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Human Rights Group Petitions APC Leadership, Calls for Immediate Arrest of Buraimoh, Olorunrinu

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The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) has called for the immediate arrest of the Executive Chairman of Amuwo Odofin Local Government, Engr. Valentine Buraimoh and Hon. Dipo Olorunrinu for the roles they played before and during the May 29, 2021 local government council primaries conducted by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in lagos State.

In a petition addressed to high profile APC leaders including President Muhammadu Buhari, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Governor Mai Mala Buni, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and Alhaji Tunde Balogun, the CDHR accused the duo of possessing fire arms, disrupting the election primaries in different wards o the local government and causing general unrest and terrorising the peace of the local government with heavily armed thugs.

An armed thug

“The incumbent Council Chairman of Amuwo Odofin Local Government, Engineer Valentine Buraimoh personally led thugs to chase away voters and cart away ballot boxes to unknown destination while some people suffered various degrees of body injuries particularly in Ward K, see youtube link (https://youtu.be/9N30S51jBmc), where rounds of gunshots by thugs led by Engineer Valentine Buraimoh were fired at electorates and passerby and with bullets scattered on the ground. These thugs were also seen hanging around the Black Toyota Hilux pickup vehicle Engineer Valentine Buraimoh was riding in.

“Engineer Valentine Buraimoh is not from ward K, why then was he found at other wards on the day of election with thugs numbering up to 80 thereby violating the electoral guidelines of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Hon.Dipo Olorunrinu who claims to be from Ward C was also seen in some other wards during voting hours alongside hoodlums working with him thereby also violating the electoral guidelines since he is an aspirant and not an election observer,” CDHR noted.

In the petition, signed by the State Chairman, Committee For The Defence of Human Rights Comrade Kehinde Adeoye, the group called on the President and the security agencies to immediately arrest Engineer Valentine Buraimoh in order to mop up the arms from the community during the attack and prosecute the LGA chairman in a competent court of jurisdiction.

They also demanded to know the state of the investigation by the Nigerian Police in Lagos State on the arrest of Hon. Dipo Olorunrinu by the Commissioner of Police with respect to illegal possession of fire arms and ammunition in 2018.

Mr Adeoye said that the calls for the arrest of the two men are predicated on the fact that the arms they have placed in the hands of thugs and violent elements may likely be used to terrorise the lives of innocent Nigerians, especially residents of Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area, and therefore should be mopped up.

The body recalled that in recent times, violent crimes which involved the letting of blood have taken place, citing the killing of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s former aide and APC chieftain, Ahmad Gukak, killing of former Enugu High Court judge, Stanley Nnaji and former youth leader ward C, APC Amuwo Odofin, Mr. Soji Abraham.

“One wonders why those arms have not been mopped up, the culprits arrested and brought to book by a competent court of Law. This portrays danger as the pump actions and riffles in possession of the thugs remain within the community in Amuwo Odofin posing as a huge security risk to residents,” the letter read.

Read the letter in full:

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI; NATIONAL LEADER OF ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS (APC) ASIWAJU BOLA AHMED TINUBU; ACTING NATIONAL CARETAKER COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN OF APC GOVERNOR MAI MALA BUNI; EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR OF LAGOS STATE MR BABAJIDE OLUSOLA SANWO OLU; LAGOS STATE APC CARETAKER COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ALHAJI TUNDE BALOGUN.
INSECURITY IN NIGERIA: WHY HONOURABLE DIPO OLORUNRINU AND ENGINEER VALENTINE BURAIMOH ARE NOT FIT TO BE EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF A LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN NIGERIA.

The attention of the above named personalities and the general public is hereby drawn to the negative consequences of the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries of Saturday 29th May, 2021 across Lagos State especially in Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area.

Prior to the local government APC primaries, one of the APC chairmanship aspirants Honourable Dipo Olorunrinu Former Member Lagos State House of Assembly Amuwo Odofin Constituency 1, on the platform of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) 2015-2019, had and still has a case with the Nigerian Police, Lagos State where he was arrested for being in possession of illegal fire arms and ammunitions and the case is still on since 2018. See a link on the subject matter on 15th July 2018. (https://www.google.com/amp/s/punchng.com/lagos-lawmaker-arrested-for-unlawful-possession-of-guns/%3famp). In accordance with the APC, INEC and LASIEC guidelines, no aspirant of the party must have a pending criminal trial or pending criminal record in any court of law and if found to have, is not eligible to contest any election.(reference APC nomination form page 3 & 4, INEC, LASIEC guidelines). During the campaign towards the May 29 2021 APC primaries, there were several rounds of gunshots fired into the air at 512 Road Festac Town by members of Hon. Dipo Olorunrinu’s group while he was present at the location. See a link on the subject matter on May 21, 2021. (http://globaltimesinternational.com.ng/2021/05/21/ex-lawmaker-representing-amuwo-odofin-flags-off-campaign-amidst-gunshots/). At this level of insecurity and incessant killings in the country, we feel that the situation in Amuwo Odofin LGA and indeed across the country is very fragile now and can snowball into a huge security threat.

