while he lived with me in the same house, by paying a couple of women to accuse him of attempted kidnapping and sexual assault.”
Patricia added: “The police investigated these charges and threw them out because there was no basis for these charges against him. Since they did not achieve their aim here they followed him to Las Vegas and repeated the same charges, which has kept Ike in jail.”
On July 22, 1999 when Ibeabuchi was arrested, he was reportedly in Las Vegas being courted by Don King, one of the biggest American boxing promoters.
Despite his ordeal, by the time he was released in 2014, Ibeabuchi had earned three associate degrees and certificates and managed to keep fit while in prison. He made moves to return to the ring, signed on with Michael Koncz, Manny Pacquiao’s advisor, but he was picked up again.
His nephew John Uzo told The Nation in 2019 that: “After he was released in 2014, U.S Immigration detained him because he was yet to be issued his green card.
“By 2016, when he got his green card and was released, he was again picked up and even the family did not know where they were holding him. At a point we thought he was dead.”
Like Ibeabuchi’s mother, some pundits also hold the belief that ‘The President’s’ rearrest while preparing for a return to boxing is an indication that there was a conspiracy against his boxing career.
“I want to think there are forces that did not want me in the U.S,” Ibeabuchi said in 2019. “In 2003, Arizona had issued a grand jury warrant to extradite me, and it was illegal because Nevada had to dispose of its own matters before Arizona could file for extradition. Arizona was my home state of residence when I got arrested in Nevada. I hired an attorney who looked at the case and we won.
Ike Ibeabuchi’s projected release date was September 23, 2020 by the Arizona Department of Corrections. However, he has not yet been released, Robert Brizel, Head Boxing correspondent at Real Combat Media, in the U.S told Neusroom in an email.
“Owing to Covid-19, Ibeabuchi might refuse his own release until the health crisis ends, or he might have his release delayed as the penal system might be holding its prisoners for the moment,” the boxing correspondent added.
Brizel, who has been advocating for Ibeabuchi’s release, said other than refusing a job in January 2020, Ibeabuchi has been well behaved for the last 18 months in prison.
The Arizona Department of Corrections is yet to respond to an email from Neusroom seeking information on Ibeabuchi’s release date.
After two decades behind bars, Ibeabuchi may be released this year and he is not ruling out chances of returning to the boxing ring at age 47.

