Nollywood actress Nkechi Blessing Sunday has disclosed that she personally tracked down and arrested the woman responsible for the viral gym video that triggered widespread online mockery and body shaming earlier this year.
The revelation came during a recent episode of the Honest Brunch Podcast, which has now gained significant attention on social media.
Blessing appeared on the show and spoke candidly about the incident and the steps she took to confront the individual behind the secret filming.
According to the actress, the video, which captured her during a workout session, was shared without her consent, sparking public criticism and ridicule. She expressed deep frustration over the invasion of her privacy.
Blessing explained that she initially sought assistance from the gym where the video was recorded but was met with resistance. “iFitness hid her information from me… I found her. I got her arrested, of course,” she said, emphasizing her determination to hold the culprit accountable.
The actress defended her natural body, taking a stand against the online body-shaming that followed the video. She addressed critics who compared her to those with surgically enhanced physiques, before the arrest.
“You get BBL, you dey snap me wey get natural body. Are you stupid, sis?” Blessing stated on the podcast, dismissing the unfair comparisons and highlighting the importance of embracing natural beauty.
She further stressed that her choice of clothing and appearance during workouts was entirely personal and had no connection to seeking public approval or validation.
The actress concluded by reinforcing her stance against invasions of privacy and body-shaming, urging the public to respect individual boundaries and celebrate authenticity over superficial standards.
In the evening of November 18, 2024, Alhaji rings me to put me on the alert: if things pan out well we might work that night. He calls it “50-50”.
He rings again a few minutes past midnight, sounding more upbeat. But first, we have to settle some “friends” in the police and the army: N250,000. One hour later after I transferred the money to him, he rings back, downbeat this time. Although the security had cleared him to operate, a candlelight session in honour of a deceased is ongoing in the community we are to steal oil from. The bunkerers fear we cannot pull off the heist without attracting the mourners’ attention. His recommendation is to suspend it but he wants to know if I have the heart to risk it, provided I wouldn’t hold him responsible if we hit and missed. I reluctantly opt not to.
We do not get back on the road until exactly a week after our first trial. By then, Nasiru and Henry had secured a pact with Amamina: instead of the N10 million he was demanding, they would pay him N1.5 million, but it would only become active on the first day of possible bunkering, and would be valid for the next four days. I made the payment to Amamina just before dusk on Monday November 18, 2024.
******* ********** *********
Not long after 9 pm on Wednesday November 20, 2024, Alhaji Nasiru rings me to “prepare for work tonight”. Henry and Nasiru fetch me from my hotel much later and drop me off at Pipeline at exactly 12:03 am on Thursday November 21. They wait an hour before emptying me into Alhaji Nasiru’s SUV. Alhaji and I then drive around for some minutes until he pulls over on Alese-Okirika Road, Refinery Junction, at 1:57 am.
With Alhaji thinking we had overstayed on a spot and could have drawn suspicion, he proposes yet another switch of locations. He drives for another couple of minutes and pulls over on an unlighted road. When I plot the geolocation, my specialised device reveals we’re near ‘NNPC Port Harcourt Refinery’.
Alhaji Nasiru was going to help us steal oil from the NNPC Port Harcourt refinery, which explains why we were hovering around the area. “The challenge we have these days is that there is increased security,” Alhaji blurts out. “Even companies are paying people to watch. Besides the security formations, we now have to evade civilian surveillance too.”
Alhaji continues: “Today, I even paid N150,000 to the supervisors of the civilian surveillance teams for them to replace the uncooperative civilian security on duty with the one who will cooperate with them. The supervisors will retain the ones who normally work with us, then post the uncooperative ones to other locations.
“This has to be limited to two people at most; the more people you involve, the higher the likelihood of getting exposed. And our DSS [not the Department of State Service] people watching over the line tonight are the ones who told us to wait.”
At exactly 3:18 am, a phone call interrupts Alhaji. It is a helpful conversation.
“As I speak with you, I am outside being bitten by mosquitoes,” he tells the caller. “The last time we spoke, it was the DSS issue. Once they give us the green light, we’ll move. We’re outside waiting for them.
“When I was at Refinery Junction, I saw their Hilux move. I saw them when they returned to the Eleme area; that was roughly an hour ago.”
The call ends and I pick up from where Alhaji stopped. “You settled the DSS. What if the army disturb us?”
“No, no, no,” he retorts. “You know, the army, the ones working for the companies are different from the ones on anti-bunkering teams. They even have different barracks; some of them are from Eleme Barracks; some are from the 6 Div. However, any of them can arrest you. They know it is business, and they all have one eye on it.
