Scores of hangers-on, trooping daily to have free foods and monetary gifts to the home of the late chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, have deserted the Molete, Ibadan, residence of the deceased politician.

Investigations by our correspondent on Friday and Saturday revealed that the era of free food for the multitude on the bill of the late politician appeared to be over, barely 10 days after his death.

The people might, however, take refuge in the residence of the Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Azeez Arisekola-Alao, at Ikolaba as a crowd was sighted at the entrance of his home on Saturday and Sunday.

It was learnt that the people, mostly women and youths, were hanging around the expansive gate of the businessman’s expecting some financial gifts.

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20080623412262

The show of shame goes on.

Shame on Nigeria!!

The system has made it possible. there is massive poverty in the land and people have to eat their daily bread.
It is however unfortunate that they are given peanuts while billions are stolen from them. this is also probably because they r illitrate with average nigerian "fear".

nuzo, what r u doin in ur capacity to stop this?

noetic:

nuzo, what r u doin in your capacity to stop this?

lol.
@Topic,man must wack ! ! ! Is it that ppl are contended with the peanuts they are fed or is it a case of not just having an option or not utilizing their options?

illiteracy + poverty is a powerful weapon against the people.

The show of shame will continue until the people realize that they have a hand in the continued destruction of the future of their own kids. Continuing to sell their souls for a plate of food/a piece of gold that is only for a minute or two while sacrificing the future of their own kids in the process, we need to realize that we can not continue to do this, and expect magic to happen.

nuzo, what r u doin in your capacity to stop this?

what a sensible question.
we make noise and noise day after day with nothing contributed at the closing time of the day.

illitrate with average nigerian "fear".

the difference between us, the noise makers and these illitrate nigerians is not that much.

we should all shut up and quit posting rubbish if we're not contributing. without any doubt on my mind most of us today would have been members of this same amala politics group that we all criticize everyday if it wasn't because we are fortunate enough to be who we are today.

instead of whining and pointing out all the things that are wrong with nigeria every single day, why not try a different approach by listing what could be done and what we are doing to rescue our country. ain't you guys tired of the same bull shi t every single day?

talk, talk, talk and post, post, post with nothing contributed at the end of every single day.

even a 10 year old "Palestinian" boy will give you the list of all the things he's doing to help his people. nigerians will just talk rubbish just for the sake of talking and go to sleep to return back to the same bull shi t talk the following day, with nothing solid to contribute.

zomby:

even a 10 year old "Palestinian" boy will give you the list of all the things he's doing to help his people. nigerians will just talk rubbish just for the sake of talking and go to sleep to return back to the same bull shi t talk the following day, with nothing solid to contribute.

i agree with you totally,if we proffer half the solutions and actually did something about it with the way everybody goes on and on and on about the problems in nigeria,things will have improved considerably

illiteracy + poverty is a powerful weapon against the people.

I think this case is beyond that. It's a case of avarice ,egocentricism and stupidity because Oyo state is not the only state in Nigeria where illiteracy and poverty abounds.

lol

RedHotChic:

I think this case is beyond that. It's a case of avarice ,egocentricism and stupidity because Oyo state is not the only state in Nigeria where illiteracy and poverty abounds.

Hear Hear. I guess that is why this tragic drama is played countrywide and not only in Oyo State.

zomby:

even a 10 year old "Palestinian" boy will give you the list of all the things he's doing to help his people. nigerians will just talk rubbish just for the sake of talking and go to sleep to return back to the same bull shi t talk the following day, with nothing solid to contribute.

And who want to die?. . .Why can't you stand up and contribute sumn too?

Hear Hear. I guess that is why this tragic drama is played countrywide and not only in Oyo State.

Agreed but Oyo's case is off the hook abeg.

zomby:

the difference between us, the noise makers and these illitrate nigerians is not that much.

lmfao

o boy ! man must wak

Arisekola, please don't open the gate
By Reuben Abati

ONE of the challenges arising from the recent death of Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, the self-styled Godfather of Oyo State politics, speaks to the troubled dynamics of social and class relations in Nigeria as indicated by the present circumstances of the hordes of hangers-on who flocked to his home on a daily basis. Now with Adedibu dead, this strong army of poor people appears defeated. In his lifetime, Alhaji Adedibu provided free food for the masses: everyday, a cow was slaughtered in his compound, soup was prepared and yam flour delicacies were rolled off a busy kitchen line. Anyone who felt the pangs of hunger could stop by and have a meal.