He’s been dead for over 50 years now.
Victor Banjo, the widely-admired military charmer who made friends easily, got into trouble often, went to jail repeatedly, and fought against his country in a decisive civil war.
And he wasn’t killed in the war. The Nigerian troops did not get him. He did not succumb to the ambush of the enemies. It was his own friend, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu that signed his death warrant.
This is the story of how, and why it happened. And what Nigerians can learn from it 53 years after.
Lt. Col Victor Adebukunola Banjo was the 16th Nigerian to be commissioned as an officer in the Nigerian Army (NA 16) when he joined the Army in 1953 as Warrant Officer 52.
Born April 1, 1930, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, United Kingdom-trained soldier and Mechanical Engineering graduate was the first Nigerian Director of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Corps of the Nigerian Army.
Banjo and Ojukwu were some of the first few degree holders to join the Army. They became close allies, united by their academic qualification and, according to some historians, their exceptional individual brilliance.
Banjo. Young, dark, and handsome. A man of letters, and a model for many who wanted a career in the military. He was admired by many. And he was very well worth the hype. But he was not without his devils.
He got into trouble with the Nigerian military government shortly after the first coup of January 15, 1966. He had only been in the army for 13 years, but his travails would quickly begin, leading to a troubled reputation and career that led to a shocking end.
According to Banjo’s first son and second child, Ayodele Victor-Banjo, who was just five years old when his father was arrested, two days after the coup that made Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi Head of State, Banjo, accused of being one of the masterminds of the coup, was summoned to the office of the Supreme Military Commander where he was arrested.
“Lt Col Banjo was arrested on the 17th of January, 1966 at the police headquarters by Lt Colonel George Kurubo and Major Patrick Anwunah in the ante-room of the Inspector General of Police’s office for no ostensible reason while he waited to see Major General J.T.U.Aguiyi-Ironsi, the Supreme Commander of Nigeria’s Armed Forces,” Ayodele wrote in a 2017 tribute to commemorate Banjo’s 50 years remembrance.
“Two weeks after Banjo’s arrest, he was informed by Major C. Ude at Kirikiri prisons that a signal had been sent out to all units that he (Banjo) had been arrested for making an attempt on the life of the Supreme Commander (Ironsi) which was a blatant falsehood. Another reason given for Banjo’s arrest was that he carried a gun, obtained from Major Aghanya, while waiting for a scheduled visit with Ironsi,” he added.
Some historians in their account of the coup that marked a watershed in Nigeria’s history have, however, noted that Banjo also had a hand in the coup
“But everybody knows that is not true because those who participated in the coup came out to say he was not among them,” Banjo’s daughter – Prof Olayinka Omigbodun told Nigerian newspaper The Punch in a 2019 interview.
After Banjo’s arrest on January 17, 1966, Prof Omigbodun said their “lives were never the same again, so we left for Sierra Leone; we suffered a drop in our socioeconomic status and it was quite difficult, especially for my mother.”
Between January 1966 and May 1967, Banjo was incarcerated in Kirikiri Prison, transferred to a prison in Ikot Ekpene (Akwa Ibom State), from where he was later transferred to another prison in Enugu. He never returned home to his young family of four children – Funto Banjo-Oyeleye, Ayodele Banjo, Prof Olayinka Banjo-Omigbodun and Adeyemi Banjo, and his young Sierra Leonean wife. And they did not set eyes on him until March 1967 when they visited him in Enugu before the civil war.
“Our last family reunion took place in March 1967. We visited my father in Enugu. Mother stayed at the statehouse with father while my siblings and I stayed with a family friend in the town. Mother pleaded with father to leave the country together with us but he responded, ‘I would rather die than run away’,” Ayodele Victor-Banjo wrote.
Friends, colleagues and family were destabilised by his prolonged incarceration and they waited endlessly for his return. Before visiting him in Enugu, Banjo’s family only heard from him through his letters. Banjo’s letters revealed a lot about his anger, and disappointment in his ordeal.
Respite came when Ojukwu proclaimed Biafra Republic on May 30, 1967. Banjo, who at that time was in Enugu, got a pardon from Ojukwu who had declared himself President of the new Republic.
After 17 months in prison, Banjo was back as a military commander, fighting against Nigeria on the side of the Igbo people. He led the 101st Division of the Biafran troops to invade Nigeria from the Midwest.
In the words of British journalist Frederick Forsyth, who reported the civil war from the Biafran war front, “Ojukwu never revealed why he chose Victor Banjo to command the forces destined to march into Western Nigeria, but they were close friends, they shared things in common.”
For a man who had been in prison for 17 months before the war, he did not do a shabby job. In less than 24 hours, Banjo’s troops captured Benin City, headquarters of the Midwestern Region in present day Edo and Delta State. After capturing the Midwest, in what became famous as the ‘Battle of Ore’, Banjo-led troops took a break at Ore in present day Ondo State about 300 kilometers away from the Nigerian capital – Lagos.
Their expected next line of action was to march on and invade Lagos, through Ijebu-Ode, his hometown but Banjo decided not to proceed. He wanted to broker a ceasefire deal with the Nigerian government. At Ore, he reportedly convinced other like-minded soldiers, who appeared not to believe in the war, to stage a coup against Ojukwu who would not yield to a request for cease fire at the early stage of the war. Aside from the junior officers, one of the top officers he convinced was Emmanuel Ifeajuna, one of the January 1966 coup plotters who escaped to Ghana and returned to fight in the Biafran war.
According to the accounts of Forsyth in his book ‘The Biafra Story’, “Banjo planned to stage a coup against Ojukwu and handover the rebel to the Nigerian government. He recruited Ifeajuna, a Moscow-trained Communist officer Major Philip Alele, a Biafran Foreign Service official Sam Agbam and several other junior officers into the scheme.”
