Ghanaian actress and filmmaker Juliet Ibrahim has earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Business Administration, in Marketing Communications from Berkeley College, at the age of 39.

After pausing her education after high school to support her siblings, Ibrahim shared that it was her friend, Busie Matsiko-Andan, who encouraged her four years ago to return to school and pursue her dream.

Despite the challenges of juggling her career and motherhood, she successfully completed her studies as an online adult learner.

Expressing gratitude to her supporters, Ibrahim said she is now looking forward to celebrating her achievement at her upcoming graduation ceremony.

She wrote on Instagram: “As the first daughter in my family, many years ago right after high school I chose to work and wait and put higher education on hold to support my siblings to ensure they all go to school and become successful in their respective careers.

“I became famous at the age of 19 right after high school and extremely busy with my career and didn’t think I had time to go back to school and earn a degree ever until 4 years ago when I met my friend @busiematsikoandan who encouraged me to follow my dream and reminded me that it’s never too late.

“@berkeleycollege welcomed me with open arms and made me feel safe and included as an online adult student and for the first time after years of hard work, sacrifice, and resilience, I’m proud to share that I’ve officially earned my first-ever degree-a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing Communications from Berkeley College! @berkeleycollege

“As an adult student, mother, and full-time creative, this journey was far from easy but I stayed committed. I can’t wait to Walk across that graduation stage, definitely a moment I’ll never forget. You can read the full story in @atoasttolifebook. To every woman chasing her goals despite the odds, this is your reminder: it’s never too late!

“Thank you to everyone who supported me along the way. We did it!”.

[TheNation]

This time last year, Governor Fubara said Rivers State had been liberated. People trooped to churches to thank God for setting them free. According to Fubara, the state, its people and resources, had been in the clutches of a rapacious and gluttonous politician. That fellow decided who was what. Every month that fellow dipped his hands into the treasury and seized a fat chunk of the state’s revenues. The man had wanted a third term through the backdoor and had foisted a fitting lackey in Fubara over the people as his puppet. But Fubara broke the strings and cut the shackles that bound the state, and the masses rejoiced.

Now, one year later, Fubara has chickened out. 

Indeed, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since the liberation of Rivers. The Supreme Court has validated the expired Rivers lawmakers, saying that the seats of defecting lawmakers can’t be declared vacant by any court even if the speaker of the assembly defied the law by not declaring it vacant. A preposterous decision. The lawmakers loyal to the Fubara’s estranged godfather have served him an impeachment notice. Tinubu has dismantled democracy in Rivers, claiming he did it to forestall a breakdown of law and order. Fubara has not contested the unconstitutional declaration that removed him and imposed a military sole administrator on the state. The National Assembly has sabotaged the constitution and approved Tinubu’s perfidy. So Fubara perhaps knows that the liberation has been effectively ambushed. 

Following the removal of Fubara and the hijacking of Rivers, the people have been restive. They have protested against the total capture of their state. They have poured opprobrium and curses on a certain Nebuchadnezzar and his highly-placed enablers. Some states have approached the Supreme Court to nullify the obnoxious declaration of a state of emergency and arbitrary suspension of democratic structures as an abuse of power by our presumptuous president. The Supreme Court has been dragging its feet, perhaps unmindful that that which has crippled a state legislature might someday banish the supreme court. But it’s now known that Fubara, who had been resilient, has succumbed to the intimidation. Probably the televised boast by his godfather that an impeachment was his preferred option did the trick. Perhaps it was the suggestive outlandishly magisterial comportment of the illegal Sole Administrator and the rife insinuation that the state of emergency would be extended that weakened Fubara’s knees. 

In truth, Fubara has never pretended to be a lion. In the beginning, he was a dove or a sheep. Nearly all his commissioners were appointed for him without a whimper from him.  Then, he was the figure of a mistreated goat. His state’s resources were being siphoned daily and he could only watch. When it appeared the leash would be put on his scrotum and tied to a tree in the backyard to publicize his servitude and prevent him from fathering independent ideas, he broke loose like an indignant ram. That was all. The masses did the rest. Fubara is not a dog of war. And nobody expects him to grow canines overnight. But why would expect a liberated people to return with him to sheepishness?

