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Sofiat’s murder and our booming human body parts market

Published

5 years ago

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With the shock, anger, and general revulsion that followed the gruesome killing of 20-year-old Sofiat Kehinde, allegedly perpetrated by her boyfriend and three of his accomplices in Oke-Aregba, Itoko-Tuntun, Idi-Ape in Abeokuta, Ogun state on January 29, 2022, an end ought to have naturally come to our naivety about the pestilence that ritual killings for money has become among us. Or oughtn’t it?

Only yesterday, in the same Abeokuta, in an area called Leme, 43-year-old Kehinde Oladimeji and his wife, Adejumoke Raji, were arrested by men of the Ogun state police command for being in possession of fresh human breasts, hands, and other parts kept in a bucket. In 1996, Owerri, the capital of Imo state, almost exploded when one Innocent Ekeanyanwu was arrested with the head of a young boy called Ikechukwu Okonkwo. Police investigators later found the buried torso of Ikechukwu in the premises of Otokoto Hotel, which was owned by one Chief Duru. This sparked violence in the city, leading to unprecedented burning of properties of suspected patrons of ritual killings. The leader of the syndicate was later arraigned for murder and in February 2003, sentenced to death by hanging.

The belief in human rituals for money, which modernity has not succeeded in killing, is as old as Africa and is still prevalent today in many parts of the continent. Secret societies and their killings were dominant in pre and post-colonial Africa. In 1945 for example, one Amos Oshinowo Shopitan wrote to a senior British official about his two-year-old son who had been kidnapped and used for the “dreadful practice of stealing human beings for either secret immolation or juju making”. In 1946, a total of 161 persons were recorded by the colonial government as having been killed for rituals in the Ibibio area in the present-day Akwa Ibom state. In 1947, a United States consul reported that he had recorded 88 proven and 96 suspected cases of ritual murders in the same Ibibio area.

In virtually all parts of Africa, albino-hunting is a pastime. This species of nature’s creation with defects in skin pigmentation is a sought-after delicacy for rituals for money. Given so many names which range from Igbo’s onye aghali – one with strange white colour; Yoruba’s eni osa (persons of the gods) and zeru zeru – ghost – in Tanzania, so many myths of supernatural powers are woven round albinos.

Today, irrespective of supersonic advancements in technology and diverse ways of making billions through taking advantage of modernity, there are pandemic beliefs in many parts of Africa, which have grown so luscious, that the body parts of albino bring wealth, power, or sexual victory. For instance, in many parts of Southern Africa, it is believed that a sexual romp with a lady with albinism gives an instant cure for HIV and AIDS. Albino victims have their body parts sold for thousands of dollars to Sangomas or witch doctors. In 2016, the Office of the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) had announced that albino hunters sold a whole albino corpse for up to $75,000, while their arm or leg fetched as princely a sum as $2,000.

In Malawi, authorities announced that, between January and May 2016, six albinos, who included a 17-year-old Davis Fletcher Machinjiri, killed while he went to watch a soccer match, had been discovered. Amnesty International, quoting the Malawian authorities, gave an account of how Machinjiri was killed thus: “About four men trafficked him to Mozambique and killed him. The men chopped off both his arms and legs and removed his bones. Then they buried the rest of his body in a shallow grave”. It looks as grotesque as the killing of Sofiat.

Tanzania has its own share of this barbarism. About 75 albinos were reported to have been murdered between 2000 and 2016. Ikponwosa Ero, a person with albinism, in an interview, had said that albinos in Africa are endangered species and their situation, “a tragedy”, maintaining that the 7,000 to 10,000 albinos in Malawi and thousands of others in Tanzania, Mozambique, and other countries were “at the risk of extinction if nothing is done.”