Forsyth’s accounts of the civil war have, however, been subjected to scrutiny in the last five decades as there are no other records to back his claim that Banjo confessed to planning a coup against Ojukwu.
Lt. Col. Fola Oyewole, one of the Yoruba soldiers who fought on the Biafran side, told The News Magazine in a 2016 interview that the disagreement between Banjo and Ojukwu was over the takeover of the West by Biafran forces led by Banjo who feared that if he proceeded, the West will be under the authority of Biafra.
“Banjo and Ojukwu decided to quarrel to the extent that if you capture the west, it is going to be under Biafra. It won’t be a separate entity of itself,” Oyewole said. “Banjo was [also] accused of hobnobbing with the British deputy commissioner in Benin.”
It was Ifeajuna and Alale who were first arrested, then Banjo was later summoned, his troops disarmed and he was arrested at Ojukwu’s home.
The four ringleaders – Banjo, Ifeajuna, Alele and Agbam were tried by a special tribunal, they denied charges of treason and claimed they were trying to save lives and their country by negotiating an early ceasefire with the federal government and reuniting Nigeria. They were sentenced to death for high treason and shot at dawn on September 22, 1967.
Their plan failed and they paid the wages of failure: death by the bullets. Pundits said the plan could have saved the lives of the estimated three million people who later died in the war in the next two and a half years after their execution.
Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian professor and Nobel Laureate believes Banjo, as the military leader of the Third Movement, tried to find a more ideological basis for reconstructing the entire society and obliterating the tribalistic lines which formed the original context of the Biafran War.
“While it [the Third Movement] accepted the moral justification of Biafran secession, it felt that this was the wrong political action, but at the same time it could not accept or condone the moral basis, that is, the immoral basis or the non-ideological basis of the government in Lagos. So this was the third force, and Victor Banjo lost his life with a number of others,” Soyinka wrote in his book – ‘Conversations with Wole Soyinka’.
Damola Awoyokun, a columnist and historian, wrote in The News magazine in 2013 that Ojukwu told American consul, Bob Barnard, in Enugu three days after executing Banjo that “The plotters intended to take Brigadier Hillary Njoku, the head of Biafran Army, into custody and bring him to the State House under heavy armed guard, ostensibly to demand of him that Njoku be relieved of the command on the grounds of incompetence.
“Once inside the State House, Njoku’s guards would be used against him. Ifeajuna would then declare himself acting Governor and offer ceasefire on Gowon’s terms. Banjo would go to the West and replace Brigadier Yinka Adebayo, the military governor of Western Region. Next, Gowon would be removed and Awolowo declared Prime Minister of the Reunited Federation.”
In his defence during his court martial alongside three other accused, as documented by Alexander Madiebo in his book – ‘The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War’, Banjo said: “My stay in Biafra, after having been released from prison, has been due to my friendship with Col. Ojukwu…I came into the war at a moment of temporary collapse of the Biafran fighting effort, when it became quite clear to me that the fighting effort of the Biafran Army was not only being incompetently handled, but also being sabotaged. Since then, it has been my fortune to command the Biafran troops on their successful exploits.
“On the whole, l had in private, told Col Ojukwu that l could never be made to stand charged for having plotted against his office and his person. There was no plot against him.”
Banjo’s family, however, believes he was arrested and killed unjustly and he became a victim of Nigeria. The family says they have no information about where he was buried.
“Up till now, we don’t have any specific communication from his employer about where he is and whether he was killed or not,” Omigbodun lamented. “The people who executed him appeared to have been made heroes; (Nigeria is) a very interesting country.”
By the time the war ended in January 1970, what Banjo and others tried to prevent had happened – an estimated three million people, including children and women, had died. Ojukwu himself fled to Cote d’Ivoire to live in exile, until 1982 when he was pardoned by President Shehu Shagari.
Banjo’s role in the civil war and his place in Nigerian history has been largely confusing “So many things have been said and written about Dad, many of them a distortion of what actually happened while a lot were without any foundation in facts,” his son Ayodele said.
However, in his words as documented by Alexander Madiebo, Banjo explained why he took the decision to support Biafra.
“My stay in Biafra, after having been released from prison, has been due to my friendship with Col. Ojukwu… He told me that he needed me here because he felt he needed someone who could talk to him without ceremony; someone in a position to give blame to him for his mistakes,” he said.
Banjo added: “I pointed out to him his declaration of Biafra at the time was not consistent with our plans and agreements. However, when l discovered the emerging trend that followed the declaration of Independence of Biafra, it became clear to me that a war with the North was imminent. I decided to stay behind and assist in the prosecution of the war, both for the sake of my friendship with Colonel Ojukwu and in the hope that having assisted to fight back the Northern threat to Biafra, he would assist me with troops to rid the Mid-West and Lagos of the same menace.”
Oyewole, who was also jailed like Banjo for alleged involvement in the January 15, 1966 coup, said the hostility of the Nigerian government towards him, Banjo and other Yoruba soldiers who fought on the side of Biafra forced them into joining the Biafran Army.
“When we were released from Prison, I was released in Enugu. I was brought from Owerri to Enugu where we declared to have been released, they looked for houses in Independence layout for us, Banjo lived in Government place,” Oyewole told TheNews Magazine in a 2006 interview.
“Look at it this way, you don’t have no choice, two the fact is that the people are not hostile to you, they were not, I was very well taken care of. Whereas if somebody as high as Chief Awolowo could tell me that he could not guarantee my safety, should I be foolhardy enough to insist by settling in Nigeria. Chief couldn’t and not just me – Banjo, Adeleke and others and papa said for now it is not possible to guarantee your safety.”

