₦airaland Forum

One day,

there will be a public advertisement for this role,

and

different individuals will apply,

and

the best candidate will be picked.

They subtly turn service into a transaction:

"Serve God without asking for anything, and then God will help you more."

A logic that shifts love into bargaining is spiritually manipulative.

Even in Genesis 18, Abraham’s hospitality is not presented as a calculated attempt to “attract God’s help.”

He did not know he was entertaining divine messengers. The moral force of the story is that he welcomed strangers because hospitality itself was righteous.

In Hebrews 13:2: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

The emphasis is not “serve so God will reward you,” but “love the stranger because this is what righteousness looks like.”

Again, a logic that subtly turns service into a transaction or shifts love into bargaining is spiritually manipulative.

The poor believer thinks: "Perhaps God has not helped me because I have not served enough for free."

What a distortion of grace!

The poor believer should know: "I give, so God must respond"; it is no longer pure devotion but religious economics.


The example of the instrumentalists is further troubling. It shows the manipulative bandwidth of the message.

To imply that a church musician who receives payment should not expect “special blessing” suggests that accepting fair compensation reduces spiritual worth.

But Scripture says plainly in 1 Timothy 5:18: “The labourer is worthy of his wages.” Paul repeats the same principle in 1 Corinthians 9:14: “The Lord ordained that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.”

Payment for labour is not evidence of lesser devotion; justice and devotion are not opposites.

One may freely choose sacrifice for love of God, but leaders must not build a theology that pressures others into unpaid labour by suggesting that asking for wages forfeits divine favour.

That easily becomes spiritual coercion disguised as piety.


If a brother is an instrumentalist, singer, or any minister of skill, the church should not merely consume his gift and then preach to him about heavenly blessings.

The church should ask: how do we support this person’s life, growth, and calling?

That may mean honorarium, transport, equipment, studio support, training, or helping create opportunities.

That is far closer to Christian justice than simply saying, “if you ask for payment, don’t expect God’s blessing.”

Leaders should never weaponise that sacrifice to excuse institutional neglect.

If a pastor says to an instrumentalist or cleaner, "do not expect a special blessing from God,” the same logic should also be applied to pastors who strongly insist on tithes, offerings, first fruits, and financial giving from members as proof of faithfulness.

If unpaid service is the mark of true devotion, should that principle not first apply to those who teach it?

An instrumentalist should ideally not let money alone govern service, because ministry is not mere commerce.

But the church also must not use “ministry” as an excuse for exploitation.

The minister should serve with a willing heart, and the church should support with a willing hand. Neither should exploit the other.

Once either side turns service into control, whether by greed or by guilt, the spirit of the gospel is already being lost.

May God's love remain with the Church.

I am glad the Pope realizes he does not speak as a private theologian. He speaks as:
a symbol read across nations and ideologies
a figure whose words will be used, quoted, and reused by actors he does not control.

When politicians or movements appear to stand with the Pope, what often happens is:
they borrow his moral authority
they selectively align with what suits them

If the Pope is perceived rightly or wrongly as aligning too closely with one political current, He is:
Read as a participant
His words are filtered through political suspicion
Opponents of that political current begin to discount his authority entirely

And this has long-term consequences:
not just for one issue
but for the credibility of the office itself.

Trump is not an episode. Political styles reproduce themselves.

With the pope's action, there's been a global reading of the Church’s posture toward power. I am glad he is correcting the impression.

What is the number of Christians in Nigeria?

Catholic and Anglican communions, while many others are gathered within Pentecostal bodies. This alone should caution us against seeking a single father defined by jurisdiction over all.

Baba Omolehin measures fatherhood by the breadth of authority.

But his vision does not account for the limits within which all spiritual authority must operate.

No man becomes a father to those who do not receive him.

To ask for a father over all is to overlook this necessary condition of consent and spiritual kinship.

Fatherhood is not diminished by its limits; it is defined by them.

Are we to pretend that the field of what constitutes the church in Nigeria is composed only of the faithful?

There are also those whose lives and teachings Christ tells us to contest.