One other hot cake for rank-minded human parts ritualism in Africa is hunchbacks. In 2011, one Ifeoma Angela Igwe was reported to have been kidnapped from her house, beheaded at a bush path, and butchered. Her hunch, which is believed to contain some mercuric magical power that curates wealth, was also severed off her back. In another instance, one Adeoye Dowo, a 22-year old, was lured into the bush by his girlfriend in Ago Alaye, a village in Odigbo local government of Ondo state, strangled by three men and his hump decapitated. So also was one Taibatu Oseni, a lady of similar age, murdered by her assailants and her hunch removed.

The murder of Sofiat was particularly grotesque. It must have alerted both government and the governed that our society had gone past the stages of pretenses and innocence. Her abductors, four teenage suspects of between 18 and 20 years, had allegedly killed her, severed off her head, and burnt it almost into ashes in a mud pot, with her remains already packaged in a sack to be disposed of by the time they were arrested.

For us as a people, I intend to argue in this piece, we are just crying over spilled milk, and like a knock-kneed, we have refused to look at the foundation of our current problem of ritual killings. Our case is analogous to that of the proverbial bush rat which was complicit in its own calamity. While assailants were digging his hole, the bush rat refused to raise alarm and when he was arrested, roasted in the hot furnace, he raises his hands up above the head to raise alarm, which Yoruba express as, “Okete gbagbe ibosi, o de’gba alate, o ka’wo le’ri“. There is no denying the fact that we are a people who believe in achieving material successes through harnessing mystical powers. What those four teenage boys who killed Sofiat did was go on a long shuttle into their African roots to borrow a leaf from our barbaric past.

From creation, in the search for explanations to the physical and earthly things whose order and happenings are beyond their comprehension, Africans created a counterpoise for physical objects in the spiritual. To them, nothing happens in the physical without a corresponding occurrence in the spiritual. In this anthropomorphic belief, gods are behind the order of the universe and look over the affairs of men. That was why gods like  Obatala, 

Sango, Ogun, Amadioha, and the Arochukwu deities were created in Africans’ own image, unseen but with believed awesome powers that superintend over the affairs of man. The deities were worshipped with various objects. Stephen Ellis, British historian, Africanist, human rights activist, and author of the famous book, ‘This Present Crime: A History of Nigeria’s Organized Crime’, said: “Nigerians, then and now, maintain a dialogue with the invisible realm, in effect trying to shape their own well-being through a process of negotiation with the spirit world”.

One of such gods in West Africa is the Olokun. Olokun is an androgynous god or orisha, which means that it could be a man or a woman, depending on the people who worship it. The belief of Olokun worshippers is that it is the parent of Aje, the orisha that is in charge of great wealth and whose residence is at the bottom of the ocean. Olokun’s reputation as the ruler of bodies of water is legendary. It is also revered as the sole god with authority over water deities. It is said to possess the ability to give man great wealth, health, and prosperity. To maintain communication with the Olokun, a regime of murders by ordeal or ordeal by innocence was perpetrated. Human sacrifices to the gods were required and, added to the slavery experience – where man sold his fellow man for mirrors and liquor – the heart of the African became as hard and scarred as the tortoise’s carapace.

In 1912, the British governor-general, Lord Lugard, in a letter to his wife, Flora Shaw, said he had just dealt with a file that contained 744 murders by ordeal. Ordeal by innocence is a very severe or trying experience that was prevalent in pre-colonial Africa. It was a method of trial where the guilt or innocence of an accused person got determined by first subjecting them to a tedious physical danger. One of the methods used in ordeal by innocence was to singe the victim’s flesh with fire or throw them inside hot water and whatever fate the victim suffers then becomes an indication of divine judgment on them.

As far back as the early 20th century, Nigerians’ renown for seeking material successes through mystical powers had gained the attention of British colonial power. J. K. Macgregor, headmaster of the famous Calabar-based missionary school, Hope Waddell Institute, which Nnamdi Azikiwe attended, had detected over a hundred mails from abroad in the hands of his pupils. Writers of the letters promised the pupils, in the words of Ellis, “quack medicines and quack methods of treating diseases… magical works and letters from various societies that professed to give esoteric teachings that were sure to bring successes and happiness”. Those letters came from America, England, and India. Macgregor was so bothered that in 1935, he wrote the governor-general about it.