January 2020, makes it 47 years since the Naira became Nigeria’s official currency. Although it has been on a steady fall against the US dollar and other foreign currencies in recent times, it had a bright beginning, exchanging for N1 to 99 cents and 68 Pence in the 1970s to early 80s.
The entity known as Nigeria has been in existence for 106 years and by October 1, the country will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of its independence from colonial rule.
But what was the means of exchange in Nigeria during the period before amalgamation, independence and post-independence, before the 47-year-old currency came into existence?
As it was in other parts of the world where the earliest people devised a means to trade using a variety of items like cowries, beads, and salt, different communities in Nigeria also had their unique legal tender before the arrival of the British colonialists. It, however, changed in 1880 when Shillings and Pence were introduced by the British colonialists as the first major currency in Nigeria following the colonial ordinance of that year.
The British introduced Shillings and Pence (one shilling, one penny, 1/2 penny and 1/10 penny) as the legal tender in their West Africa colonies (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Gambia). Although the currency was managed by the Bank of England, it was distributed by a private bank, the Bank for British West Africa until 1912 when the West African Currency Board (WACB) issued the first set of banknotes and coins in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Gambia – all British colonies. The highest banknote denomination was one pound, while the one shilling coin was the highest coin denomination.
As the call for independence of the four West African countries under the authority of the British was gathering momentum, the need for the countries to run their affairs themselves became imperative. Ghana was the first to become independent in March 1957, Nigeria followed in 1960, Sierra Leone in 1961 and the Gambia in 1965.
As Nigeria was preparing for self government, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was established in 1958. On July 1, 1959 when the CBN commenced operations, it started issuing Nigerian currency banknotes (Pound) while the notes and coins issued by WACB were withdrawn.
About 13 years after independence, the Naira and Kobo (in coins) came into existence and the Pound and Shillings ceased to be Nigeria’s official currency.
As the economy was growing, the use of coins for transactions had become unbearable, so the government of General Olusegun Obasanjo introduced the N20 note on February 11, 1977.
According to the Central Bank of Nigeria, “It was the highest denomination introduced at the time as a result of the growth of the economy; the preference for cash transactions and the need for convenience.”
In the 1970s, One Naira was competing strongly with the US Dollar and British Pound. But from the late 1970s to 2020, the value and purchasing power of the Naira have been on a consistent fall.
According to the New African Magazine, in March 1985, with N25 nursing mothers could buy a tin of baby food which now costs around N3000 to N4000. The Africa Special Report: Bulletin of the Institute of African American Relations, published in 1992, also revealed that the fall in world oil prices after the boom of the 1970s led to increase in the price of commodity, and in 1992, the price of a 50-kilogram bag of rice rose from N450 to N650, the same bag now sells for N25,000 or more in Lagos markets.
Before the introduction of the N20 notes, the country was trading in coins, which means a cash transaction worth N20,000, could require a big ‘Ghana Must Go’ bag. On 11th February 1977, a new banknote with the value of twenty naira (₦20) was issued and from that year, bank notes became a thing.
Bearing the portrait of former Head of State, General Murtala Muhammed who was assassinated in February 1976, the N20 note also became the first to bear the portrait of a Nigerian. Since then, all Naira notes denominated in values from N5 to N1000 have carried images of past political leaders and heroes.
Ladi Kwali the potter at the flipside of the N20 note became prominent for her pottery work. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the first Premier of the Western Region is on the N100 note, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s first prime minister, is on the N5 note, and Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first president, is on N500. Two former Governors of the CBN – Clement Isong and Alhaji Aliyu Mai-Bornu also appear on N1000.
In 2012, plans by the government to introduce a N5,000 note attracted wide criticism as pundits argued that the introduction will increase inflation and encourage corruption and money laundering. Efforts by successive governments to boost the value of the Naira through different economic policies have also failed to yield results.
According to the CBN, as at July 31, 2020, there are N2,394,632,000,000 – in circulation.