The incumbent Council Chairman of Amuwo Odofin Local Government, Engineer Valentine Buraimoh personlly led thugs to chase away voters and cart away ballot boxes to unknown destination while some people suffered various degrees of body injuries particularly in Ward K, see youtube link (https://youtu.be/9N30S51jBmc), where rounds of gunshots by thugs led by Engineer Valentine Buraimoh were fired at electorates and passerby and with bullets scattered on the ground. These thugs were also seen hanging around the Black Toyota Hilux pickup vehicle Engineer Valentine Buraimoh was riding in.

Engineer Valentine Buraimoh is not from ward K, why then was he found at other wards on the day of election with thugs numbering up to 80 thereby violating the electoral guidelines of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Hon.Dipo Olorunrinu who claims to be from Ward C was also seen in some other wards during voting hours alongside hoodlums working with him thereby also violating the electoral guidelines since he is an aspirant and not an election observer.

Our concern as members of civil society is to ensure that the lives of people are not endangered. There are pictorial and video evidences of the use of illegal possession of firearms at the primaries, see a link on the subject matter (https://youtu.be/9N30S51jBmc). On 31st May 2021, members of the civil society stormed the Lagos State House of Assembly to protest incessant killings of citizens, policemen and soldiers. A protest letter was delivered to the office of the speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly Hon. Mudashiru Ajayi Obasa to arrest the situation. In this regard, the recent brutal killings of Ex political adviser to former president Dr. Goodluck Jonathan Alhaji Ahmed Gulak (30th May, 2021), Ex Enugu high court judge Stanley Nnaji (31st May,2021), former youth leader ward C, APC Amuwo Odofin Mr. Soji Abraham (4th Feb, 2021) and many others.

One wonders why those arms have not been mopped up, the culprits arrested and brought to book by a competent court of Law. This portrays danger as the pump actions and riffles in possession of the thugs remain within the community in Amuwo Odofin posing as a huge security risk to residents. See Reference to the Executive Order signed by President Muhammadu Buhari that all illegal weapons be retrieved.

(https://thesourceng.com/buhari-signs-executive-order-banning-use-of-guns/).

There were also confirmed reports of violence and the use of arms at Surulere Local Government in Lagos State where two (2) lives were lost and also in Agege Local government where there was series of gunshots heard within the local government. There were several protests at the Lagos State Party Secretariat ACME at Ikeja on Sunday 30th May 2021 and on Monday 31st May, 2021.

We hereby call on President Muhammadu Buhari as the Chief Security Officer of the country, National Leader of the APC Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Governor of Lagos State Mr Babajide Sanwo Olu as the Chief Security Officer of the state; the National Security Adviser Major General Babagana Monguno (Rtd); Director General of the Department of State Security Service (DSS) Alhaji Yusuf Magaji Bichi; Inspector General of Police Alkali Baba Usman; Lagos State Commissioner of Police CP Hakeem Odumosu, Lagos State Director of State Security Service (SSS) to order a high-powered investigation into this security matter and life-threathening issue considering the spate of insecurity currently in Nigeria and to also mop up the firearms from the community used during the attack.

OUR DEMAND

1.)We call on President Muhammadu Buhari and all the security agencies to immediately arrest Engineer Valentine Buraimoh in order to mop up the arms from the community during the attack and prosecute him in a competent court of jurisdiction.

2.)We demand to know the state of the investigation by the Nigerian Police in Lagos State on the arrest of Hon.Dipo Olorunrinu by the Commissioner of Police with respect to illegal possession of fire arms and ammunition in 2018.

Signed:
Comrade Kehinde Adeoye
State Chairman,
Committee For The Defence of Human Rights

The group maintains that there was no election in the local government on the day as thugs loyal to the chairman were moving from ward to ward shooting and scaring innocent voters, and call on the APC leadership to as a matter of urgency call for the arrest of the chairman to begin the process of retrieving dangerous weapons in the hands of thugs and violent elements in the community.