Africans, Nigerians saw the intervention of colonial Britain in their social and political affairs, especially its frown at barbaric killings and turning of the human body into commodity or money, as meddlesome interloping. British colonial government, which saw itself on evangelism to civilize Africa, frowned at such barbaric acts of human sacrifice for money. To it, such practices were repugnant to natural justice. This however did not deter the practice. Only God knows the number of young boys and girls whose blood were spilled from pre and immediate post-colonial Africa, on the altar of claims of wealth-seeking, health-seeking, and purification of lands with human blood. Sweets, chewing gums, nuts, Akara balls, and other fascinating things were used to truncate the destinies of hundreds of children, ostensibly with the aim of increasing the wealth and well-being of their patrons.

It will appear that having been smoked out by the EFCC and with a greater general awareness of their nefarious activities, which has made their preys be on the alert, the market of scam that the Yahoo Yahoo boys engage in has been grossly affected. Thus, the human ritual market seems the next sought-after.

Unless we want to deceive ourselves, those four headhunter boys who murdered Sofiat in Abeokuta, the hunchback hunters, the albino scavengers of Tanzania mirror who we are as Africans. Centuries of preaching on the sacredness of the human body and the visible monumental strides of technology have not succeeded in impeaching our ancient beliefs in spiritualism and metaphysics and their manifestations in ancient primitivism and barbarism. We attribute great mystical powers to money, right from the beginning when cowries and iron bars became the means of exchange. Money today is more valuable in our estimation than human life and we go to every length to have it. For us in Africa, money is not Mammon; it is life.

Immortal Bob Marley counseled – many more will have to suffer – as we enter the election season preparatory to the 2023 elections, many will be used for sacrifices to get to offices by politicians. It is in sync with us. In the first republic, the three regional political parties were built around secret societies. Ogboni society, which wielded enormous powers before the colonial incursion, was consequential in political decisions. J. Y Peel, in his ‘Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba’ (2000) had noted that Yoruba use human beings, especially strangers, as sacrifices, at funerals for important people. Mortuary killings have been very prevalent since ancient days. In 1847, when Basorun Oluyole of Ibadan died, 70 people were killed to act as his consorts in the hereafter.

Today, there is a rat race to embrace Olokun, the sea goddess of money. It is worsened by the fact that governments have abdicated their social responsibilities and everybody is running a race for self-sustenance and personal survival over the harsh and inclement social weather. In homes, parents and their children build grooves where money is sacralized daily. Our social situation is aggravated by the fact that law and order have taken a sabbatical from governance in Nigeria.

Those days, if you didn’t have money but had character, you were given pride of place in society. Today, character without money is dead. The get-rich race has become pandemic. Politicians, governments, and Nigerian leaders, in general, are patrons of this social order. It began first with the godification of money and then, a huge war waged on the merit system. Uneducated and unskilled hooligans are suddenly made rich by the system, simply because they are anvils in the hands of politicians. Flaunting of ill-gotten wealth plays a major role in polluting the subconscious of the youth.

There is this reasoning which has infected the thought process of society that education is drab and unrewarding, thus pushing children from the path of their future redemption. The church has also helped fester this mindset with the pride of place it gives to money and wealth. General overseers live in magnificent, superfluous, and stupendous wealth gotten from subverting the minds of congregants through religious scams. They openly and unabashedly call for billion naira donations to church and bother less to crosscheck sources of wealthy donors. This cancer has eaten so deep that today, parents help their children to pad up scamming ventures. They take them for spiritual fortification in shrines of pastors, diviners, and marabouts.

It will be naïve, unrealistic, and wrong to say that rituals of human body parts for money are ineffective. Or that the metaphysics of human sacrifice does not have an effective science to it. As Africans, we cannot deny metaphysics like Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who called it nonsensical. A dark practice like this which has endured for centuries cannot be waved aside that peremptorily. Or else we are saying that our forefathers, reputed with those inventions that still subsist till today, were ignoramuses. They were not. Human rituals are a fact of existence with their own grotesque science known only to the practitioners.