Nigeria has had a fair share of activists, revolutionaries and visionaries who dedicated their lives to the liberation of the people from political oppression, social or civil injustice through selfless activism and advocacy.These are 10 of the most selfless Nigerians who have sacrificed their lives and resources that should inspire every Nigerian youth:

1. Chief Gani Fawehinmi
As a lawyer, Gani sacrificed all he had to fight for the masses and the oppressed in Nigeria. He stood up to the dreaded military regimes of General Ibrahim Babangida and General Sani Abacha while paying the ultimate price of freedom on numerous occasions.Gani was arrested, beaten and charged to court several times. His law chambers were repeatedly invaded while his books were also confiscated by the military government. His library at Surulere, a suburb of Lagos, was also set ablaze.He fought side by side with late M.K.O Abiola after his June 12 mandate was stolen and was journalist Dele Giwa’s lawyer, when the latter was killed in a bomb blast in 1986.At his point of death in 2009, Gani rejected the honour of Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) – one of the highest national honours that can be bestowed on a citizen by the Nigerian government. The rejection was in protest against the many years of misrule since Nigeria’s independence.

2. Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti
Before her son, Fela began ruffling political feathers, Funmilayo had made a name for herself as a fierce and fearless activist in Nigeria. She led marches and protests to fight for women’s rights, demanding improved representation of women in local governing bodies and an end to unfair taxes on market women in Abeokuta.In her later years, she supported her sons in their criticism of military governments in Nigeria and in 1977, she was thrown out of a window by soldiers who ran rampage on Fela’s Kalakuta Republic over the release of his critically acclaimed album, Zombie.Funmilayo, who was part of the group that negotiated Nigeria’s independence in 1960, died from her injuries from the military raid in 1978.

3. Ken Saro-Wiwa
Saro-Wiwa died fighting against the environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland in Niger Delta by the multinational petroleum industry, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company.. In 1992, Saro-Wiwa was imprisoned for several months, without trial, by the Nigerian military government over his activism.

He was later accused, along with eight others, of inciting the murder of four Ogoni chiefs in May 1994. Even though Saro-Wiwa had been denied entry to Ogoniland on the day of the murders, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging in 1995.

After his execution, some of the witnesses who testified against him in court, recanted their claims, stating in the presence of Shell’s lawyer that they had been bribed with money and offered jobs with the company to give false testimony.

4. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
Fela dedicated his life to fighting oppressive governments through his music and was a constant thorn in the flesh of political elites. He suffered military brutality on numerous occasions as a result before his death in 1997.

When Fela released his album, Zombie to massive acclaim in 1977, infuriated soldiers ran rampage on his Kalakuta Republic, beating him mercilessly and throwing his elderly mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti from a window. His mother later died from injuries sustained from the military raid. The Kalakuta Republic was burned, and Fela’s studio, instruments, and master tapes were destroyed.

The attack didn’t deter him from being vocal against the political establishment in Nigeria. Again, in 1984, he was jailed by Muhammadu Buhari’s military government and was released 20 months later, during Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime.

5. Tai Solarin
Tai was very vocal about corruption in the Nigerian military government and fought for the rights of every Nigerian child to attend school. He founded Mayflower School in Ogun State as part of his contribution to provide education for children.

He was once arrested by Yakubu Gowon’s military administration for criticising Gowon for carrying out a lavish state-sponsored wedding party in the middle of the Nigeria-Biafran Civil War. He was subsequently arrested and incarcerated numerous times for protests against military rule which included standing at Campus Square in Lagos to openly criticise the government. In March 1984, during the Buhari-Idiagbon military regime, Tai was again arrested at his home and incarcerated at Abeokuta Prisons for 18 months.

6. Imam Abubakar Abdullahi
At the height of a herdsmen crisis in Plateau State in 2018, Imam Abubakar risked his life to provide shelter for over 200 Christians inside his mosque. The 83-year-old Muslim cleric was able to protect the fleeing locals from rampaging bandits by locking the doors of the Mosque after the Christians had entered while he stayed outside.

He refused to open the doors for the assailants who demanded to go in and slaughter the locals, telling them that they could do that only after they had killed him.

7. Margaret Ekpo
Like Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Margaret was an active member of the group that led active political and socio-economic movements that culminated in Nigeria’s independence in 1960. Ekpo also worked with Funmilayo to protest the killings of the leaders of a local group that protested against the practices of the colonial owners at an Enugu coal in the early 1950s.