“What matters is that the ones guarding the lines allow you to load. Once you settle those ones, the IGP and the federal taskforce, you have no problem apart from the small checkpoints where you just give them their own ‘table money’ and you’re free. But the checkpoints won’t stop you because we use waybill to ‘cover the market.’”
“Waybill?” I ask, feigning ignorance to oil the conversation.
“Yes. We use company waybill. In fact, the waybill alone costs nearly N300,000.”
There is pin-drop silence, but it is only momentary as Alhaji, impatient to get the job done, breaks it.
“All that is stopping us is for our truck to be granted access,” he says. “Once that happens, we will be done in less than an hour. Then we move; and as we’re moving, we’re communicating. We give them their ‘table money’ and go. It’s normal procedure.”
At 3:35 am, with Alhaji still unable to secure clearance, we know it is time to retire for the day. Normal human movement would resume within an hour — inadequate timeframe to steal crude without notice and disappear out of town.
Nasiru and Henry received the news with fury. At this point, Aljahi Nasiru had taken a total of N1,850,000 from us, mostly as payments for settling “security” without managing to secure a slot for the operation. But there was a more important matter: the promise to Amamina to return his truck within three days of payment was now impossible to fulfill. Amamina was certain to demand his truck or more money, neither of which any of us was willing to part with. Only the Union could resolve this!
THE ‘UNION’ OF CRUDE OIL BUNKERERS
Nobody could say for certain how the meeting with the bunkerers’ union would end, but it definitely began on a bellicose note. Amamina was fuming; Nasiru was belligerent. Henry? He was seething.
Roughly 10 middle-aged men sit on two benches positioned against each other under a giant tree. Amamina sits on a chair in between them, his legs waggling. The previous day, Henry had spotted Amamina’s truck trudging out of town. Suspecting someone else must have hired it, he accelerated, overtook the truck and grounded it.
Nasiru is the first to go. He recalls how he had paid Amamina N1.5 million the first time, followed by another N1.5 million and then N200,000 for the truck over a 10-day period despite not having used the truck. Nasiru takes no responsibility for the delay, insisting his agreement with Alhaji Nasiru was to load crude in Obio-Akpor, before the plan shifted to Indorama (Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Limited) and belatedly Pipeline. He is quick to also point out a three-day period when the driver was either unavailable or the truck was faulty.
“A whole N3.2 million gone for a project that hasn’t gone ahead? Not possible!” he screams.
Amamina says all the expected things: he had overextended himself for the bunkerers multiple times and couldn’t be blamed since he wasn’t their loader. It was at the forum I heard for the first time that he had in fact offered to help them load crude from the point onto the truck if they would pay him an extra N1 million. Instead, Nasiru and Henry were penny-pinching, negotiating for N200,000 — an amount he considered trifling.
“Am I a child? Why would I leave my family and spend a night out in the cold just for N200,000?” Amamina howls. “Ask them, haven’t they spent more than N1 million now without still loading?”
The ‘union’ chairman, an elderly man who inadvertently roared every time he spoke, found no fault with Amamina.
“Nobody, no matter how unfearful of God they are, can blame you in this matter,” ‘Alhaji’, as everyone addressed him, says. “You are our senior; you cook and we eat. All of them are your boys. Please, sir, I use my office to beg you, help them. Intervene in the work.”
Amamina softens after nearly two hours, promising to release his truck if we paid the costs of fixing the truck’s deflated tyres and replacing the stolen diesel. This amounted to N580,000.
Only after the group dispersed did Henry regain his arrogance. “He released it because he was afraid he would lose if the matter got to the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG). I’m a strong member but he isn’t,” he sensationally claims.
FINALLY, BUNKERING DAY
The location we tried to steal crude from
The earliest events of Tuesday signpost a successful night ahead. I am roused from sleep by a heartwarming call from Nasiru. His second call, at 11:49 am, is the earliest anyone rang me to suggest we would ‘work’ in the night. I settle Amamina’s N580,000 demand at 12:15 pm, and from then on, things start to progress at a frenetic pace. Henry encourages me to pack my belongings at the hotel, preparatory to checking out.
“Once we load, you will follow the truck to Enugu,” he instructs me. “But we will come back to the hotel to grab your bag.”
He stops by at the hotel just before 4 pm to get introduced to the receptionist as the one designated to pick up my bags if I didn’t return that night.
******* ********** *********
It is 8 pm and we have regained control of the truck. But first, we hobble into Nasiru’s car and head to a filthy neighbourhood filled with suspected bunkerers. I am there only on my own insistence, so they make sure I do not know the location. Our main host is ‘Biggie’ who, as the name implies, is heavily-constructed, with a bulging tummy and a stern mien, accentuated by his slight, unnatural limp. Biggie seemed to have more direct contacts to the lines than my friends; he, in fact, had another truck on loading standby for the night.