However, a time has come for Africa to join the rest of the world to do away with the crudity, barbarity, and primitivity of human rituals. Governments should first make life livable for their people so that human beings can return to their love for themselves and put money in its secondary place in the scheme of things. Today, the extreme poverty afflicting the populace has turned them into beasts who pawn themselves for cash. It is why human rituals for money have quadrupled what they were pre and in the immediate post-colony. Second, the government must consciously de-radicalize money and its effects, and flaunting of wealth should attract sanctions.

Social studies lessons of pre and post-independence must be exhumed. They were learned by rote and taught to pupils from creche, an example being the Yoruba J. F. Odunjo’s Alawiye series, which taught the values of work, condemned get-rich-quick syndrome, and pronounced damnation for indolence. Money must and can never be the only source of happiness and respect in any sane society. We must push it down from its unearned and undeserved first position in our affairs and push up values that sustain a people. These precepts must be read, memorized, and recited like verses of our Bible and Quran. Only then can we stop the pernicious harvest of our children in their prime, in the hands of flesh-hunters for money.

Dr. Festus Adedayo, a journalist, lawyer and columnist writes from Ibadan, Oyo state.

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Opinion

Governor Seyi Makinde’s Media Chat: A Hundred And Twenty Minutes Of Trash Talk | By Sola Abegunde

Published

4 days ago

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October 13, 2026

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I knew that Governor Makinde would provide us with a hundred and twenty minutes of comic relief and at the same time, I knew he is bound to commit unforced errors which would further expose his shenanigans.

The outgoing Governor of Oyo state did not disappoint on both fronts.

Personally, I understand the need for him to have one final valedictory Media Chat.

The atmosphere might be too hot for him to even think of such luxury after the general election in 2027. So, if he’s got the opportunity now, why not take a shot at it?

I must however say that the Governor displayed his insensitivity right from the choice of the Studio the Chat was aired.

Shortly before the Media Chat commenced, I came across a release signed by the Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalist, NUJ, BCOS Chapel, Com. Ademola Balogun.

Com. Balogun was full of lamentations concerning the very terrible state of the Oyo state Broadcasting Corporations, BCOS.

He was of the very strong opinion that the BCOS should have meaningful opportunities to cover Government activities.

He also called on Governor Seyi Makinde to empower the BCOS to invest in modern studio, transmitting equipment, digital broadcasting facilities and online platforms.

Com. Ademola spoke extensively about Staff welfare and other issues.

Sadly, while Governor Seyi Makinde has been consistent in empowering a particular Radio station, the Broadcasting Corporations of Oyo state, BCOS has been dying slowly.

Unfortunately, I have no good news for Com. Ademola. His lamentations will definitely fall on stone deaf ears. It is too late for Governor Makinde to change his ways. I just pray that the Governor would not wake up one day and sold off whatever remains of the Corporation.

That is just by the way. Let me address Governor Makinde’s Media Chat for whatever it is worth. The Governor spent a whole two hours venting anger and spreading outright lies and half-truths.

I am surprised that Governor Makinde has not seen any reason for him to have a second thought about his awkward and reckless comments about the Law Profession.

I am saying this because, for the second time, his Deputy was sitting closely beside him and yet, he felt like it was humorous for him to take a dig at Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli, the All Progressives Congress, APC Gubernatorial candidate, regarding his misconceived failure as a Law practitioner.

He repeated the ignorant and reckless comments about Senator Alli, not being a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and for that reason, according to Governor Seyi Makinde, the Oyo South Senator is not an accomplished Legal Practitioner.

He had made that same reckless comments a couple of weeks ago and at that time also, the Deputy Governor was beside him!

The respectable man is an accomplished Lawyer of many years of experience, who had trained a lot of successful Lawyers.