Fubara has visited his godfather perhaps to plead for mercy. The details are still sketchy. We don’t know if he knelt or prostrated before his former political deity. Before long, the garrulous deity will organize a media chat to describe in full  Fubara’s countenance on that occasion. But we know Fubara went to London to see the president. He has never ceased to pledge his loyalty to the president who dismantled democracy in Rivers. We can’t deny the reality that Fubara is cornered. His options are few. He can’t but negotiate with people from whom he had liberated the state. Since trust is shattered and he appears trapped, and his spirit is fretful, and his opponents are ruthless and capricious, he has to be pitied. These people are cold political entrepreneurs. It’s inconceivable that any reconciliation mediated by those who masterminded or enabled his travails would let him off the hook without restoring the strings of the puppeteer. The secret meetings can only yield a naked return to servitude. So how can Fubara avoid a brutal checkmate without surrendering the state? 

Some might say a politician must do what a politician has to do to retain power. And that politics involves dirty compromises. In other words, Fubara can return to his strings and surrender the state and its resources to remain governor. But is Fubara free to re-mortgage the state to save his position? Was the liberation a ruse? 

A few days ago, Fubara was in church. The priest came down hard on the politicians who were desperate to capture the state and its resources. Perhaps the priest didn’t realize that  Fubara was already tired of liberation. When it was Fubara’s turn to speak, he cautioned people for speaking loudly against his opponents. He no longer wanted anyone to say that God should punish the oppressors of the state.  He admonished persons fighting for liberation to seek approval from him before speaking. Perhaps Fubara now thinks he owns the liberation. 

It would be a tragedy for  Fubara to believe that the struggle for the liberation of Rivers was about him. And that it must end if he returns to his supercilious godfather like a craven prodigal son. Hopefully, this cowardly sermon was a political offering intended to soften the minds of the people who masterminded the usurpation of democracy in the state. But Fubara has to be circumpect. Condemning those speaking forcefully against the evil in Rivers as damaging his peace efforts is childish naivety. Hopefully, Fubara was speaking tongue in cheek. But going forward, he must forgo ambivalence. Rivers is being raped. He must step up or step aside. 

Rivers is being raped. Fubara can’t continue fumbling around like a frightened chicken. He can’t continue clandestine negotiations that will legitimize state capture under any guise. He is free to resume his duties as a puppet but he must know that will make him reprobate. He shouldn’t count on the people to return with him to servitude. Although his position is precarious and he has no easy escape routes, he can’t be forgetful. He must insist on mediation by a committee of impartial national statesmen so that even if Pharoah gets something for his hungry throat, the people are not forced back into captivity in Egypt. Otherwise, he can voice his frustration and quit honourably. Fubara said his spirit had left the seat of power. Perhaps that was his way of saying he wasn’t desperate to be governor. However, he must never forget that the people stood and still stand by him. He owes them a moral duty to stand by them. They don’t want to return to being the slaves of that Nebuchadnezzar 

Peace is good. But slavery is not peace. 

As the Premier League season edges toward its conclusion, Sunday’s blockbuster between Arsenal and Newcastle United is set to add heat to the race for Champions League qualification and determine the final twists in a tightly packed top-six battle.

Arsenal, sitting second on 68 points, remain mathematically in the title hunt but must overcome high-flying Newcastle (66 points) at the Emirates to keep their faint hopes alive.

With two games remaining for both teams, the match could be decisive in determining final European positions.

Chelsea, who have played a game more, also sit on 66 points after 37 games and remain in the mix following recent form under manager Enzo Maresca. They will closely monitor results as they prepare for their final league match.

Manchester City (65 points), with two matches remaining, complete a tense cluster jostling for European qualification spots.

Aston Villa (66 points) has one match left. Results from other fixtures will add more twists to their fate.

Liverpool, who have won the title, remain clear at the summit with 83 points.

Elsewhere, Nottingham Forest (62 points) travel to West Ham aiming to secure a top-seven finish, while Brentford and Fulham—both tied on 55 and 51 points respectively—face off in a mid-table London derby.

Everton host Southampton in the early kick-off, while Leicester take on Ipswich Town and Arsenal’s showdown with Newcastle wraps up the day.

[Punch]

‏Davido, the Afrobeats singer, has penned an emotional message celebrating Asa Asika, his longtime manager, on the occasion of his traditional wedding to fiancée Leona Adesanya. 

The couple tied the knot in a beautiful ceremony held in Lagos on Saturday.

Taking to his X page, Davido reflected on their journey together, from humble beginnings to achieving global success.

In the post, the ‘Be There Still’ hitmaker recalled how they built their careers from the ground up, overcoming challenges and staying true to their roots.

He emphasised that nothing was handed to them and that every achievement was earned through hard work, loyalty, and an unbreakable bond.