It would therefore be neither possible nor prudent to speak of one father over all, as though all stood in the same relation of trust and truth.


Then Baba Omolehin also charges them with rivalry.

The building of auditoriums or the acquisition of private jets.

Baba Omolehin read these things as ambition.

But Baba Omolehin, they also could be understood as preparation: a readiness to gather, to move, to extend the reach of ministry?

Ultimately, it is the observer who supplies its meaning, and in this, it is you, Baba, who has inferred rivalry.

The claim that others will bow, that also need not be received in the narrow sense of competition.

Why do you not see an expectation of eventual recognition, however imperfectly expressed?

To fix upon the harshest reading is to close off other, more charitable possibilities.


I love Apostle Paul's letter to the churches. They were critical letters.

There is value in voices that call the Church to reflection, even when they unsettle.

In this, Baba Omolehin performs something akin to the work of the apostles, who wrote not always to comfort, but to correct.

But Paul did not demand of the Church in Corinth or of Rome, what their present structure cannot sustain, or reduced their complex realities to a single motive.

Such a task requires a careful hand. For correction, if it is to build rather than diminish, it must be guided by charity, proportion, and truth.

May the love of Christ remain with His Church, and guide all who speak concerning it.

Whatever makes your morning good, but if you think Yamal made a request or is in a position to request Osimhen, you ought not be going out alone.

This is not a sermon for the lay Catholics in Cameroon. It is a sermon best shared at the UN General Assembly.

Can the pope not care about those in same-sex relations subject to vigilante violence in Cameroon, or speak to Biya, who has been the de facto leader for 5 decades?

Someone has to also tell the pope that the moral weight of his speech is not only in its truth but in its foreseeable effects.

He implies that America wrought "killings and devastation" and that they have ravaged the world.

He neglects how it will be received by disordered minds.

In Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Shabaab camps or other camps that traffic in violence, they share the words of the Pope with their recruits. The words confirm their grievance. The words are repurposed as validation: not a call to repentance or restraint, but a license for retaliation.

A pope who neglects prudence would have his words bent into the service of evil.


Somebody said, "The pope is speaking truth to power." They do not ask if the manner, timing, and audience of that truth actually serve the good it intends?

The Pope is performing for us all. Building his reputation. Spectacle.

And only in America, where institutional checks exist (courts, press, opposition) can there be a stage for public denunciation that won't expose local adherents to reprisals. Not Russia, Not China.

Prudence is not cowardice, and the Pope must reckon with discretion.

Private counsel can carry a weight that public rebuke cannot precisely because it is not entangled in performance or political signaling.

Not as we present ourselves.
Not only as we fail.

Did Funke also snub the FP admin? Just this morning, 3 unflattery thread on Funke on the FP.

Serious accusation of pettiness.

Did Funke stop talking, or did she stop responding?

If you are very good friends with her, the acquisition of land and the laying of a foundation are massive life events.

A friend who says, "I found a great deal on land, let’s see if we can get you one too" is building a bridge. A friend who shows up with a finished key and says, "Look what I did" is building a wall.

This is obviously not a search for resolution. Character assassination instead. Trying to destroy Funke’s reputation as a "friend" and brand her as unreasonably "envious".

Others are also consulting if Funke had ever received financial support from Tinubu.

This forum dey too chaotic!
Posts just dey flood in anyhow, no order, no sense.
You fit don read news since yesterday wey still dey more recent than the so-called "newest" post wey dey on top today.

Worse pass, nobody even care who dey talk or whether the thing get weight. Dem no dey ask: “This one na from reliable source?” or “E happen before POTUS talk say Iran don agree say dem no go get nuclear weapon?”

Instead, dem sha dey rush put evrytin for FP.

As e be now, the Iran war talk for this forum na pure noise and confusion. Dem dey do us bad.

When the right mind occupies the vice-chancellor office and our universities grow beyond shrines of political workship, they will change the name from "Hall of Fame" to "Hall of Infamy".

the press release “over 100% increment in subvention” and “deep connection to his alma mater.”

Very moving stuff

but talk to anyone on campus, the facilities crumble.