I also wonder, how people like Dr. Nureni Adeniran and Olasunkanmi Olaleye, who are also Lawyers and have been working with Governor Seyi Makinde over the years would feel about those reckless comments coming from their Boss.

If you want to follow Governor Seyi Makinde’s reasoning, if you are a teacher and you did not rise to the status of a School Principal or Head teacher, then, you’re a failure.

If you are a Military Personnel and you didn’t rise to the position of a General, you’re a failure!

Any time I saw the Governor arguing in this regard, I always asked myself if he was actually himself, because, for me, only a drunkard is capable of reasoning in that manner, or, perhaps, some young elements who had taken so much banned substances.

I have carefully analyzed the 120 minutes Media Chat and I saw that Governor Seyi Makinde spent so much time treating two issues.

The first, being his frustration about his perceived betrayal by president Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the second being his failed attempt to rewrite the Constitution of Nigeria regarding the financial autonomy for Local Governments.

The birthday boy tried to work him through the crisis at the Circular Road, but it was obvious that the main reasons behind Governor Makinde’s Media Chat were grounded on his firm beliefs that Tinubu breached certain agreements with him and others in 2023 and his warped opinion about how the Local Governments should operate within our Federation.

Let’s start with Governor Seyi Makinde’s allegations against Tinubu.

According to him, in 2023, an agreement was signed between certain individuals, including himself.

He said there was an agreement that a Government of National Unity would be formed by president Tinubu after he won the presidential election of 2023 and that he and the Governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu were signatories to that agreement.

According to him, president Tinubu was not a signatory to the agreement but he was informed after the agreement was signed!

He went further to say that on the strength of that agreement, he presented Bimbo Adekambi as a Ministerial nominee because the president had earlier told him that he wanted to appoint the Minister for Budget and Planing from Oyo state.

To his chagrin and disappointment, president Tinubu settled for Bayo Adelabu and asked him to own the nomination of the former Minister for power, a request he claimed he rejected.

He therefore concluded that all the Ministers nominated from the South West are from Bourdilon.

I have carefully analyzed this confession by Governor Seyi Makinde and I have a few questions for him.

Why is it that Governor Seyi Makinde is the only one complaining about a breached agreement?

Why did it take him all these long to come out with this fact?

What was the criteria for the nomination of Bimbo Adekambi? Did he just take a random decision to choose Adekambi without a prior relationship between the two of them or what?

How does Governor Seyi Makinde want to convince any right thinking person that he believed an agreement would be binding on Tinubu on the strength of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s alleged signature?

For me, that doesn’t make any sense, most especially, for an ” accomplished Engr” like Seyi Makinde!

I am surprised that Governor Makinde leaves out what he benefited from the alignment with Tinubu in 2023.

Remove the alignment with Tinubu in 2023, Seyi Makinde was a goner and the fact that he was able to secure a second term in office ought to have been enough for him.

I am also surprised that Governor Makinde didn’t understand that he was advertising his penchant for serial betrayal and greed when he was relating the events that shaped his re-election in 2023.

It was all about him and the decisions he took, not only affected the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP alone, it also affected certain candidates of his party during the first ballot in 2023.

Now, to the issue of Local Government Autonomy.

Governor Seyi Makinde is a very funny individual. He was very clear about his position on Local Government Autonomy in 2023.

His position was that he never even believed in their existence and I was amused when the birthday boy was saying that despite his position on Local Government Autonomy in 2023, he was still able to win in 31 Local Governments, signifying the fact that the people of Oyo state believed Governor Makinde’s explanations.

I am extremely happy that Governor Seyi Makinde has not changed his opinion on how Local Governments should operate within the Federating units.

He is still stuck on the fact that the 33 Local Governments in Oyo state should be appendages to the State Government, even, in spite of the Judgment of the Supreme Court granting them full financial autonomy.

I am shocked that Governor Seyi Makinde could attempt to confuse what happened between the Lagos state Government when Tinubu was Governor of the state and the Federal Government during Obasanjo’s period, with the illegalities he has been perpetuating with the resources 33 Local Governments.