Davido described Asa as more than just a manager but a brother who stood by him through every struggle.

He praised Asa’s growth and expressed deep joy at seeing him find love and happiness with Leonna.

“Asa, today shattered me… in the most beautiful way. Seeing you stand beside Leonna, with peace in your eyes and love in your heart — I couldn’t hold it in. Not just because of the man you’ve become, but because of how you became him,” he wrote.

“Nothing was handed to us. We built this — through fire, through faith, through a bond that never broke. We didn’t chase the spotlight. We stayed rooted. Loyal to our story, loyal to our people. We didn’t sell out — we carried the culture, even when it felt heavy.

“That’s why the blessings never left. Because we never left us behind. You’ve been more than my manager. You’ve been my shield. My sanity. My brother in every battle. When the lights were off and it got dark, you stayed. And even now, with the world at our feet — you’re still that same solid soul I started with.”

Davido also thanked Leonna for bringing out the best in Asa, noting how she had softened his heart and brought him genuine happiness.

“But Asa, since Leona came into your life, you’ve changed. You softened. You smiled more. You became a man at peace. And watching her see the real you — not the workhorse, not the machine — but you… that healed something deep in me too,” he wrote.

“Leonna, thank you. For loving him the way we all hoped someone would. You didn’t just join the journey — you became its purpose. You brought him home to himself. I promise, as long as I breathe, I’ll protect what you two have built. This wedding, it’s not just love. It’s legacy. It’s proof that we can rise without losing our souls.

“That brotherhood can survive success. That culture can be kept, not just worn. We didn’t just make it, Asa. We made it our way. And standing next to you today, I feel something no award can give me. I feel home. Forever beside you, David.”

[TheCable]

On May 9, 2025, Nigeria’s Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) released the results of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). The outcome shocked the nation as over 1.5 million of the 1.9 million candidates, that is 75%, who sat for the exam, reportedly scored below 200, the popularly acclaimed cut off mark for admissions into many courses. The development greatly hit the hard-earned reputation of JAMB and its Chief Executive, Professor Ishaq Oloyede. Many students threatened to sue JAMB while some loud voices called for the resignation of Oloyede. Indeed, there were calls by interested parties especially university teachers for the scrapping of the exam body. Luckily, the dark clouds have since eased off drastically thereby opening the door for impartial and objective commentaries on the matters arising.

Of utmost importance, is the expedience of seeking visionary leadership to strengthen societal institutions in Nigeria. First, there is much to gain if government can consider deploying a result-oriented technocrat like the JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC – an institution that has always been overwhelmed by its seasonal assignments. This is not a new suggestion from this column. A similar appeal was made exactly 6 years ago in an article titled “INEC should emulate JAMB’s Ishaq Oloyede” published on May 10, 2019. What prompted the call at the time was the strict adherence to the use of technology by JAMB compared to how INEC permanently prevaricates and polarizes its concentration on its chosen strategy. At the time, JAMB introduced biometric verification and directed it should be the only mode for admittance of candidates into examination centres.

To ensure it was adhered to, JAMB instituted an operational slogan known as ‘no biometric verification no examination.’ The situation was the direct opposite at INEC where the nation was told that no card reader no election, yet elections were held in many centres where card readers were deliberately discarded without consequences. Other innovations have been similarly handled over time. What this implies is that the introduction of technology is not all that needs to be done; it must be monitored, guided and coordinated all through. The first sign that Oloyede was the master of the game was his evolution of a software that created a 5-sided link which made the headquarters receive LIVE reports from all registration centres on a) when a centre registers a candidate; b) the exact time the candidate was registered; c) the official who registered the candidate; d) the computer system used; and e) the location of the registration centre.

Before Oloyede’s tenure, JAMB activities were bedevilled by a myriad of challenges ranging from examination malpractice to admission fraud – an era which has vanished since 2016 when Oloyede designed a system whose efficacy virtually nullified every dubious disruptive plan. Apart from operational effectiveness, the old culture of snakes swallowing millions of naira as well as inefficiency in the exam processes and procedures came to a sharp end. This posture notwithstanding, the exam body was critically challenged last week when some technical personnel deployed by the Service Provider in some locations especially those for Lagos and the South-East zones inadvertently failed to update some of the delivery servers. The carelessness and negligence of the agents caused JAMB incalculable damage. But we must give it to Oloyede that within 24 hours of rigorous work, where the problem emanated from was isolated.