Most of their conversations are hushed, after which Nasiru drives to a hotel to spend time with his woman. Much later in the night, Henry instructs me to get half a million in cash for on-the-ground bribery before and after loading. At exactly 11:48 pm, a N200,000 transfer is made on my behalf to an account belonging to Umar Bashir Yahuza, in exchange for cash via a PoS machine. The outstanding N300,000 gets transferred to him at exactly 12:22 am on Wednesday November 27. With cash stuffed in our pockets, it is finally time to fetch Nasiru and go get our crude!
I start to believe nothing will derail us some minutes before 1am when we veer off a main road into a barricaded community, an indication of our proximity to the oil source. We are stopped by the vigilantes manning the entrance, but they grant us thoroughfare once Biggie disembarks from the truck to grease their palms. I plot the geolocation and it returns ‘Umusoya Road’. This was at exactly 1:13 am.
I need Biggie back inside, but I also do not; he, one young man and I are cramming ourselves onto the only seat by the driver, supported by a makeshift stool in the centre. It is discomforting but I conceal the grimace on my face with the darkness of the hour, considering how I fought my way onto that truck against their advice. One word of complaint from me and it could finally spell my ejection from the truck.
The bus could not move when Biggie returned inside. According to the driver, it is the clutch. Considering this is past midnight, the noise from his failed efforts to accelerate the truck travels far and wide, rousing suspicion. Henry and Nasiru speed back to town to fetch their mechanic, but it is the young men from the community who arrive first, claiming any truck headed anywhere at that hour was surely going to lift crude. Their requests for ‘settlement’ are peaceful initially, but the gathering crowd soon starts getting belligerent and circling menacingly around the truck. Biggie again climbs down to engage them.
It was a big relief when the truck miraculously picked up after some 20 minutes and the journey resumed, but nobody knew what calls the disgruntled men had made or how far news of our presence had travelled. We arrive at the scene at exactly 1:42 am.
Although it was dark, I noticed we had made a u-turn at something that seemed like a roundabout, and the truck was to take a right turn into a bushpath just a few metres after. The men who had connected a big, long hose to the crude source instruct the driver to reverse into the path rather than drive in straight. But the truck wouldn’t reverse, the driver citing the same clutch problem. After more than 10 minutes of rotational motion, the truck was still unable to reverse into the bushpath, the men at the crude point become apprehensive.
“What manner of truck is this?” one of them queries in pidgin. “You people will put us in trouble!”
It would soon be 2 am, yet there was one more truck to be loaded after us. One, in fact, had loaded and vanished into the darkness of the night before us.
Those men soon begin to wonder if our truck should make way for the one scheduled to load after us. They give us a little more time but warn that if the mechanic does not arrive early enough to fix the truck while they pump the crude, the truck would be stuck in the bush, unable to leave.
The driver does manage to strenuously cover some metres in reverse mode, but even he soon gets fed up and disembarks to assess the distance left to cover. I join him. We are on this inward walk when I clock the screeching sound of a saloon car nearby. I take to my feet immediately, only returning after one of the loaders called out to assure me it was the ‘IGP squad’ and they were “working with us”.
Henry and Nasiru had told me about the ‘IGP Squad’ months back. They would provide us security cover by patrolling the area, and eventually “pin down” a few kilometres away from us. If the ‘IGP Squad’ noticed any movement by another security agency, then they would quickly arrest us, thereby rendering our arrest by the new security agency impossible. Being the first to arrest us, the ‘IGP Squad’ would then take us away, only to subsequently set us free when nobody was watching.
“These people want me to reverse up to 1km. Am I the pilot for the entire world? [sic]” the driver protests. “Is it easy to reverse all that distance?”
Amamina’s truck after the raid
Amamina’s cursed truck — the only reason we weren’t out of sight before the arrival of security But one of the men at the loading point corrects him. “My brother, since the start of the rainy season, nobody has driven in front-facing, otherwise your tyres will get stuck trying to reverse out of the bush. We used Berger road, but due to ongoing construction works, that axis is currently well-lit. We had to abandon it.”
“Amanze,” he calls out. “Look at where you’ll reverse your truck to. See the hose that has been passed out from the point. See the pit already dug for you; see two hoses; we’re just waiting for your truck to get here. Nobody brought you here to waste your time.”