There is a clear distinction between both scenarios.

In the case of Tinubu as Governor of Lagos state, the Lagos state Government created more Local Governments and the Federal Government was of the opinion that the state Government was wrong to have done so.

As a result of this misunderstanding, the Federal Government stopped the monthly allocations for the Local Governments in Lagos state and it led to a Judicial dispute.

In the end, the Supreme Court held that the Local Governments created by the Lagos state Government were incohate, but it faulted the Federal Government for withholding the monthly allocations belonging to the Local Governments in Lagos state.

Lagos state Government thereafter recognized and administered the newly created Local Governments as Local Government Development Areas and many states have since copied the template, including Oyo state.

In the present scenario, the president, through the Attorney general of the Federation approached the Supreme Court and sought to secure full financial autonomy for the 774 Local Governments and the Supreme Court agreed to the request.

I have been asking myself, why is it that Governor Seyi Makinde is having problems with that judgement?

The monthly allocations released to the 33 Local Governments are released against their names.

Is Governor Seyi Makinde saying that it is proper for a Governor to still be the supervisor for the 33 Local Governments?

How does the judgment of the Supreme Court translate to the Federal Government trying to take control of the 774 Local Governments?

Yorubas will always say that a dog can not stand watch over two different buildings. ( Aja kii roro, ko so ojule meji po).

I was also surprised to hear Governor Seyi Makinde talking about the fact that, instead of full financial autonomy for the Local Governments, he preferred to discuss about how the Local Governments could be empowered to survive without monthly allocations from Abuja.

Haba! Governor Makinde!! Gently now.

You are depriving the Local Governments of their entitlements and you except them to thrive. How would that happen?

Why didn’t we start with the state? Can Oyo state survive without monthly allocations?

I think everyone can now see that Bimbo Adekambi as Governor, would never allow the Local Governments to breathe.

On the other hand, Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli has promised to guarantee full financial autonomy for the 33 Local Governments and the implementation of the policy requires no rocket science. All it requires is the will.

There is an existing judgment of the Supreme Court which has outlined the steps to be taken by any willing state Government.

Sarafa Alli only needs to direct relevant stakeholders at the Local Governments to comply with the judgment and that is the end of the matter.

What is so difficult in that, if you are not covetous?

I might have to do this piece in series but I will like to warn the residents of the Circular Road.

You heard Governor Seyi Makinde. He is promising you nothing.

My only problem with him is his attempts to shift the blame of the chaos he orchestrated at the Circular Road on the late Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

He even said that that the Government of Ajimobi defrauded residents of the Circular Road!

Sometimes, people like Governor Seyi Makinde needs no one to enchant them. Their character is an enchantment on itself.

If you’re saying that the Governments of the late Ajimobi defrauded residents of the Circular Road, is Bimbo Adekambi not an integral part of that Government and that is before you begin to ask the Governor for proofs.

I enjoyed Governor Seyi Makinde’s valedictory Media Chat, while looking forward to the new era awaiting him next year.

My father used to tell us that the mouth of the liar does not ooze blood. ( Enu opuro kii seje).

By the way, I saw that Governor Seyi Makinde never mentioned anything about the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the abduction of Teachers and Pupils of Yawota and Esinele communities of Oriire Local Government.

How far now?

Sola Abegunde.

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Re: Adekambi vs Alli: Dr. Olanrewaju’s Descent To Soliloquizing | Sola Abegunde

Published

2 weeks ago

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October 1, 2026

By

 

I have read Dr. Sulaimon Olanrewaju’s piece titled ” Adekambi vs Alli: Between Substance And Sensationalism” and it offers me a lot of entertainment.

Dr. Sulaimon Olanrewaju is a seasoned Journalist no doubt. Very brilliant mind, but, he needs a lecture on politics and governance.

No matter how educated or professional you could be, if you lack basic knowledge about raw politics and governance at different tiers of Government, you are bound to struggle like a fish out of the water each time you attempt to defend certain positions.