The performance isn’t limited to Ekiti, Akpabio got his halo at UNICAL too.

Gumi is a person of interest.

The outrage of Gumi is misplaced, selective, and telling. Yes, it appears he is calling for national dignity and sovereignty, but these are languages of patriotism to cloak his sinister affiliations.

First, the call to “sever diplomatic ties” with the US.

Trump's notice is not a threat directed at Nigeria’s government or its people but at the terrorist networks operating within its borders.

So when Gumi says sever diplomatic ties, you should see where the speaker’s sympathies truly lie.

A government that is confident in its legitimacy and moral standing would welcome any external action that targets the killers of its citizens.

Only yamayama people whose loyalties are entangled with these violent groups, whether ideologically, politically, or financially, would interpret an anti-terrorist intervention as a national affront.

Second, the text shows that he is a manipulator.

He appeals to “national pride” but distract from the fact that thousands have been murdered, displaced, and silenced by terrorists while the same “sovereign state” has failed to defend them.

When the state’s authority is already compromised by terror, insisting that no foreign power should interfere sounds less like patriotism and more like a plea to preserve the existing disorder.

God forbid!

Third, notice the rhetorical sleight of hand: Gumi speaks of “economic expansion and military alliance” with unnamed “other options.” He is thinking of ISIS, Talibans and other dangerous affiliations. This is a man who serves as the tongue of terrorists.

And yet, he is not considered moral and political bankrupt. It shows how complicit the media is, that have lent him their platform.


Gumi only defends the conditions that allow terrorism to thrive. He doesn't care about the lives lost. He doesn't care about Nigeria. His sympathy is with the violent actors.

But we must remember:
True loyalty to one’s country lies in defending its people, not those who slaughter them.

Gumi is a person of interest: no investigation is required;

he has flaunted his link to individuals, events, or organizations - involved in terrorism.

Gumi does not merely express problematic ideas; he also participates in and aids the extremists' concrete activities.

So, he knows he is on the radar. If you are patriotic, it should be your prayer that all those who take part in the terror in our country be cut down.

Sowore and Adeola Fayehun and others have been quick to warn Nigerians that Trump’s intervention could turn the country into another Libya, Afghanistan, or Iraq,

as if

the present reality of unending killings, displacement, and government negligence were not already a silent war.


What they are doing, in truth, is manipulating public perception. They appeal to fear, not reason; they paint intervention as catastrophe.

Trump’s concern, whether one agrees with his methods or not, is not with the Nigerian military or government, it is with the terrorist networks and the financiers who sustain them.

His target is the architecture of terror itself.

But Adeola, comfortably abroad, insists that the Christians continue to wait for the mercy of their president.

Sowore meanwhile, measures every statement against his political ambition, knowing that endorsing any external intervention might threaten his alliances and prospects. Their distortions does not serve the people’s pain.

It is a cruel irony that those who profit from chaos also claim to speak against it.

For years, individuals like Sowore and Adeola have built influence on the back of tragedy, they make money, fame, and influence on talk shows, publishing essays, but the real victims lie buried in unmarked graves.

This is not simply about Trump. This wannabe messiahs that thrives on perpetual crisis, will be out of business when outrage is no longer a commodity, and suffering doesn't exist upon which they built their relevance.

No, you would not control this narrative. No, the dying should no longer die unseen.



And then there are your so-called Daddy GOs!!!

They have averted their eyes from the suffering of Christians in the North and Middle Belt.

Comfortable in proximity to power, they would attend invitations to national prayer breakfasts...

because they don’t want to lose their place, they can’t say anything that should upset their benefactors.

Didn’t the prophet of old stand before kings and called them to account?

but

our own baptise corruption in the language of divine will, they reduce national tragedy to a spiritual test, and tell us that their prayers is why there is still an amalgamation.

Their role is to sanctify apathy. They are complicit. And they go around guarded by armed escorts.

Their silence would not control this narrative. No, the dying should no longer die unseen.

Elegy for the Tired Men

He said he was not corrupt.

He said his hands were clean,

only weary

Too old, too tired

to hold the men beneath him

gorging on the country’s marrow.