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UBA Reinforces Commitment to Rewarding Customer-Loyalty with N400m Bonus

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UBA Rewards Customer Loyalty with Over ₦400 Million Bumper Account Anniversary Bonus
…Reinforces commitment to rewarding customers for consistent savings
Africa’s Global Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has rewarded thousands of customers with over ₦400 million in anniversary bonuses under its flagship UBA Bumper Account, reaffirming the Bank’s unwavering commitment to rewarding customer loyalty and promoting a strong savings culture.

The payout, one of the largest loyalty rewards under the Bumper Account initiative since its launch, saw qualifying customers receive anniversary bonuses directly into their accounts, demonstrating UBA’s resolve to create lasting value for customers who consistently save with the Bank.

The UBA Bumper Account is a unique savings product that rewards customers simply for maintaining and growing their savings. Every year an eligible account reaches its anniversary, customers receive a cash bonus, making disciplined saving both rewarding and beneficial over time.
Speaking on the milestone, UBA’s Head, Retail Products, Tomiwa Sotiloye, said the Bank remains committed to ensuring that customers benefit directly from their relationship with UBA.

“At UBA, we believe customer loyalty deserves meaningful recognition. Every bonus paid is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to customers who continue to trust us with their financial aspirations. Surpassing the ₦400 million milestone reflects our commitment to creating products that not only help customers save but also reward them in tangible ways. It is another demonstration that when our customers grow, we grow with them.”

He added that both new and existing customers can open a UBA Bumper Account seamlessly through https://on.ubagroup.com/bumper-tc, any any UBA branch, the UBA Mobile Banking App, by dialing *919#, or online, positioning themselves to qualify for future anniversary rewards.

Also speaking, UBA’s Group Head, Brands, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Alero Ladipo, said the Bank’s customer-centric philosophy continues to shape its product offerings.

“The UBA Bumper Account reflects our unwavering commitment to putting customers first. We deliberately design products that reward responsible financial behaviour while delivering real value. Crediting over ₦400 million directly into customers’ accounts is not just a payout; it is evidence of our promise to make banking more rewarding and to continually appreciate the confidence our customers repose in us.”

The UBA Bumper Account remains one of the Bank’s flagship retail savings products, combining competitive savings benefits, digital convenience and attractive loyalty rewards. It forms part of UBA’s broader strategy to deepen financial inclusion by encouraging sustainable savings habits while delivering exceptional customer experiences.

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Dele Momodu Leadership Centre Hosts Media Scholar, Prof Abiodun Adeniyi

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By Anjorin Fehintola Stella

We often measure leadership by the institutions people build or the positions they occupy. Yet, during his visit to the Dele Momodu Leadership Centre, Professor Abiodun Adeniyi repeatedly returned to something less visible but perhaps more enduring; the responsibility of documenting one’s life and thoughts. He spoke as someone who understands, at a personal level, what is lost when experience is left unrecorded. His emphasis on documentation was not stylistic advice for writers. It was an argument about memory itself, about how societies retain or lose the wisdom of the people who pass through them.

Ideas disappear when they are undocumented because memory, at the collective level, is fragile and selective. A society does not remember everything that happens within it, it remembers what is written down, repeated, taught, or institutionalised. An undocumented thought, however brilliant, dies with the person who held it, or worse, drifts into vague anecdote, stripped of its original precision. This is why oral cultures, for all their richness, often struggle to transmit complex ideas across generations with fidelity. Professor Adeniyi’s point, then, was not simply about personal record-keeping. History remembers people largely through what they leave behind, not through what they intended to leave behind. Intention without artefact disappears.

When he spoke about travelling, it would be easy to reduce his words to a fondness for movement or exposure. But the deeper claim runs further than that. Travel disrupts familiarity. It exposes individuals to different ways of living, thinking, governing and imagining society. Professor Adeniyi suggested that travelling remains one of the simplest yet most profound forms of education because it broadens not only knowledge but perspective. A person confined to one environment mistakes the local for the universal. Movement across geographies forces a confrontation with alternative logics, alternative arrangements of power, family, and meaning, and that confrontation is often where genuine learning begins.