The driver had just entered the truck again when I heard vehicular movement, more intense this time. With nobody in sight to tell me if it was the IGP squad or not, I dash into the bush, ducking there for the next five minutes. When sounds of security boots furiously clasping against the floor rent the air, the danger becomes unmistakable. I lie flat in the thick bush, fish out my phone and ring my co-smugglers. They initially denied it but as it turned down, we had been busted by a combined team of security forces. The almighty ‘IGP Squad’ were nowhere to be found; they in fact were the first to take to their heels, leaving us — the bunkerers they were paid to protect — at the mercy of gun-toting military men.
This story was produced with support from the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under the Collaborative Media Engagement for Development Inclusivity and Accountability Project (CMEDIA) funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
UNDERCOVER: With Police, Army On Your Side, You Can Also Become An Illegal Crude Oil Bunkerer
By 'Fisayo Soyombo
Investigative journalist ‘Fisayo Soyombo spent three months in 2024 embedding himself with illegal crude oil bunkerers, hoping to unravel the delicate network of oil thievery with entrenched roots in the South South and branches all over Africa’s largest producer of the resource. The expedition may have been abruptly terminated by an arrest at a crude oil bunkering site, but it had progressed enough to establish the complicity of the military and the police in terrestrial theft of crude oil.
Under the cover of darkness in Port Harcourt on Wednesday September 19, 2024, two completely different gentlemen — one laconic, the other garrulous — join me at the bar of a hotel in the city centre, to discuss ‘business’. We would be stealing crude oil, the bulwark of Nigeria’s economy, for onward loading to either Enugu or Kano where it would be sold for not just huge but instant profit. The meeting was brief, in fact shorter than the duration of the trip I made to consummate the appointment: we dispersed within 45 minutes of convening, meanwhile I had flown 1 hour and 10 minutes or thereabouts from Lagos.
This was all according to plan: the meeting was merely to set the tone, to ascertain my seriousness in investing in the business, to receive assurance of their competence to pull off the deal and, of course, to put a face to my name. It was the first and only time I ever saw one of them; the other, meanwhile, would become my ‘business partner’ for the next three months.
Reconvening on Thursday October 24, 2024, came with a slight personnel change. Nasiru had replaced the laconic fellow with Henry, a tall, handsome ex-footballer, ex-cultist and self-confessed ex-killer whose contacts in oil bunkering ran so deep he could organise crude theft with both eyes closed.
“If you load crude onto one truck, 50,000 litres of crude, you need a buyer. I have buyers in all of Nigeria,” Henry says with unflinching confidence, everyone more willing to spill this time. “I can link you. You may be headed to Enugu and I tell you ‘stop in Umuahia; I have a buyer for you’. All you need is ‘here’s my market, where’s your money’? You understand?”
Henry pauses for a while, gazes at me then Nasiru, downs a glass of alcohol, then resumes from where he stopped.
“Where do you want to sell? Enugu?” he asks rhetorically. “I have buyers in the whole Nigeria [sic]; I can link you. As long as it’s oil, there are buyers. Slush? There are buyers. Slope? There are buyers.”
It is unclear what Henry refers to as “slush”. It can be ‘slushing oil’, a semi-solid grease used as a protective, rust-preventive coating for metal surfaces, or ‘oil sludge’, a gel-like or tar-like deposit of contaminated, broken-down oil that can form in engines.
“There are buyers for any oil product, so if it’s about making your money, you will,” Henry continues, brimming with confidence. “All you need is to pray for the business to be successful.”
But this is a risky venture. What factors could possibly impede the success of the ‘business’? Henry identifies security agencies as the single biggest threat but assures me his “colleague” Nasiru “has the whole security” [sic] in his pocket.
“He works directly with the security,” Henry reiterates.
By “security”, Henry means the Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and a team from the office of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, widely known in bunkering circles as the ‘IGP Squad’.
“Even at the loading points, nobody can dare Nasiru’s work because they know his connection,” says Henry. “The army, the IGP team and civil defence are the three security agencies that disturb [sic]; he has the army and the civil defence. But I can take care of the IGP’s team. If you want to load the product from here to Abuja, in terms of IGP, I give you 100% [sic].”
Really?
“IGP, the whole Nigeria [sic], I can clear that one,” he insists. “That’s my strength.”
FIJ subsequently established from multiple police sources that the police unit colloquially known as the ‘IGP Squad’ is indeed the Inspector General of Police Special Task Force on Petroleum and Illegal Bunkering (IGP-STFPIB), a unit dedicated to combating oil theft, pipeline vandalism, and illegal bunkering activities. IGP Kayode Egbetokun restructured this team at about the time I was planning my first Port Harcourt trip, appointing Deputy Commissioner of Police Bayonle Sulaiman as the new Commanding Officer in July 2024.