Too tired to stop the looting,
too worn to question the men
who drained the country dry
while saluting him.

He said he meant well.

But meaning is a thin roof

when rain falls through every rafter.

Meaning never saved a child

in a gutted clinic,

or the doctor killed by bandits
or kept a surgeon from packing up her books,

and leaving forever.

He grew tired
while lecturers died in dim rooms
their salaries months behind them,
while the classrooms emptied,
and the students drifted home
to wait for a year
that never came back.


He grew tired
of the young men demanding to be seen,
While he rested behind guarded gates,

his soldiers raised their rifles

and fired into a crowd

of unarmed voices—

young faces demanding to be seen,

to be heard,

to be safe.
The bullets found them.

And the country learned

that a tired man

can be more dangerous

than a wicked one.


He said he was not corrupt,

only old,

only unable.

But not having the will or strength

to stop the rot

is a form of rot itself.


When sickness came for him,
he flew across the sea,
seeking mercy in a place he did not build,
a clean bed he never offered his own.
And there, beneath foreign lights,
the tired man closed his eyes
under the white lights of a hospital,

he never built for his own people.

And no one was surprised.

This is how it ends for the tired man,

the body laid out in foreign soil,

the headlines politely phrased,

the country left with nothing
but bats.

He didn’t “declare” - he demands.

The leadership could surrender. But what happens in the vacuum? That’s the important question.

You have killed all their lead scientists and elite military personnel. Do they have a choice now, that is not suicidal?
It’s interesting -what has been accomplished in Iran? Don’t take off the head, displace the neck and the head drops to your feet.

A comment can be 10 characters and still hold more value than one with 50. But if you're here reading and wondering what's wrong with this platform, it's now the mindless moderation.

If you think Nkubi’s relationship exists only because of fame or money, you’re only exposing the poverty of your own mind. Why insult Nkubi and the woman who loves him? that someone with dwarfism is inherently unworthy of love unless they compensate with wealth or status? that the woman must be some calculating gold digger? So wrong, so dehumanizing. A dwarf is not a lesser human. They don’t lack intelligence, character, or the ability to love and be loved. She loves the man, it’s not because she had no options, it’s because he earned her love. Your need to diminish that says more about your insecurity than it does about their relationship.

Putin is not killing Americans. Putin is decimating Ukraine.

If Trump stops to support Ukraine- it’s a tragedy for Europe and Ukraine. Yet, if Trump continues with Biden’s approach, Ukrainian’ soldiers will continue to perish. If Europe actively involve itself, it will be WWIII. Even many more will die.

I wonder how you all expect this to play. That the US and Europe army invade Russia- a nuclear power, and kill Putin? That’s what crazy/ not Trump’s approach. Trump is trying to get everyone to a table.

Rufai and SDP are ruse sown by Tinubu. .

If the parents are not found- I hope the governor’s family adopts her.

ARTS & CULTURE
Once Their Voices Moved Nations. Now, Silence.
How the Fall of the P Square Brothers Became a Cautionary Tale—and a Collective Failure

By Adichie Soyinka
Daily Times
June 16, 2075

NIGERIA — There was a time, not long ago, when the P Square Brothers were more than performers. They were a movement. A twin from Anambra, their voices shaped a generation of Afro-Pop artistry with a sound that defied classification, somewhere between pop, hip-hop and R&B. Music critics compared them to the Black Keys, Daft Punk, the Everly Brothers. They sang of betrayal, money, success, and sex. People didn’t just listen—they trembled.

Now, only two brothers remains.
And they no longer sings.

The story of the Okoyes is not merely a tale of fame gone sour. It is, as many close to the trio have quietly confessed, a tragedy of inaction. A brother falsely accused. A band fractured by ego and suspicion. And a circle of mentors, managers, and cultural leaders who, when the rupture began, did not step in or worse, chose not to.

“We all saw it happening before it became public,” said a former producer who asked to remain anonymous. “The tension. The fatigue. The jealousy. But the money was good. The shows were sold out. The show must go on.”