The damage control which the authorities quickly applied was not only successful, it has remained a classic example of how effective leadership ought to function. This is a feature that is clearly absent in many Nigerian institutions and organizations. In the case of elections, the umpires look out for no hitches and take no heed of those brought to their attention. Instead, they exhibit a posture of nonchalance and a garb of self-importance which closes the room for accountability. For example, the golden opportunity given to INEC to officially review some disputed results within 7 days is usually wasted in asking complainants to go to court. Painfully, this culture is encouraged by the attitude of the courts which places every burden on complainants without even assisting them to get INEC to release the relevant public data in its custody so as to diligently arrive at the justice of the case.

Last week’s problem with JAMB’s examination results was treated differently. It took only one day of diligent work for JAMB to identify the problem which it quickly tackled. Most importantly, Professor Oloyede did not pass the buck, he personally in an emotionally laden voice of remorse took the blame. This idea of vicarious liability in which a leader takes responsibility for the lapses of his subordinates does not exist in Nigeria. In March 2014, the then Minister of Interior, Abba Moro under the guise of supervision took over the management of the recruitment of staff by the Nigerian Immigration Service. Due to negligence, there were deadly stampedes in stadia in Abuja, Benin and Port Harcourt etc. with more than 20 deaths recorded. The Minister’s only offensive argument was that ‘the tragedy was caused by the refusal of the applicants to adhere to the rules of engagement designed for the recruitment exercise.’

Nothing was known to have been done to the Minister other than a report few years later that he was charged for fraud over missing funds generated during the botched exercise as if the priority of government was to generate revenue from its unemployed citizens. No remorse, no apology and no vicarious liability. As for INEC, what we hear always is that some irresponsible transporters failed to distribute materials leading to delayed or failed segments of elections. No one gets to know what is done to such negligent transporters just as no one understands why the same transporters are reengaged for the very next activity. At one point, the electoral body rather than apologize for inexplicable postponement of elections said there was no difference between apology and the expression, ‘it is unfortunate.’ Indeed, INEC can procure servers at huge costs and at the end claim it didn’t use servers.

Different groups of critics especially parents of affected candidates who berated Oloyede and JAMB did well and should be commended for it. They should do so to all entities as the lethargy within our service delivery system is attributable to the timid approach of citizens to incompetent officials. The efficacy of stoutly rejecting service failure as the parents did to JAMB last week is by far higher than riots and demonstrations that are politicised and never sustained. At the same time, it is necessary to condemn buck-passing and dishonest rationalization of failed actions. The running of Nigerian entities on excuses and bold-face untruths are not persuasive as we all know the strategy to belong to arm-twisting of the public to which institutions ought to be accountable.

There is also the need to warn busy bodies that are always in the forefront in defending the indefensible. It has become a practice for some publicity seeking citizens to speak for organizations on matters about which they have little or no knowledge. Here, it is necessary to call out the Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, which as soon as the uproar of the hitches identified with the JAMB error were disclosed decided to speak for JAMB. MURIC gravely misfired by urging parents and students alike to shelve the idea of suing the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board, over the 2025 UTME mishap. It instead advised parents to return home to correct their mistakes ahead of 2026 session. MURIC’s Executive Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, reportedly advised candidates and their parents to lick their wounds and stop blaming JAMB for their failures adding that it was not the fault of the board that the students recorded poor results.

What does MURIC know about JAMB in general and last week’s incident in particular? Can that organization ever educate the nation better on JAMB matters than the visibly proactive spokespersons of the latter? It is indeed uncharitable that the same MURIC which spoke so authoritatively and loudly on the subject did not deem it necessary to emulate Prof Oloyede to publicly apologize for misleading the public. In view of the injury of false alarms to society, i dare say it is still not too late for MURIC and other critics to recant.  We can also hope that leaders of societal organizations and government itself would learn to be accountable to the public as the JAMB boss just did. Those in authority should endeavour to constitute an impartial electoral umpire for Nigeria and allow it to operate independently. Only well-meaning technocrats such as Oloyede and not politicians should be sent to INEC.

Governor Abba Yusuf of Kano State has directed the immediate suspension of Ibrahim Rabi’u, a Senior Special Reporter (SSR) attached to the Ministry of Transportation in the state, over an unauthorized statement.

Besides, the government has directed the issuance of a query to the suspended aide over his recent unauthorized comments on Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s purported defection.

Recall Rabiu had issued a statement over the weekend over Kwankwaso’s position on the impending defection rumour, and that which the two-term former governor has immediately denied as false.

The Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Umar Farouk Ibrahim, issued the suspension, which takes immediate effect.