The money that Adedibu had collected from his clients in positions of power and authority, he gave a part of it to the poor, to pay their children's school fees and to attend to their other needs. Even if this was a self-serving method of gaining political relevance and popularity at the grassroots level, Adedibu sustained this twice-a-day free meal programme till the end. And this was the source of his reputation as a philanthropist, his appelation as Alaafin Molete and the description of his brand of politics as "amala politics". Every day of the year, a crowd gathered at his doorstep.

But since his death on June 11, that crowd of hungry men and women looking for food as fuel, has thinned out. The hungry mouths kept converging for a few days after the burial, but when they noticed that Adedibu's 19 children had resolved to close the kitchen, tie up the bags of yam flour, and sanitise the compound and put an end to their father's politics of food, the crowd had to disperse. Indeed, one of Adedibu's children speaking for the family had declared, clearly, that there will be no more free food for the poor in Adedibu's household.

The people were advised to "find their level." The children are not willing to step into their father's shoes. Amala politics is over. It is finished. Its author and exponent is dead; that chapter is closed. And so today, Adedibu's once busy compound has become quiet: no more drummers waking up the Alaafin and serenading him with praise-chants, no more thugs hanging by the gate providing protection for the Godfather; the women who used to cook all day in the kitchen have folded their bulbous wrappers and have hit the road in search of new patrons.

But since as they say, "nature abhors a vacuum", and the stomach is a god that can only be propitiated with food, the courtiers of Adedibu's palace have had to go in search of a new patron who can take care of their needs. And it is to the home of Alhaji Azeez Arisekola-Alao, that they have turned their gaze. Arisekola is another prominent Ibadan citizen, a notable Nigerian businessman, the Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland (the generalissimo of the islamic faith in Yorubaland), and in a much quieter way, also a philanthropist. Besides, the late Adedibu reportedly chose Arisekola as the administrator of his estate and executor of his will.

In their simple understanding, the amala crowd may have concluded that this literally means Alhaji Arisekola is Adedibu's anointed successor and the man to inherit his public and social obligations. Last Saturday and Sunday, they gathered in front of his home at Ikolaba in Ibadan - women and youths looking for financial assistance and food. As reported in The Punch of June 23, 2008, p,10, "a 17-year old boy" wants Arisekola to feed him and pay his school fees. And a widow needs money to feed her children. But the gate to Arisekola's house was securely fastened. The hungry men and women at the gate were told by guards that "they were not instructed to open the gates for anybody without prior appoitment". Undeterred, the able-bodied men and women begging for money and food, returned on Sunday but the gates were still locked.

Adedibu may have opened his own gates for the hungry and the poor, but the scenario at Arisekola's house is closer to reality. There is a huge divide between the poor and the rich in Nigeria, standing within that divide are guards, gates, walls and barbed wires reaching the skies. In the home of every rich man, there is a crowd of beggars waiting to knock on the door, knocking on the gates, but the rich have learnt to keep the poor away. You can't barge in on them unless you have an appointment. They have guards, they have dogs that have been trained to keep intruders and poor - looking people away. Their homes are in isolated parts of the city not in open neighbourhoods like Adedibu's Molete. They have electronic surveillance, some of our rich men even have mini-police stations in their houses, complete with cells and uniformed police men who can charge you for tresspass and lock you up immediately. The only way the poor can gain entrance into those gilded cages where the rich live is as employees in the servants' quarters, or as armed robbers who break down the walls and force their way in with the help of guns. The reality is that the Nigerian rich are prisoners of their wealth. They cannot enjoy it because they are constantly afraid that the poor, looking for food and free money, may tear down the walls.