The “show” was the P-Square brand: Jude, the eldest, with his tight control of logistics and finance; Peter, the middle brother with the energy and charismatic resonance; and Paul, the youngest, whose soulful voice left audiences in awe. Their harmonies were precise, but their brotherhood was fragile.

In 2017, feud over management, creative direction and financial discrepancy led to a private confrontation. According to documents and later interviews, Peter offhandedly suggested that Jude might have hidden funds they earned. Paul, already under strain, rejected the accusation with devastating speed.

Within years, the group was splintered. Jude disappeared from public life entirely into the records of financial criminals. Rumors placed him in Anambra, then Lagos. His managerial skills, once described as “incredible,” has not been engaged in many decades.

Though neither Paul nor Peter publicly squabbled, their careers faltered. By 2020, the Okoyes were no longer on the roster of Nigeria’s major concert halls. Their final recording—Jaiye, released post-breakup has since become an artifact than a song.

For many in the Nigerian and international music world, the silence surrounding the Okoyes’ collapse is damning.

“Where were the mentors? The impresarios? The influential traditional monarchs and elders? The government officials who paraded them at festivals?” asks Dr. Osewa Seun Jnr , professor of music ethics at the University of Ibadan. “These were young men, contended many challenges, carrying the weight of Nigerian music aiming to be globally recognized. Their artistry was divine, yes, but the public faux was also a cry for structure, for protection. And no one answered.”

In recent years, the arts community has reckoned with questions of duty not only to the art, but to the artist. The Okoyes have become a somber case study in masterclasses on group dynamics and psychological care in elite performance circles.

“We elevate artists, then abandon them when their humanity surfaces,” says Obi Mikel, a Lagos-based vocal coach who once rehearsed with the brothers in Jos. “If someone, anyone had paused the machine, demanded counseling, mediation, time… they might still be singing today.”

Peter and Paul now lives in near-obscurity in a Lagos suburb. Attempts to reach them were met with silence. In a rare 2072 interview, Peter admitted: “We were not destroyed by each other. We were destroyed by what we refused to say to each other. And by the applause we mistook for love.”

Jude’s whereabouts remain unknown.

1.This child, your child, is not a mistake nor a curse, but a soul entrusted to you.

You speak of leaving your wife because you fear another child might suffer. But I ask you: is it love that speaks in you now, or fear disguised as reason?

Marriage is not merely a bond of bodies aimed at producing more bodies. If your concern is unselfish, there is the path to even abstain from further biological children if you choose and love this child that you already have with all your might.

Don’t add to the burden of the child that should feel responsible for your breakup. Your child needs consistent care and would gain significantly from emotional availability of you both.

2.This child, your child, is not a mistake nor a curse, but a soul entrusted to you.

Why do you speak of leaving your wife? If it were your wife that presented thus- would it be your recognition that she deceived you unknowingly? Do you think your child’s condition is a result of your failure? Are these what speaks to you to manifest an escape? Perhaps you are not only heartbroken- perhaps there is also a fracture to the ego- and unable to undo the past, in the present, you find what can be changed- so the divorce is a way to recover control.

All of us would be tempted to flee- but listen, brother.
You were told you were AA. You believed it, and married in peace. You did not lie. You did not intend harm. Take it easy, and May God make it easy.

-

They came from distant shores,
To build walls fencing the very rich,
A citadel of promise perched beyond reach,
Gilded gates that guard tomorrow’s heirs.

Behold the man that should take us all,
Settles among the chosen,
The mantle of power draped across his shoulders
To tread the hallowed halls of alien grandeur,
Where pillars born of looted coin
Cast shadows over empty promises.

He sat among chosen children,
Their faces ringing like bells of privilege,
The children in these halls are the leaders of tomorrow,
While beyond those walls, fields lay fallow,
And the common voice was muted,
By winds and sun that have no wall to shield the students of the lots.

O government of grand appearances,
Your lofty gestures are but gilded echoes
That fail to stir the hearts of your own,
You attend monuments to impress abroad
Yet leave our children at the threshold.