In a statement made available to newsmen by the governor’s spokesperson, Sanusi Bature, the government cautioned all political appointees against unauthorized statements, insisting that any official comment must get clearance.

According to the statement, “the government has distanced itself from the purported claim, describing the statement authored by the suspended aide as solely coming from the author for reasons best known to him.

“The government, therefore, reminded the general public that only the Commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs, Comrade Ibrahim Waiya, is authorized to speak on behalf of the government, while the Director General, Media and Publicity, Sanusi Bature, speaks for the governor.

“The government cautions all political appointees against unauthorized comments, especially outside their jurisdiction.

“Any political appointee must get clearance before making public comments on issues that have to do with the position of the government on matters of public importance or of sensitive political decisions,” the statement reads.

Vanguard News

The server glitch that led to unnaturally high failure rates in Lagos and southeast states in Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) has alarmed the nation and provoked intense, impassioned debates about the integrity of computer-based standardized tests.

There are also the predictably shallow, bigoted attacks on the ethnicity, religious affiliation, and field of scholarly specialization of the JAMB registrar, Professor Is-haq Oloyede. I have chosen to transcend this chauvinistic folderol and instead look at the bigger picture.

There is no question that the technical malfunction in JAMB’s server that almost imperiled the dreams and hard work of prospective undergraduates is inexcusably horrid. It’s even more outrageous that in the immediate aftermath of this tragedy, the minister of education was quoted as saying that the mass failure was proof that the government had found a foolproof formula to break the “exam malpractice ecosystem.”

But, as I will show shortly, what happened in Nigeria is not unprecedented in the world. It also does not constitute sufficient grounds to impute untoward motives to JAMB or its officials. Or to demand the JAMB registrar’s resignation.

Here in the United States, on March 9 this year, a technical glitch in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which is somewhat equivalent to Nigeria’s UTME, caused many test takers to prematurely submit their answers. That led to scores of students getting subpar scores that won’t be enough to get them entry into universities.

The College Board, which administers the SAT, apologized and gave students an opportunity for a cost-free do-over. It gave test takers a full refund of their registration fees. It also gave them a voucher “for a free registration for a future SAT administration,” according to Forbes of March 10. Nobody resigned because of it.

On April 8, an even devastating technical failure hit the American College Testing (ACT) exam, another standardized university admission test that is a competitor to the SAT. During an online test, up to 11,000 secondary school students in the midwestern state of Illinois could not complete their test because of a sudden server malfunction.

ACT’s computer system went down and either delayed start times or caused some sections of the exam to freeze midpoint.

In an official statement, ACT “sincerely apologizes for the disruption,” acknowledged the “impact any technical issues have on schedules, student experience, and instructional time,” and provided vouchers for a future national ACT test date in June or July at no cost to students. They have another chance to improve their college admission scores. The ACT’s head has not resigned because of this.

The Law School Admission Test, or LSAT, the standardized test required to get admission into law schools in the United States, also experienced a well-publicized technical failure in 2020 when it transitioned from paper-based testing to online testing.

A glitch in the system caused the answers that test-takers chose not to be recorded, which meant automatic failure for several people affected.

The Law School Admission Council, which administers the LSAT, admitted the error, apologized, made amends by rescheduling a make-up exam for affected students, and promised to investigate and address the cause of the technical mishap.

Earlier, in July 2019, the LSAT’s initial switch from paper to tablet-based testing in test centers also saw technical hiccups.

Some tablets crashed or froze. This forced LSAC to let students cancel their score and retake the test for free. The head of the LSAC didn’t resign because of this.

Nor is this limited to the United States. I only started with the United States because I live here. The United Kingdom, our former colonizer, has also had its own share of digital platform failures during standardized university entrance examinations.

For example, in October 2023, Oxford University’s admission test for prospective undergraduates was hampered by severe technical and administrative glitches. The university chose to change Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing as its test provider for a new provider called Tata Consultancy Services.

This turned out to be an epic disaster.

According to an October 23, 2023, report by Cherwell, which bills itself as “Oxford’s oldest independent student newspaper,” Oxford’s test for final-year secondary school students was chaotic, marred by technical glitches, and “led to distress amongst applicants.”

It was so disordered that “The paper for the English Literature Assessment Test (ELAT) was reportedly from the previous year.” That’s equivalent to answering UTME questions from last year because technical glitches prevented this year’s questions from appearing on your screen. Meanwhile, you will be graded based on the answers for this year’s questions, which you haven’t seen.