During that announcement, Egbetokun also decried the significant threat of oil theft, pipeline vandalism and illegal bunkering to the environment, economy, and energy security, noting: “these illegal activities not only result in significant financial losses but also devastating environmental consequences, including oil spills, pollution and habitat destruction”.
AN EVERLASTING STRUGGLE
Nigeria has always struggled with maximising its immense crude oil wealth. A few months before Egbetokun’s announcement, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) had revealed a 7% drop in the average crude oil production from 1.32 million barrels per day (mbpd) in February 2024 to 1.23 million bpd in March, marking the second consecutive month-on-month decline after a two-year high of 1.43mbpd in January 2024.
In October 2025, the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) lamented that the Federal Government lost a total of 13.5 million barrels of crude oil worth $3.3 billion to theft and pipeline sabotage between 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, an October 2025 report by the Fair Finance Nigeria (FFNG) coalition revealed that Nigeria lost about 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at $46.16 billion to theft between 2009 and 2020. The report, titled ‘Community Voices on Oil, Finance, and the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA): A Case Study of Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa States’, launched in Abuja, revealed the enabling industrial-scale crude oil theft by weak regulation, systemic corruption and the complicity of some security agencies and oil companies.
The consequences of these losses are damning. In 2024, for example, Nigeria failed to meet its oil production target of 1.78 million barrels per day, consequently hampering the government’s ability to finance its budget and worsening the country’s already atrocious debt profile. Meanwhile, President Bola Tinubu’s N47.90 trillion 2025 ‘budget of restoration’ is benchmarked against a base crude oil production assumption of 2.06mbpd!
THE MATHEMATICS OF BUNKERING
The conversation with Henry and Nasiru soon eases to the financials of the enterprise. Renting a truck to convey the stolen crude from Port Harcourt to Enugu would cost a minimum of N3 million under perfect conditions — a down payment of N1 million, an additional N1.5 million after stealing the crude, a final N500,000 after emptying it to the buyer. If we rented the truck but failed to lift the crude and return the truck within three days, I would incur demurrage that could eventually total N4 million to N6 million. I hoped for the best.
The ‘businessmen’ with access to crude lines from the pipeline planned to sell to us at N320/litre. This, multiplied by the 50,000-litre capacity of the truck, amounted to N16 million. Henry’s clients in Enugu were hoping to buy for N550/litre, amounting to N27.5 million and leaving us with a profit margin of N8.5 million under perfect conditions. If we ended up in Nsukka, sellers would take the crude for N600/litre, amounting to N30 million in costs and N8 million in profit.
“The problem with Abakaliki, they can say they don’t have cash,” Henry warns. “But Enugu always has. Abakaliki will tell you to park your truck [and wait while they go looking for cash]; this is risky, so it’s better to discharge in Enugu and collect your money.”
We fiddle with the idea of Kano as well. Kano promises far more mouthwatering profit than the already enticing Abakaliki. It also offers the prospect of establishing the entrenchment and ubiquity of the oil thieving network. The problem, though, is that the longer a truck travels on the road, the slimmer its chances of evading arrest. We abort it.
“If they load today and we move at 6 am, by 2 pm you’re already in Enugu. In fact, with a fast-moving truck, you can be in Enugu by 1 pm,” Henry adds. “But once they return, everyone spends the next two days strategising. We may even reshuffle our workers. Everything is just about wisdom.”
Our interaction is interrupted by an incoming call to Nasiru’s phone. The caller, according to Henry, is “a superintendent of police”. “That’s not a small man,” he says, “and that’s to show he has security covered.”
We iron out a work plan. I had until 7 am on Friday October 25 to confirm my intention to proceed. If I did, a truck would be secured to load crude from the pipeline on Friday or Saturday night.
I didn’t reach out to them for days. I first needed to go find N22 million.
FINDING N22 MILLION THAT COULD GO DOWN THE DRAIN
Finding N22 million was far from an impossible ask; the real problem was that the entire sum would go to waste unless the operation progressed to perfection. And even if it was successful, the costs of incidentals would surely be unrecoverable. It has happened before. When I tracked Arrows of God, an orphanage home that sold babies under the table to willing buyers, for 19 months between 2021 and 2023, the N2 million I paid to buy a four-month-old baby was never recovered for me by any institution — not the police, not the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), not the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development that is now in possession of the baby.
When I rang Nasiru in the first week of November to announce my readiness, he instructed me to pay N1 million as “proof of your seriousness” to nail down a truck. I made this payment on November 9, 2024, then hopped on the next available flight from Abuja to Port Harcourt.