Very obviously, Dr. Olanrewaju doesn’t know how a Local Government should operate on a normal situation, even, before the Judgment of the Supreme Court obtained by president Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

I will refer Dr. Olanrewaju to a document titled ” Financial Memorandum for Local Governments”.

That document speaks to how funds belonging to the Local Governments could be legally spent.

It will also provide accurate information about the roles and powers of the Local Government Chairmen, Head of Local Government Administration, the Finance and General Purposes Committee, F&GPC, how approvals for funds, projects and how contracts are signed at the Local Government level.

Had it been that Dr. Olanrewaju had proper information, I am sure that he wouldn’t have advertised his ignorance the way he did, in the argument about Financial autonomy for Local Governments which Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli is promising.

He would also have known that his Principal, Governor Seyi Makinde had been engaged in criminal activities in the manner he had been withdrawing and spending resources belonging to the 33 Local Governments illegally since 2019.

Perhaps I need to repeat this for emphasis sake. There is no Law that empowers a state Governor to withdraw money belonging to the Local Governments for the execution of projects on behalf of the Local Governments.

The fact that the monthly allocations for the 33 Local Governments would have to drop on a joint account does not confer any authority on a state Governor to illegally withdraw and spend same.

It is the responsibility of the F&GPC for each of the Local Governments to identify projects it wants to execute, approve funds for same and if the funds are beyond the approving limits of the F&GPC, it will seek approval from the Governor through the office of the Commissioner for Local Governments.

If the project would be executed as a contract, it is the sole responsibility of the HLGA to sign the contract agreement.

That is what Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli is saying. That he would not make illegal withdrawals from the Local Governments funds. That he will allow the F&GPC for the 33 Local Governments to function without hinderance. That he will allow the Career officers to do their duties assigned to them by Law.

If Governor Seyi Makinde doesn’t believe in the existence of the Local Governments and he is not hiding this fact and Sarafa Alli is saying, I believe in a functional and free Local Government, where is the sensationalism in that?

Truth hurts. Dr. Olanrewaju can not, through his essay, which I consider an afterthought, rewrite the fact that, his Principal publicly declared that he doesn’t believe in the existence of the Local Governments, not to talk of allowing them to function freely.

I am surprised that Dr. Olanrewaju is of the opinion that Senator Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli is not saying what he would do differently.

I know that the Special Adviser on Media to Governor Seyi Makinde is not deaf. Neither is he blind or dumb. He is only being hypocritical.

How else does the Allied People’s Movement, APM and its Gubernatorial candidate want the All Progressives Congress, APC Gubernatorial candidate to say what he is going to do differently?

On this issue of Financial autonomy for Local Governments, Sarafadeen Alli is saying, contrary to the illegalities of the past seven years plus, he will not concern himself with the responsibilities that are ordinarily that of the Local Governments.

On Education, he has declared that he will ensure that we go back to the 30 Pupils per classroom policy of the former Governor, Senator Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja, now, H. I . M, Oba Senator Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja.

He said he will revive the Broadcasting Corporations of Oyo state, BCOS which is gasping for breath under Governor Seyi Makinde.

He was emphatic about the fact that he would set up a Committee to review the crisis created at the Circular Road by Governor Seyi Makinde within 72 hours when he is elected as the Governor of Oyo state.

He said he would review the sales and handing over of our Farm Settlements to Estate Developers amongst other promises.

On these issues, what are the clear positions taken by Adekambi?

If Dr. Olanrewaju wants us to believe his cock and bull stories about the performance of the 33 Local Governments under Seyi Makinde, I challenge him to ask his Principal to publish the statement of income and expenditures for the 33 Local Governments in the past seven years plus.

He should give us a breakdown of the total figure of the monthly allocations received on behalf of the 33 Local Governments, the breakdown of salaries and allowances paid, the number of projects executed, identities of the contractors who handled projects, the contract agreements, total figure of the Internally Generated Revenues, IGR received by the Local Governments and the VAT.