The paper quoted a final year high school student who took the test as venting the following outrage on Twitter: “We look forward to a written apology and statement about the progress of these tests today. Not only with technical errors, but also the error on the ELAT. Students have prepared for these for months, so rapid response is necessary to assure them they will not be disadvantaged.”

The student paper reported that some test sessions were so delayed that backup paper test booklets had to be delivered. For example, the Math Admissions Test (MAT) was eventually given on paper after a two-hour wait when the online system couldn’t be stabilized. Even so, Oxford officials were compelled to indicate that affected applicants would be treated with leniency in score interpretation. No one resigned because of this.

It isn’t just advanced industrialized countries that experience technical troubles in standardized tests similar to what happened to this year’s UTME.

India, a country that shares many characteristics with Nigeria but is more technologically advanced, has also occasionally grappled with testing glitches. In 2009, India’s transition from paper-based to computer-based testing for its Common Admission Test (CAT)—required for entry into the country’s prestigious Institutes of Management—was marred by widespread software and network problems.

This was made even worse by a malware virus attack that caused about 47 out of 104 test labs to crash on the first day, preventing thousands of test takers from completing the exam. Roughly 10–11% of test takers were affected by crashes or freezing terminals, according to India’s Business Standard newspaper of January 21, 2013.

Charles Kernan, the COO of Prometric, which administered the test, acknowledged the technical glitches, apologized, and worked with schools to reschedule the tests for affected test takers. He didn’t resign.

In January this year, conduct of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), India’s key entrance test to study undergraduate degrees in engineering, had glitches and disruptions that altered students’ scores in some parts of the country.

According to a January 22, 2025, news report from The Times of India, the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts JEE, acknowledged the glitches and posted an official circular noting a technical snag at one venue and promptly issuing a new exam date for all candidates at the most affected centers. NTA’s head didn’t resign because of this.

My search turned up many other parallels from different parts of the world. I won’t bore the reader with more examples.

My goal, however, is not to lessen or dismiss the gravity of what happened, but to give a broader global context of the failure of technology in test taking and to help rein in the wild emotions this one incident appears to be provoking.

I am glad that the JAMB registrar has accepted responsibility for the failure of JAMB’s system. He has apologized sincerely and has offered immediate restitutive amends to affected students.

Of course, that didn’t happen in a vacuum. The sustained, evidence-based protestations of Alex Onyia, the CEO of Educare, contributed to this. So, Onyia also deserves commendation for vigilant citizenship. I am sure he is not alone.

But it takes a broad, open, and mature mind to invite one’s challenger to the table, give them an opportunity to make their case, admit error when the challenger’s evidence overwhelms yours, then apologize, and make amends. I honestly don’t know what more is expected.

Finally, that a simple, if grievous, technical error in a national test became the basis for the widening of our national fissures and for a vicious ethno-religious smear campaign against an individual is not a surprise to me. But I wanted to move beyond that and show that this isn’t unique to Nigeria.

Last week, icon of the Nigerian media, Dele Momodu, celebrated his 65th birthday. One of the events hallmarking the celebration was the Dele Momodu Leadership Centre he constructed in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State. Like a wayfarer, Momodu’s journey through the rough road of the Nigerian media has no doubt been very eventful. 

He rose to celebrity status from a humble background in the city of Ile-Ife. This much was manifest last Tuesday as the Osun State governor, Ademola Adeleke, freely allowed tears to cascade from his brows as he recalled the day he entered where the man who would one day be a media icon lived as a youngster.

With a 1982 degree in Yoruba from the then University of Ife, Momodu proceeded to secure a Master’s degree in English Literature in 1988. This was after having taught at the Oyo State College of Arts and Science in Ile-Ife. From them on, Momodu took steady, challenging but measured steps down the aisle of journalism practice. While in May 1988, he secured his first journalism job as Staff Writer with the African Concord magazine, he later moved to the Weekend Concord where, as pioneer staff member in March, 1989, he penned the newspaper’s first cover story.

Momodu’s brilliance became known to people like us when,  in September 1991, he became Editor of May Ellen Ezekiel’s Classique, a celebrity magazine. Bob Dee, as he is famously known, became the highest paid Nigerian newspaper editor with this appointment. Coupled with May’s engaging pieces, you could not but read Classique for, especially, Momodu’s racy pieces. I cannot forget May’s piece “Over Cognac” a narrative of her battle with childlessness and how her bosses made fun of her as they drained bottles of champagne.  