Can anybody blame Alhaji Arisekola-Alao for locking up his gates and instructing his guards to shut out uninvited and unwanted guests? The man may have been Adedibu's friend in his lifetime, but he is not a politician. He is a businessman. And he probably doesn't like the idea of poor people messing up his well-manicured lawns and polluting his abode with their body odour. Nobody should be surprised if Alhaji Arisekola recruits armed guards to beef up security at his home or if he seeks police protection, and puts up a sign: "Intruders and tresspassers will be shot on sight, Be warned." With their desperation since their patron died, the Amala crowd of Ibadan has now helped to advertise a seemingly positive value of Adedibu's peculiar mess. But this is a comment on the state of the Nigerian society.

There is a growing crowd of poor people out there which feels shut out of the Nigerian system. The crowd exists nationwide, not just in Ibadan. Its members are worst hit by the failure of the Nigerian economy, the specter of galloping inflation, unemployment and the sheer incompetence and ineffectuality of government at all levels. It is government that should be blamed.

The blame belongs to the leaders at all levels who loot the treasury and years after the fact, claim innocence. The villains are those in the positions of authority who fail the people only to erect walls around their homes. It is so comical seeing the Nigerian rich not being able to enjoy their wealth: at the root of this is the failure of enlightenment on their part; in other societies, both the rich and governments help to create a welfare society so the fears of the poor may be addressed. It is so pitiable seeing that many Nigerians, living on less than one dollar per day, face the indignity of having to go to another man's home to beg for food.

The greater danger is that whoever provides that food can use the poor for any purpose at all, and this was the gap that a man like Adedibu took advantage of. He was in that sense as much a creation of the imperfections of the Nigerian state as those he fed were victims. Also in this plane are the boys turned militants in the Niger Delta who are being used by Adedibu-like figures to wage war against Nigeria; also here are the almajiris of the Northern parts who can be asked to go out and cause mayhem by an influential master, whose purposes may not be noble. Perhaps when the rich can no longer sleep in their homes, when their gates and guards and their bullet proof cars can no longer protect them, Nigeria will be forced to address the crisis of poverty not as effect, but as the root-cause of much that is wrong with our politics and society.

In the Adedibu case, a Kano-based cleric, Alhaji Muyideen Ajani Bello, delivering a sermon at the eight-day fidau prayer session for the late Adedibu had advised the rich men and women in Ibadan and Adedibu's children "to open their gates for the jobless, downtrodden masses and feed them." He said: "if you are not careful, armed robbers will increase in Ibadan. Once those that are feeding in Adedibu's house realise that there is nowhere for them to feed again, they will go out and rob houses. For you to avert this situation, be ready to feed these hoodlums and the jobless. Open your houses for people to come and eat, if not armed robbers will begin to burgle your houses." Why should anybody feed others if this were a well-organised society? Many of the people looking for food are not physically challenged ( even if they were?), many of them are educated or are skilful in some ways. They need jobs and opportunities, and guarantees that anyone who is willing to work will find something to do. The true challenge is in turning Nigeria into a land of opportunities where human dignity can be assured.

Nigerians also need a social security system that caters for both the vulnerable and the privileged and raises the quality of life. Because many hungry mouths exist, to be exploited and used for political purposes, that is why there has been so much unedifying talk about Adedibu's likely successors. Institutions of state would still have to be strengthened to provide succour for the helpless, and to check the resort to criminality for either ideological or existential reasons. Leaders must stop stealing money and votes and focus on the people's welfare. It is the failure to do this that will produce the next Adedibu, and the effect on society would just be as bad as the menace of armed robbery that the cleric fears.

and the circle continues. . . . . . . . .

Lie! Lie!! Lie!!!

I wonder why Lagosians come to know so much about Ibadan Politics.

Alhaji Alao dont even live in Ikolaba.

He lives in his Old Bodija Residence (very reseved Unlike Molete). this is not a place that is highly accessible to Thugs, Riff-Raffs like Molete.

Alhaji Alao has never beeen a card-carrying member of any political party in Nigeria Not even the NPN. He support all candidates and to my knowledge has never taken contract from Democratically elected government BUT MILLITARY.

Yes,he is a signatory to Lamidi's WILL.

Beside MKO Abiola, i dont know of any Yorubaman that does more phillantropy more than him.


He cant and no one can step into Adedibu's Shoe.