NOVEMBER 13, 2024: ‘YOU CANNOT FOLLOW THE TRUCK’
Four days later, it is time to move. Nasiru rings me as dusk falls, asking me to meet up with him and Henry at Dream Plaza, Arabanko. There, a bunkerer by the name ‘Alhaji Mohammed Adamu’ was waiting. All three gobble monstrous molds of swallow and step it down with alcohol of varying brands as we start to strategise for the night. I opt for two wraps of garri and a bottle of Maltina.
I panic a little when Alhaji objects to my presence on the truck. Reason: his people would be uncomfortable with a strange face on the truck as they steal the crude. I plead my case, even subtly suggesting I would pull out of the deal if they wouldn’t let me in. “My brother tried something similar with Associated Gas Oil (AGO) in Delta. He trusted people with money without being physically present, and he was duped,” I argue. “I don’t want to suffer a similar fate. If I won’t be there, I’m afraid I’ll have to discontinue the deal.”
Alhaji reluctantly agrees. By then, the truck had arrived. I step out to inspect it. I do not know what to make of the engine but the body is long and big, just like its rotund owner Amanima Amamina, a well-built middle-aged man with a protruding belly. Amamina is fairly popular and respected in the community; he owns a chain of businesses, including a hotel, but I suspect his most lucrative source of livelihood is bunkering. He appears to possess deep contacts in the cartel and in security as well. Some of his trucks had been burnt by stubborn security agents in the past, but every single one they burnt he replaced; the business is that lucrative.
We set out from Arabanko at exactly 10:25 pm; this was when I first noticed the truck crawled and would lose a racing contest with a snail. Well, I exaggerate.
The driver parks somewhere around Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Limited at exactly 11:18 pm. Nasiru and Henry abandon me there, climbing into their two-door car with a promise to return whenever I got the green light to load. That never happened. After more than four hours of being mercilessly feasted upon by mosquitoes as I sat in the truck, we were told it was an ill-advised night to operate.
TRUCK PROBLEMS FOR THE UNION TO RESOLVE
The surroundings of our crude oil target
By November 18, we had encountered more pressing problems than mosquitoes. Amamina, whose truck we had secured since November 13, wanted more money. Nasiru had paid him N1.5 million from my N2 million deposit, but after five days Amamina determined that the payment had expired.
“You didn’t tell me you were planning to load at Pipeline,” he fumes. “[At] Pipeline, [there is] no mercy if you don’t ‘do your settlement well.’”
“If you want to go to Pipeline,” he continues, “give me a cheque of N50 million and transfer another N10 million to me.”
Henry howls in agony, Nasiru gnashes his teeth in disagreement. Still, Amamina would not budge.
“That money you gave me is gone,” he insists. “The truck has not been with me for five days. My diesel of 400L has been stolen; the truck’s tyres are deflated. Now that they have confessed that they want to go to Pipeline, they must give me N10 million in cash and another N50 million in cheque.”
Henry and Nasiru are vehement in their disagreement. Nasiru’s proposition is to forfeit only N500,000 of the N1.5 million and reuse the truck. The two-hour meeting with Amamina features shouting matches in swathes and ends up deadlocked. The pleading duo vow to table the matter before the ‘union’. A union of illegal crude oil bunkerers? That was a jarring discovery.
Written by a legal practitioner, A. O Akinyemi Esq.
CAN A COMPANY USE A 10-YEAR-OLD TWEET TO TERMINATE A CONTRACT TODAY?
In the wake of Ezra Olubi’s termination, one question keeps ringing in my head:
Can a “significant negative reputational damage” clause be triggered by conduct that happened over a decade ago, remained publicly accessible for years, and was never hidden in the first place?
If I were to make Ezra's case, I would consider the below amongst other things.
1. Reputational clauses are not designed to punish the past
Every reputational-risk clause I’ve ever seen, whether in fintech, banking, SaaS, Web3, or traditional employment, is forward-looking.
The language is always something like:
“the employee engages in conduct…”
“acts or omissions by the employee…”
“makes statements that…”
“does anything that causes or is likely to cause reputational damage…”
The key phrase is always “does” not “did”.
These clauses attach to new behaviour, not archived posts collecting dust since the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
Why? Because contract law respects consensus ad idem (both parties must agree on what is being regulated). You cannot retroactively punish conduct that occurred long before the contract existed, especially when the information was public and discoverable.
Unless the clause expressly says it applies retrospectively (and they never do), the courts will not stretch it that far.
2. If the conduct was public at the time of contracting, it can be strongly argued that the company is deemed to have accepted it.