After Classique, Momodu has been many other things: publisher, businessman, and motivational speaker and with the founding of Ovation International, became CEO and publisher of the celebrity magazine.

Momodu is a huge inspiration to people from humble backgrounds. He signposts the fact that no matter how challenged your beginning is, there is always a way where there is a will. One day in late 2019, he gave Wale Adebanwi, his journalism mentee, who eventually became his professor at the University of Oxford while he studied for his fellowship at the prestigious university, and me a dinner at Oxford’s Holiday Inn  That night was a cherished moment of introspection.  Be kind to those you meet on your way up. You will always meet them, even as you yourself go up and up. Sitting at table with the legend of celebrity journalism was a night to remember.

Last Tuesday, he took my friends, Lasisi Olagunju, Dupe Olubanjo, and me on a tour of his Ibadan Leadership Center. Olubanjo, a former deputy editor of the Sunday Tribune, now of Globacom, was incidentally, the one who handled Momodu’s Tribune columns decades ago. While touring the Ibadan centre, we gasped at the well-kept bound copies of Momodu’s works in the Tribune, Classique, Ovation and other Nigerian newspapers, which tell the story of his column-writing odyssey. The shelves house more than his works. They are a researcher’s treasure. 

The Momodu story we saw was a classic case of an appreciative boy weaned from the backwaters of Ile-Ife, giving back to a society which forged him from the smithy of its rough road.

Happy birthday to you, Legend of the Written Words.

IN May, 2016, a young man got abducted by three men. They drugged him and gouged out his two eyes and testicles. According to the Daily Sun of South Africa, police later found the “fresh balls” of the victim in one of the suspects’ refrigerator. It was a suspected case of Muti. Andrew Kenny, a South African newspaper Op-Ed writer, penned it. Kenny was bothered by mounting cases of what he called desecration of humanity, as demonstrated by rampant cases of Muti killings. In Muti, the human victim’s body parts are harvested for rituals. In the piece he did for the BizNews newspaper, Kenny made a vivid portrait of what he called “a world of horror and fear” which he said Cyril Ramaphosa’s country had slipped into. 

If Nigeria of last week was a fallen combatant and an epitaph in its memory needed to be written, it will be that poetic, idiomatic expression, “when it rains, it pours.” When unpleasant things happen, they appear to come in quick succession or clusters.

Nigerian horrors are a legion. Some of them came were on parade last week. The first was the ruckus generated by the results of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB’s) Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). Apparently overwhelmed by glaring evidence of wrongs in the results, JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, at a press conference, admitted that indeed, there were system glitches caused by one of JAMB’s two technical service providers and which occurred in 157 centres nationwide. This invariably affected the results of 379,997 candidates. JAMB linked the discrepancies to faulty server updates in its Lagos and south-east zones. In the process of confirming the glitches, Oloyede took ownership and responsibility for them and ostensibly saddened, he went emotional and shed tears.

Then the Nigerian horror occurred. It is the elephant in the room whose ubiquity has, for almost a century now, ruined ethnic relations in Nigeria. To be specific, it is the age-long phobia for and acrimony against selves among Igbo and Yoruba people. Oloyede and his Yoruba team deliberately failed the 379,997 candidates, majority of whom were Igbo, the narrative began. Nothing would appease those persuaded by that obvious rant. How did a Professor of Islamic Studies come to head JAMB? Some others asked. Victims of the technical glitches became weaponized as synecdoche, as a part representing the whole. They figuratively stand for the unceasing “war” between Yoruba and Igbo. So many tropes were built in its service.

Though horrific, using ethnicity as lens of relations between Igbo and Yoruba didn’t start today.  As aptly put by James S. Coleman in his Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (1958), “from the beginning, Azikiwe’s newspapers glorified the achievements of individual Ibos at home and abroad, but seldom gave publicity to the activities of prominent Yorubas; they claim, on the contrary, that Azikiwe carried on a sustained program of character assassination against them.”

The exchange of acrimony between Yoruba and Igbo became so rife during Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani’s time as Chairman of the Nigerian Railways with allegations that he filled the Railways with Igbo. Ikejiani was appointed in 1960. The Yoruba harangued Ikejiani terribly through their newspaper press, the Daily Sketch, especially over his claim of having a DSc from Toronto. Same happened during the VC contest of the University of Lagos in 1965 between incumbent, Prof Eni Njoku and Prof Saburi Biobaku. It degenerated into verbal abuses and exchanges of ethnic bile. As it was then, so it is today.