Perhaps the strongest advice he gave concerned the pursuit of a doctorate. When Aare Dele Momodu spoke of his desire to pursue a PhD, Professor Adeniyi’s response challenged a growing culture in which academic qualifications are sometimes pursued as symbols of prestige rather than vehicles of inquiry. A PhD earned for the title that follows a name produces a credential without a contribution. A PhD earned out of genuine curiosity produces new knowledge and, more importantly, sustains the kind of intellectual restlessness that defines a thinking life. Professor Adeniyi’s counsel was that one should choose a field that strikes them professionally and personally, something that connects to lived purpose rather than social signalling, because the value of advanced study lies in the questions it forces a person to keep asking long after the degree is conferred.

Professor Abiodun did not reserve his counsel for matters of scholarship alone. Turning to the younger staff in the room, Professor Adeniyi offered something closer to reassurance than instruction, that everything they are currently going through, the uncertainty, the striving, the sense of being far from where they hope to be, is a phase both he and Aare Dele Momodu have lived through themselves. It was a reminder that ambition rarely moves on a straight or visible timeline. The goals and dreams that feel distant now are not denied, only delayed, and what stands between the present moment and their fulfilment is simply time and dedication, applied without pause.

 

Underneath all these threads, travel, documentation, the meaning of scholarship, was a single, unifying idea about legacy. Legacy isn’t what people say about you. It’s what remains after you leave. This distinction matters because praise is temporary and circumstantial, shaped by mood, politics, and memory’s natural decay. What remains, however, is structural. It is the book on a shelf, the institution still running, the idea still being taught.

This is where the conversation returned, inevitably, to the Centre itself. The library. The scholars’ rooms. The conversations. The institution. Professor Adeniyi appeared genuinely moved by what he encountered, not by the scale of the buildings, but by what the buildings were designed to hold. Perhaps that is why Professor Adeniyi appeared genuinely moved by the Centre. It was never merely about architecture. It was about permanence. Buildings become legacy only when they preserve ideas.

Every visit leaves footprints. Some are physical. Others are intellectual. Professor Abiodun Adeniyi’s visit left the latter.

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Lagos Govt Sues for Calm As Flood Ravages City, Okays Dredging of 28 Channels

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The Lagos State Government has appealed for calm following persistent rainfall and flash floods across many parts of the State over the past two weeks, announcing the immediate dredging of 28 additional primary drainage channels to improve flood control.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu approved the emergency dredging intervention as part of efforts to strengthen the state’s drainage network.

The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, said the recent downpours are an extreme weather event that produced an unusually large volume of rainfall within a short period, overwhelming drainage systems in some locations and causing temporary flooding in parts of Victoria Island, Lekki, Ikeja, Gbagada, Mushin, Mafoloku and other communities.

According to him, the situation was not peculiar to Lagos; several African countries and parts of North America also experienced heavy rainfall and flooding during the same period.

Wahab, however, said Lagos presents a more complex hydrological challenge because of its extensive network of lagoons, rivers, creeks and tidal water bodies, coupled with its high rainfall intensity.

He explained that the interaction between the Atlantic Ocean, Lagos Lagoon and inland waterways, especially during high tide, naturally slows the discharge of storm-water into the sea, leading to temporary flooding in low-lying areas during exceptionally heavy rainfall.

The commissioner assured residents that the government was closely monitoring drainage infrastructure, flood-prone areas and major channels across the State.

He added that emergency response agencies have been deployed to affected areas to facilitate the quick recession of floodwaters and provide necessary support to residents.

Wahab said the government would continue to invest in drainage construction, channelisation, desilting, and other flood-control infrastructure, but stressed that residents also have a responsibility to support these efforts.

He urged residents to stop dumping refuse into drains, canals and waterways, warning that blocked drainage channels and illegal reclamation of wetlands contribute significantly to flooding.

He also cautioned against building on drainage alignments and engaging in activities that could obstruct the free flow of storm-water.

The commissioner said the increasing frequency of extreme rainfall events across coastal cities is a clear indication of the impact of climate change.

“Lagos is not exempt from these realities. However, the State Government remains steadfast in its commitment to building a flood-resilient city through sustained infrastructure development, environmental enforcement and active collaboration with residents,” he said.

Wahab described flood management as a shared responsibility, urging residents to keep drainage channels free of debris and to report any activities that could obstruct storm-water flow.

He also advised motorists to avoid driving through flooded roads during heavy rainfall and urged residents, particularly those in flood-prone communities, to comply with weather advisories and safety instructions issued by relevant government agencies.

He reaffirmed the government’s commitment to protecting lives and property through proactive flood management measures and called for continued public cooperation in building a cleaner, safer and more resilient Lagos.

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