This is where, I believe, the case becomes legally tricky for Paystack and Stripe.
Ezra’s tweets and blog posts were:
- in the public domain,
- accessible to anyone,
- discoverable with a simple Google search,
- available long before the $200M acquisition.
Stripe conducted due diligence. Stripe retained Ezra. Stripe approved the leadership structure.
How do you claim reputational damage in 2024 from conduct you implicitly accepted in 2020 during acquisition and for several years afterwards?
This is classic approbation and reprobation. Hot and Cold. Caring and Mean. It does not work in law. You cannot accept a fact when it benefits you and reject it when it becomes inconvenient.
The law does not allow that dance. Once the acquirer had knowledge (or constructive knowledge), opportunity to object and still chose to proceed, the company is deemed to have waived the right to claim that same historic behaviour now causes “significant reputational damage.”
You can’t sleep on something and wake up years later with selective amnesia.
3. No new conduct or inaction = no trigger.
I really want to see how Stripe would define public resurfacing as a misconduct This is the part people miss.
Ezra did not wake up last week and post a new controversial statement.
He did nothing. He issued no new controversial blogs. He posted no new hot take. He made no new pronouncements.
Someone else dug up old tweets. So even if the resurfacing caused uproar, the causal link between “employee conduct” and “reputational impact” is broken.
Reputational-damage clauses apply to the employee’s actions not the audience’s rediscovery or a heartbroken Ex's crash out.
If the employee did not create new risk through new behaviour, the clause is not triggered. I strongly opine.
4. If the court allows retroactive interpretation of these clauses, no one is safe and the corporate scene becomes a joke.
Let’s test this with the scenarios. Feel free to paint yours:
A fight you had at age 14 can cost you your job at 54.
A Facebook post from 2009 can be used to terminate a contract in 2040.
A decade-old university rant can suddenly become “professional misconduct.”
Even worse, this means due diligence becomes a performative exercise.
If an employer fails to do it, they can later weaponise their own negligence against the employee.
That is a dangerous slope in an already dangerous dog eat dog corporate world.
Contracts are meant to ...create certainty not turn into time bombs waiting for a viral tweet to explode.
5. What courts will likely consider
If this matter were ever litigated (and frankly, it should be as these clauses need judicial interpretation), these questions might go a long way:
1. Was the conduct public at the time of contract formation? Yes.
2. Was it discoverable with ordinary due diligence? Yes.
3. Did the company conduct due diligence at acquisition? Of course. Stripe is not a local shop buying pure water.
4. Did the employee engage in new conduct that created new reputational damage? No.
5. Did the company expressly reserve rights to punish historic public conduct?
Extremely unlikely.
The legal outcome is not as straightforward as many think.
Looking at Ezra’s reaction, the clause was likely stretched beyond its intended scope. This sort of interpretation will create dangerous precedent in contract and employment law.
Any retroactive enforcement will surely destabilize contractual certainty. I believe the legal validity of the termination is genuinely questionable.
Like one of my guys would say “Na OS sweet pass”. They should file the Originating Summons.
In any event, I believe they will most likely resolve this amicably.
Alleged Sexual Misconduct: Paystack Has Fired Me — Ezra Olubi Reveals as He Considers Legal Options
Terminated
Over the past few days, my name and reputation, built over years as co-founder and technical leader at Paystack, have been called into question because of information circulating online. In response, the Board of Directors of Paystack placed me on suspension and initiated what was described as an “independent” investigation.
Once that process began, I chose not to make any public statements. I did this to avoid interfering with the investigation and because I expected a fair, thorough and unbiased review of the allegations being discussed online. This created a vacuum that allowed assumptions and misrepresentations to spread without challenge.
Those who know me personally or professionally understand that the posts being circulated do not reflect my conduct or the way I have lived my life. I have always, to the best of my ability, conducted myself in a manner that respects everyone’s dignity and safety.
On Saturday, 22 November 2025, I was informed that my employment had been terminated. This decision was taken before the supposed investigation was concluded, and without any meeting, hearing, or opportunity for me to respond to the issues raised, in clear contravention of the terms of the suspension and Paystack’s own internal policies.
As co-founder, technical leader and long-serving Board member, I have been part of instituting the systems and processes that underpin Paystack’s internal operations. I engaged with this investigation in good faith and cooperated fully with the Board’s directives on that basis.
My legal team is now reviewing the process that led to my purported termination, including its consistency with internal policies. They will take the steps they consider appropriate, and I will not be commenting further on this matter at this time.