How many lifetimes must a servant toil
To earn the coin you flaunt on shoes?
How many lifetimes must a servant toil
To pay for a day in this school?

Return, then, from your marble perches,
And walk the dusty byways of your realm.
Hear the songs unsung for want of hope,
And learn that leadership is measured
Not by grandeur borrowed,
But by the futures you forge at home,
By such schools you build for the lots.

Many years ago, the pigs announced that every animal must pass the Great Test before they could enter the Academy in the Big Barn. “This Test,” they didn’t proclaim was to guard the gates against the unworthy millions beyond the pasture fence, that the greedy pigs couldn’t cater for. A pig in Kogi has used resources that could build an academy , for the nursery of his piglets.

And so the Test was laid upon them.

Some young horses and sheep answered most riddle correctly and even bested the questions of the wise old goat, yet when they trotted proudly to the gates, they were brusquely turned away. “Your names have been struck from the roll,” sneered the guard-dogs, “though you passed some questions, you didn’t reach the mid-point, you do not belong here.” Meanwhile, timid rabbits and humble geese in the north’s whose scores fell below the required number often found themselves admitted, rewarded by less demanding overseers who cared little for the true meaning of the Test. The rabbits and geese’s were humble and timid in scholarship but they were elephants and bears in knowledge.

In time, many who had failed the Test wandered into the fields beyond of polytechnics only to flourish in the hedgerow of life’s lessons: the owls mastered wisdom, the ducks achieved honors in distant marshes, and the young goats graduated with shining laurels.
They had 120 in the test, yet they had distinctions as they convocated.
The pigs ensure lots fail, so the lots can subscribe to expensive academies where scores were merely numbers.


Yet year after year, new flocks of hopefuls gathered at the fence, convinced that failure marked laziness or folly, never suspecting that the Test’s cunning lay not in its moral rigor but in its needless complexity.

And so the Test endured: a ritual of exclusion dressed in the cloak of merit. The pigs on their raised platform, satisfied that their gates remained well-guarded, cared little for the fortunes of the creatures they had judged. For in the end, those who failed were not indolent or lacking in spirit , it was merely that the Test had been crafted to confound even the wisest among them.

Hey: I have to eat my hay.

I hope they also get the rest of the staff to write a basic competency exam. Those that fail should be gone. Then there should a competency exam, but this time, technical. Those that fail should be made to undergo a training , which will be examined. If they fail, they should go. Then there is a competitive recruitment which is open to the public to replace them. In our most important institutions, we should have our best minds.

First they came for UCH, and I did not speak out—because I was not their patient or worker.
Then they came for the army, and I did not speak out—because I was not a soldier.
Then they came for the Deputy governor (Hamzat), and I did not speak out—because I was not a thoughtful citizen.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

The surgeons stitched by candlelight,
Death tapped gently at oxygen-starved doors.
A thousand ghosts queued in hospital wards,
While Mammon’s priests danced on copper wires.

When IBEDC disconnected electricity from UCH amid a dispute over excessive billing. Patients died. The cost of healthcare surged. Healthcare workers, demoralized by the chaos, resigned. Yet public outrage was not directed at the power company. It was directed at the hospital. The public did not realize that the hospital could pass on those costs to them. The students did not realize this. If not today, then someday their relative or they themselves would be unable to afford care.

The soldiers, mothers of soldiers,
Groped through rationed night,
Their medals mere ornaments for empty bellies,
Their loyalty repaid in darkness.

When the EKDC cut power to Nigerian military quarters over another billing dispute, the soldiers (men who had served their country) were left in darkness. The army had already rationed electricity; families of service members were denied power during daylight hours. Still, many sided with the utility company, forgetting that it is ultimately their tax money that will be used to pay off the power provider.

The people, their tongues, blades against the wrong foe,
How quick they drew blood from the pleading hand!
-/

The deputy government, stripped by his own kin,
Fell, not by the tyrant’s whip,
but
By the cheers of the marketplace.