Akolawole:

He can't and no one can step into Adedibu's Shoe.

may God kill anyone that attempts to. . . . . . Amen

I've yet to see anything here that suggests Arisekola is taking up any role Adediku left, either as pseudophilanthropist, or politricksian.
The only similarity lies in the fact that they're both good-for-nothing. . . in life and in death.
Arisekola's romps with the Abacha regime still rings clearly in every astute memory.

noetic:

may God kill anyone that attempts to. . . . . . Amen

A trillion and one Amen to that.

Bolarge:


1) The only similarity lies in the fact that they're both good-for-nothing. . . in life and in death.


2) Arisekola's romps with the Abacha regime still rings clearly in every astute memory.

1) Beside the thugery of Adedibu, he's avery good man

Tell me the sins of Arisekola.

2) He did 2 things in Abacha Regime; (1) Supplied foods to Nigeria Troops in Liberia/Sierra Leone and (2) He is one of the organisers of Abacha's 2 million march in Ibadan.


If Abacha offered you such, would you decline?

We all know what happen after the Rally, How Uncle Bola Ige's led Students dealt with both Adedibu and Arisekolain 1998.


How alhaji has to dress like Graduand to be able to escape at UI

Bolarge, how can you say such about a human being? What have they ever done to you? Good for nothing? In life and in death? c'mon! Thats someone's father you're referring to, someone's uncle, brother or son! I'm sure a lot of Nigerians like myself would disagree with you on those statements. You don't even know this man! Don't be ignorant because you might even be biting the finger that's feeding you. PS: Refrain from sly innuendos!

Akolawole, well put 

I will like to understand who the thread starter is blaming, the people that are hungry and are being fed by someone with a heart and at leasy helping in his own way or is it the people that are hungry and the govt or me and you cant help, cos we are so busy with our own " how to make " food on our table be enuf?
I am trying so hard to understand what this thread is all about.
I am sure among the hungry people would be graduates that cant get a job, or kids that the parents cant even affford to take care of.
In one word, we have a nation where the govt and the people just dont care about her people.
God will help.
However, if you can help. pls do, else, dont blame or curse out those that are heping.

Fhemmmy:

I will like to understand who the thread starter is blaming, the people that are hungry and are being fed by someone with a heart and at leasy helping in his own way or is it the people that are hungry and the govt or me and you can't help, because we are so busy with our own " how to make " food on our table be enough?
I am trying so hard to understand what this thread is all about.
I am sure among the hungry people would be graduates that can't get a job, or kids that the parents can't even affford to take care of.
In one word, we have a nation where the govt and the people just don't care about her people.
God will help.
However, if you can help. please do, else, don't blame or curse out those that are heping.

No one is aking any one not to help. but pls dont in the name of feeding and empowering the helpless masses, colonize them politically like adedibu did.
help because u genuinely want to.

Instead of slaughtering cow, cooking and all of that; isn’t there another avenue the man called Adedibu can channel, to affect the life of his people positively. The man is gone, and the people are still hungry as ever. People always say “the man who showed us out to fish is better than the man that gave us fish” I believe basic foundation is a necessecity in every human endeavor; people need basic foundation in order to survive. Instead of cooking, pounding and feeding the neighborhood…why not embark on series of project that will create employment for these masses of people rather than making them your prey. Embark on specific program that will improve on the status of your people one way or the other, infrastructure is there. Giving them food day and night is not going to solve their problem, because they will always come back. I understand the man is not educated, but he has intellectual people on his payroll that should know better. I commend the man Adedibu for taking the initiative to provide food and other financial help to his people. I know Nigeria is bequeathed with wealthy (regardless of how they got their wealth) people like Adedibu that don’t even care about the welfare of their people. Kudos to the man for setting high standard for others to emulate. I just wish whoever is going to fill that role; need to rethink about the needs of his/her people. These people don’t need immediate food; they don’t need certain amount of money here and there. They need Jobs, infrastructure to sustain them for a long time. These wealthy people can build factories where they will employ their people, the factory make money and indigenes also benefit as well. The person, as a high ranking officer of the society (because of his/her wealth and influence) can influence government policy for the betterment of his/her people.