Davido celebrates 33rd birthday, announces 6th album (video)
Nigerian superstar Davido celebrated his 33rd birthday on Friday with family, friends, and key members of his 30BG Geng crew, including his manager Asa, DJ ECool, and other close associates.
Notable personalities at the celebration included his billionaire father, Adedeji Adeleke, his uncle, Governor Ademola Adeleke, and family members like his sister and cousin Folashade Adeleke.
In a video shared from the celebration, Davido reflected on his journey in music and life, saying: “I dropped my first song when I was 17, and now I’m 33. This year is one of my best years ever; I got married to the most beautiful woman and we had our babies.”
He also excited fans with news about his music, revealing he is working on his sixth studio album. This comes months after the release of his fifth album, 5ive, which dropped on April 18, 2025.
The video showed Davido enjoying the birthday party with laughter, music, and birthday cheers filling the atmosphere, as fans and followers took to social media to send their best wishes to the Afrobeats star.
Ezra Olubi, Co-founder and CTO of Paystack, a multi-million-dollar tech company acquired by Stripe for 200 million USD, was raised in the Deeper Life Bible Church.
I am not surprised. You cannot pass through the rigorous discipline of being a Deeper Life kid, especially in my generation, and not have some form of thirst for godly success in your life.
In fact, our weekly Youth Bible Study was divided into two parts - Core Bible Study and Principles of Success.
You had all that it took to be a well-rounded, successful person drummed into your consciousness week in, week out, when you were between the ages of 11 and 17.
I jokingly told my friends last year that being raised in DLBC made it impossible for many of us to have any time left to commit sin. We were too busy with church and school activities. The DLBC youth program in my generation was tough, like the leadership believed they were raising soldiers for battle.
I do not even need to talk too much. Just take a look at the Deeper Life High School today. It would tell you all there is to know.
But, there is a but. And I hope we all learn from it.
Using Ezra as a case study, I would try to extract some lessons for youth ministers today.
Ezra has been in the news lately for high-level debauchery and degeneracy. The news began on Twitter and escalated to national headlines.
This again is not surprising. We have all known Ezra to be a core atheist, satanist, and with a queer personality, not fitting into any of the known queers. He calls himself God with a Capital G, owns a cat called Lucifer, and wears an upside-down cross on his neck. Word on the street has it that he has a statue of satan in his house.
I took some time to watch some of his interviews to understand why Ezra moved from being a pastor's son to becoming a satanist. Ezra made it clear that, as a young person, he had many questions about his faith, but these questions were dismissed, and instead of answers, he received condemnation.
I can relate.
While the youth program in my generation, which is also Ezra’s, was tough on raising us to be godly, successful people, there was sadly very little love and not much room for questions. It was like a military barracks where you had to keep your mouth shut and obey the last command.
A lot of emphasis was placed on the performance of holiness and not much on the deep roots of it. You were more afraid of being caught doing something wrong by the leadership than being seen by God Himself. You dared not share your inner struggles, because you were very likely to be shamed for them than helped to overcome them. Many of us can relate.
Ezra spoke about his father speaking derogatorily to him about his struggle with his sexual identity, rather than guiding him to the truth. So, at a point, he chose to rebel.
And there was the Devil, waiting to fill him with a legion of demons, giving him such horrible desires from pedophilia to bestiality. Ezra is currently both HIV and likely Hepatitis B positive. And right now, has been suspended by Paystack; his reputation in tatters. Very, very sad.
Youth ministers must understand that the military barracks style will always be a recipe for disaster. While the standard of holiness must be maintained at all times, there must be room for answering questions, which youths always have in abundance; and lots of love.
Some of us survived the military barracks, finding a relationship with God in the midst of it, while remaining high-performing individuals in our fields of endeavor. Many didn’t, including many Nigerian celebrities whose names, if mentioned, would shock you to the marrow.
The sad story of Ezra made me read the Book of Ezra this morning, to understand the yearning in the heart of his parents when they gave him that name. The Ezra of the Bible was a priest in Israel who engaged and was respected by governments. A man, excellent in the marketplace and in the Kingdom.
This was the destiny of Ezra Olubi – An Apostle in the Tech Industry. But the Devil suspected it and made a mess of it.
It's not too late, Brother Ezra. Doesn't matter how far you have gone.
I use to know Ezra Olubi… He is the son of Pastor Olubi, the then OTA REGIONAL OVERSEER of DEEPER LIFE BIBLE CHURCH. The Mother was once the Principal of Sango Ota High school.
Crime › Re: Funny-looking Masquerade Arrested In Akwa Ibom After Defying State Ban (photos/v by nlfpmod(mod): 10:04pm On Dec 02, 2025