She dedicated her life to fighting against the discriminatory and oppressive political and civil role colonialism played in the subjugation of women and also founded the Aba Township Women’s Association in 1954.

8. Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti
The Kutis are known for their activism and Beko was a prominent voice in the struggle against oppressive military governments. He was incarcerated alongside Fela by Buhari’s military administration in 1984. In 1993, he helped to form Nigeria’s first human rights organization, the Campaign for Democracy, which in 1993 opposed the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha.

He was again sentenced to life in prison by a military tribunal in 1995 before gaining freedom in 1998 after the military ruler’s sudden death.

9. Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh
Adadevoh’s selflessness during the breakout of Ebola in Nigeria prevented the spread of the deadly virus and she ultimately paid the price with her life. The medical doctor had placed an affected Patrick Sawyer in quarantine and valiantly prevented him from leaving the hospital despite pressures by the Liberian government who wanted the patient to be discharged.

Adadevoh also provided staff with relevant information about the virus, procured protective gear and quickly contacted relevant officials, thereby prompting the government into action to contain the spread of the virus.

Her heroic effort curbed a wider spread of the virus in Nigeria but she contracted the virus in the process and died weeks after.

10. Wole Soyinka
Soyinka is Nigeria’s only Nobel Laureate. And he was a loud voice against military dictatorship. He was charged with treason in 1997 by former military ruler General Sani Abacha’s government. He was also forced into embarking on exile in 1994, fleeing from Nigeria through the border with Benin and then to the United States.

Soyinka was also a political prisoner for nearly two years during the Civil War in 1967 when he was reported to have secretly and unofficially met with the military governor Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in Enugu in a bid to try to avert the war.

Soyinka has continued to lend his voice to social and political injustice in Nigeria.

On March 9, 2020, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje deposed Sunusi Lamido Sanusi from the throne as the Emir of Kano. It started the conversation around different tribes and the powers of their king. While defending their honour, the Yorubas started to talk about how their king is only second to the gods. Soon, many of them were citing the story of former Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Adeyemi. Legend has it that he had cursed Chief Olabode Thomas, popularly known as Bode Thomas for being disrespectful.

The story is that Bode Thomas who was the chairman of the Oyo Divisional Council had been rude to the king. He arrived at a meeting of the council with the Oba (king) in attendance and expected the king to stand and welcome him. When he didn’t get the welcome he was expecting, he asked the King, “why were you sitting when I walked in? Why can’t you show me respect?” The Alaafin felt disrespected and asked Bode Thomas why he was barking at him and told him to keep barking. It is said that when Bode Thomas arrived at his home, he started barking until he died the next day.

The cause of Bode Thomas’ death was never confirmed and is considered to be a mystery but here are 20 facts about the lawyer that are confirmed and true.

1. Bode Thomas’ full name is Olabode Akanbi Thomas.
2. He was born to a wealthy trader, Andrew Thomas in October 1919.
3. He attended CMS Grammar school and then travelled to London to study Law and was called to the bar in 1942.
4. He served as a junior clerk at the Nigerian Railway Corporation before he got his degree in Law.
5. When he returned from London, he became the legal adviser of Egbe Omo Oduduwa in 1946.
6. He was married to Lucretia Shobola Odunsi and they had two children together.
7. By 1948, he had teamed up with Chief Frederick Rotimi Williams and Chief Remilekun Fani-Kayode to set up the first indigenous Nigerian law firm, Thomas, Williams and Kayode on Jankara Street.
8. He received the title of Balogun of Oyo in 1949.
9. He was one of the founding members of the Action Group founded by Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1951.
10. Also in 1951, Thomas became the Minister of Transport for the Western Region.
11. He served as a colonial minister of the colony and protectorate of Nigeria.
12. He was the Chancellor of the African Church of Nigeria.
13. He actively supported the move to self-rule and joined the fight for Nigeria’s independence.
14. The lawyer defended Ahmadu Bello before the colonial court over allegations of financial embezzlement of Native Authorities funds.
15.Despite doing a good deed, he alienated the Sokoto prince by insulting him.
16. Many people considered him to be a brilliant, logical, astute, thoughtful, forward-looking and a workaholic man.
17. People also viewed him as a bully, an arrogant and hot-tempered man.
18. He was made the chairman of the Oyo Divisional Council on November 21, 1953.
19. He died at the young age of 34 on November 23, 1953, from a mysterious illness.
20. A street in Surulere is named after him.