The harbinger of this ethnic horror between Yoruba and Igbo is the January 1966 coup when Nigeria’s federal structure was unitarized by the military. From then, Nigeria has not recovered from the blow of Aguiyi Ironsi. It has since then been superficially practicing federalism in context but in content, fully runs a unitary government. I went into history to situate the ancient animosity between the two ethnic groups, in the bid to show where the rain began beating the two ethnic groups. Only a federal system in content will cure the incurable malady of mutual hatred between the duo. It is becoming glaring by the day that no preachment can stop this “war’.

As the “war” was being fought, another horror slid in. Patriot Professor Pat Utomi was dragged to the Federal High Court by the Department of State Services (DSS). His crime? He called for and formed a shadow government. Utomi’s patriotism has overtime been assessed from ethnic prism. An Igbo from Delta State, Yoruba, especially those of the persuasion of the Nigerian president, have denigrated his civic engagement of a stagnating federal government whose feel is nil in the lives of the people. The DSS alleged that Utomi’s shadow government was akin to usurping executive authority.

The DSS case against Utomi is a demonstration of the rot in Nigeria’s practice of democracy. Rather than destabilizing the Nigerian state, what Utomi seeks is to canvass the other view. There is no doubting the fact that, in the last two years, the persons in charge of Nigeria’s federal power have performed grossly inadequately. In the shadow government call, I do not see Utomi asking that Tinubu’s effete arrangement should be collapsed. What he offers is a counter formation from which the Tinubu dross can learn. To tenants of Nigeria’s Hammer House of Horror Villa, dissent is criminal and civic engagement, an anathema. The question to ask the DSS is, at what lamentable point did offering civic alternative wear the toga of a coup? When did an alternative opinion constitute national security threat? What is more threatening to Nigeria is the stagnation, and I dare say, regression of Nigeria under its current taskmasters. Utomi’s only crime is his power of re-imagination, his effrontery to have another view.

Yet, another. Let us not dwell on the horror of how Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, prematurely jumped the gun to diagnose the mass failure in JAMB before Oloyede burst his bubble. He subsequently appeared to the rest of Nigeria as a confused man. While his ministry, perhaps in the name of the Nigeria First initiative of the federal government, seems to want to stop the Bilateral Educational Agreement (BEA) scholarship scheme which he inherited, should it be done retroactively? Under the BEA, Nigeria sponsored some students to Russia and some other countries on scholarship. Recently, the ministry seems to be making moves to stop BEA while its engagement with those on its scholarship scheme still subsists. Methinks the most sensible thing to do is to stop subsequent engagements but not to leave students currently on the scheme in the lurch. This violates the principle of fairness. It is only in military regimes that actions are taken this retroactively.  

Yet, another. Yes, Nigeria has a pandemic of ritual killings like the Muti of South and Southern Africa, but the revelation last week by Aminu Jaji, a member of the House of Representatives from Kaura-Namoda/Birnin Magaji Federal Constituency of Zamfara State, ranks like a news from the House of Horror. It is a social signpost of the worsening security situation in Nigeria. According to Jaji, armed insurgents now feed newborns in captivity to their dogs. 

That blood-curdling revelation should galvanize Nigerian authorities into action. Bandits and terrorists are taking over the levers of power. As the week was winding down, the gladsome news that the Federal Government had established a national forest guard system filtered into the airwaves. About 130,000 armed operatives will be recruited to man Nigeria’s 1,129 forest reserves. Each state is to recruit between 2,000 and 5,000 forest guards based on their capacity for this project of curbing the escalating insecurity across Nigeria. That is one exemption from the horror stories that laced our last week. However, it is not without questions. If the states are to employ their own guards into the scheme and pay them, how is the initiative federal? What happens to states like the Southwest which have their own security network called Amotekun? Some of the Amotekun operatives keep an eye on the forests.

The week before, GovSpend, a civic tech platform which peers torchlight into the spending of the FG, gouged out another horror. According to it, between July 2023 and December 2024, the Tinubu government spent the sum of N20.3b to maintain Nigeria’s presidential fleet. The president’s recently acquired sky octopus, an Airbus A330, which cost Nigeria over $100m, was taken to South Africa for a remodeling that will cost Nigerians multiple of millions of dollars. When government calls for belt-tightening and its Capon lives like an oil Shekh as this, it becomes a dissonance that doesn’t resonate with the people.

Like the Muti of South Africa which bothered Andrew Kenny but which the elite chattering classes ignore and probably enjoy, we must be bothered by the horrors of Nigeria. We must speak up about them and change these narratives that have become a refrain in our daily lives.