Then deputy governor, Hamzat raised concerns about inflated electricity bills at his residence in Lagos. Rather than support him, the public attacked him. They failed to understand that his protest, as a public official whose bills are paid by the state, was also a protest on behalf of taxpayers. Elsewhere, deputy governors remain silent, indifferent as long as taxpayer money absorbs any cost. No accountability is demanded when public funds are treated as a blank check.

What songs do fools sing,
When the piper charges them twice over?
What wars do they wage,
When their swords point at their own throats?

//

In the vault of science,
The healers of plagues starve for fire,
Yet the mob scorns their cries,
Crowing for the profit of their jailers.

The same EKDC is in conflict with a medical research institute. Again, you check this forum , and the focus is not on the legitimacy of the institute’s protest. Some people ask “what is their output? as if the merit of the institute work should disqualify it from basic services. Some suggest the institute should install a solar grid. But a move to self-generation if done by all simply shifts the burden back onto the public that cannot afford self generation. The electricity company must sustain their profits, and if large institutions exit the grid, the costs will be redistributed to ordinary citizens who have no choice but to remain.

Solar altars will rise, yes
But even suns, if bought with silence,
Cast no light on a sleeping mind.

//

O Giant Nation of the Self-Betrayed,
Your chains are not forged by your masters,
But hammered, link by link,
By your own hands.

There are communities in which the private individuals electricity is billed so much they exceed some people’s life earnings.

Again, surrender, but don’t attack those trying to ask questions.

Ire o.

You don’t have to care about Chief Fawehinmi, or be aware of his legacy to commend efforts aimed at mitigating risk. As I read, I recalled the tragic video of Miss Cynthia Oguzie. It was a video that was sad to watch. A tank fell on her while she slept in her room in Lagos. She died.

These people have raised a very important matter. The Fawehinmis do not want the fate of Cynthia Oguzie. There is a risk posed by the hotel. The hotel has not focused on the safety of their neighbours, nor complied with urban planning regulations. Those in the Chief Fawehinmi‘s compound could one day die if the tank falls on them. I must think that effort has been made in the past to get the hotel to be considerate, but the hotel probably rebuffed the gesture. And so this coalition and statement.

The safety and lives of Baba Fawehinmi’s people must be sacrosanct. The tanker three times is starkly evident of the danger to their lives. The coalition says there might be collusion between the developers and authorities. We can be honest enough to acknowledge it’s a compromised system. And we owe the coalition to acknowledge that our law machinery is not a Ferrari. The family should not be bullied.

But I am also forced to think, that the coalition should not be the bully. Their statement is suspicious that they may be the bully. As I read, I also thought might Chief Fawehinmi skeletal remains not turn in his grave due to the blatant disregard of his values in this statement?

How do you demand for an immediate demolition? How do you invoke Chief Fawehinmi‘s legacy in such emotionally charged terms? What about Fawehinmi’s principle that the rule of law and fairness should guide all matters? What about due process?

If there is a violation of urban planning laws, Chief Fawehinmi would demand a judicial determination before calling for a drastic action like demolition. If the developers have flouted the regulation about the three-metre setback, Chief Fawehinmi would not say the penalty necessarily has to be a demolition of the building, He would consider, could there be structural adjustments or removal of the tank?
Chief Fawehinmi would not necessarily be combative with the hotel, he would face the reckless government whose irresponsibility initiated and sustains the problem.

Chief Fawehinmi did fight for justice and fairness, and if you know the man, you will know that he will be averse to using his memory as a rallying cry in what should be a clear legal matter. These coalition didn’t have to weaponize his legacy for a purpose that goes beyond the pursuit of justice. It reeks that the statement is framed as a personal grudge, but without one evidence. It is difficult to deny that the statement is intended to inflame our emotions and to tell us all to boycott the hotel. That in using it, we participate in disrespecting Baba Fawehinmi’s memory.

But
Tell the people too whether the building was approved lawfully, tell the people too that there are remedies that are proportionate under the law. It should not be dismissed the consequences of your demands esp its potential to to serve a dangerous precedent if the Lagos state government acquise and proceeds to demolish.