In the absence of these vital information, which I am certain they will never dare to make public, I want to humbly suggest that Dr. Olanrewaju should go and update his knowledge about how certain things are done.

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Opinion

Ladoja @82: When the ladder becomes too tall and Makinde’s sin of ingratitude | By Ayinla Joseph

Published

3 weeks ago

on

September 28, 2026

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The Yoruba say, when a man forgets the ladder that took him to the top of the iroko tree, the fall that awaits him will be narrated as a proverb.

On Thursday, Ibadan stood still for its king. Oba Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja clocked 82. Not 82 years of mere age, but 82 years of bruises, battles, betrayals and benediction. A former Senator. A former Governor. An elder statesman who, like Oduduwa, returned as king. The following day, Friday, Oba Ladoja also clocked one year on the throne of his forefathers.

Ibadan celebrated him. Nigeria celebrated him. The Presidency sent greetings. Former governors knelt. Serving governors bowed. The Alaafin of Oyo paid tribute. The Soun of Ogbomoso poured libation of words. Even the Aseyin, far in Iseyin, bought a full page in a national daily to say: our father lives.

But in Agodi Government House, there was silence. Cold, deliberate, imperial silence.

Governor Seyi Makinde did not felicitate his king. No advert. No statement. No courtesy of any sort extended. Nothing. His protégé, Bimbo Adekanmbi, toed the same line of contempt. For 48 hours, Ibadan people waited for a word that never came, until shame forced a whisper.

We must ask: what manner of politics is this?

In 2019, it was this same Ladoja who held Makinde’s hand when Makinde had no hand to hold. It was Ladoja who coordinated the coalition, who gathered the angry, the broken and the hopeful, and stitched them into a garment called victory for a man who had never won anything before. Without Ladoja, there would have been no Omituntun in 2019. And the man knows it.

Philosophers call it the Paradox of Power. Machiavelli warned about it in “The Prince”: that power acquired through the mercy of others must be sustained by gratitude, otherwise it consumes itself. Plato called such rulers philosopher-kings who failed philosophy. Men who know how to win power but not how to carry it.

History is littered with them.

Emperor Nero of Rome who burnt the city that made him emperor. King Rehoboam in the Bible who told the elders who made him king: “My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s waist.” Emperor Commodus who thought Rome was his father’s farm and turned the palace into a circus until the circus swallowed him.

Seyi Makinde governs like them — as an emperor, not as an Omoluabi. A man who believes loyalty must flow upwards to him, but must never flow downwards from him. He rides on the shoulders of giants and then complains that the giants are too tall.

Today it is Ladoja he snubs. Yesterday it was the Alaafin. The day before, the Soun. Tomorrow, which Oba will taste his disdain? He has transferred his personal hatred for the Olubadan stool into a war against all royal stools in Oyo State. That is not politics. That is poison.

And what shall we say of Bimbo Adekanmbi, his political son, who has learnt this ignoble art of ingratitude so perfectly? The Yoruba say, “the child who says his mother will not sleep, he too will not sleep.” To watch a man seeking to be governor practise contempt for the throne he seeks to govern is a disaster foretold.

Oyo people know Omituntun 2.0 for what it is — a poisonous pill coated with sweet advertisement. If 2.0 can openly humiliate an 82-year-old first-class monarch who made him, what will Omituntun 3.0, headed by his anointed, do? It will be the unkindest cut of all. It will be the complete desecration of the Omoluabi ethos that Ibadan and Oyo hold sacred.

Seyi Makinde will be remembered. Not for the roads that crack before commissioning. Not for the parks that lead to nowhere. He will be remembered as the governor who rode on the backs of eminent men and made every one of them regret that they ever lent him their shoulders.

Ladoja at 82 needs no advert from Agodi to be great. The king’s greatness is not conferred by the governor. But the governor’s smallness is exposed by how he treats his king.

Oyo people, shine your eyes. This affliction must not rise a second time.

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