The people’s moral outrage should worth more. Baba Fawehinmi‘s memory should worth more. You can earn the people’s outrage towards injustice without framing a private dispute as a public crusade. You can earn the people’s outrage without mirroring the very forms of oppression Baba Fawehinmi spent his life fighting.

If you're anywhere in the world and you are curious about what a nation looks like when its institutions have abandoned the people, come to Nigeria.

You buy data (spectranet, mtn) some of the nation’s top telecom providers. You buy 40GB of data. You track your usage carefully, only to watch the data mysteriously vanish. No streaming, no downloads, no explanations. Try to complain? You'll be directed to a non-functioning chatbot or a hotline that will keep you on hold until you give up. No recourse. No refund. No accountability.

Try sending money with your bank’s mobile app (Zenith Bank). You'll need a soft token because :surprise: your hard token, the one you paid for, doesn’t work. You request the token. It doesn’t arrive. You wait. The app logs you out. Then and only then, the token arrives, expired and useless. The bank still charges you for the SMS charge. You reach out to their support line. It either doesn’t connect, or you’re told to "visit your nearest branch," where you’ll be met with long queues, cold indifference from frustrated customer service officers who are tired probably because they are understaffed and not well paid. They have been people plus employees for a century. So, more dead ends.

Need a prepaid electricity meter? Brace yourself for years-long saga. Our electricity distribution companies (Discos) are masters of bureaucratic gymnastics. They’ll stall your application. They'll "lose" your documents. They’ll tell you to check back next week, every week, while piling on estimated bills that have no basis in your actual consumption. They are not incompetent. All is a calculated obstruction. They know estimated billing gives them a blank check to charge you whatever they like, and when you challenge it, they point to “system records” no one can verify. Finally, on your death bed, after many decades of persistence or knowing someone inside, you get a prepaid meter. You think you’re free. You think you have done something for your descendants. You think that your children will finally pay only for what you use. But just as you breathe relief and your final breathe, another trap snaps shut for those that will inherit your property: :the hidden debt.:

What many Nigerians don’t know is that these meters come pre-loaded with arrears. Maybe it’s from the previous occupant. Maybe it’s from phantom charges the Discos won’t explain. But here’s what happens: you recharge and buy units, and your meter gives you power worth 25%. The rest? It quietly goes to pay off a debt you never agreed to, never knew existed, and were never allowed to dispute. You didn’t even know about such debt, poor Nigerians. You are paying for the electricity your grandfather used.

So you try public documentation because Olubunmi Tunji Ojo has fooled you. You try renewing your passport online. So you go to the self-service portals and the websites are clean with step-by-step instructions. The website doesn’t stall. Confirmation emails arrive. But at some bloody point you have to show up in person.

At the immigration office, you’ll realize you have committed the greatest crime by initiating your registration by yourself. You would find their staff crawling around, and you are the sugar to devour. But you have used the portal, so you are useless to them. The senior officers will attend to yahoo boys and other oppressive Nigerians. You don’t want to play along? So they will make you wait all day, while in your presence, you see others that didn’t make the mistake of using the online self-help portal do their capture and go. At the end of the day, you will be told “the network is down” or “come back tomorrow.” Tomorrow, you get back there, and they are in a meeting for hours , and no one can locate your file. So, you begin to search for an officer that can save you from your mess. Shame on this minister for not initiating a process to curb these corruption. You go around the country, and it is stark. This isn’t poor infrastructure. It’s intentional dysfunction that is stark. Nigeria is a calculated system where public servants delay and confuse, because they profit from the chaos. If you could do it yourself, they lose leverage. Shame on the minister, for he knows. Shame on the EFCC too!!!
Going to their offices, don’t come with dignity, they loathe it. It is arrogance to think you are above those that must pay their way. And God that resist the proud, shey your dignity isn’t stripped in a single blow; it’s eroded by a thousand small humiliations. I remember this experience and must be depressed as the corper girl stated. Nigerians iyaf suffer.

The regulatory bodies? Don’t bother. You reach out to FCCPC but they exist in name only, they offer form without function. hollow institutions, they cannot attend to Nigerians, except those with megaphones.

Obama has tried to remove Trump’s dignity.