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Pendulum: And My Idol Died ( By Popular Demand)

Published

7 years ago

April 6, 2019

Editor

BY Dele Momodu

(I wrote this article the very night MICHAEL JACKSON died and wept throughout the typing… My wife looked on in wonderment… I rate it as one of my top three articles in 40 years… Now that Michael Jackson is back in the news, more for bad reasons than good, many people have requested me to intervene on behalf of one of my known heroes of all time. I have nothing more to add or subtract from what I scripted on Thursday, June 25, 2009, which was published on this very page on June 27, 2009… Please, enjoy, or just read, and form your opinion…)

God, please forgive me, for claiming publicly that I worshipped an idol. Truth is I did. I worshipped Michael Jackson. I hated anyone who ever passed snide remarks about this greatest showman on earth. Strangely, I never met my idol. He was a god I accepted in good faith. A god I would have loved to meet. But I kept faith with his music, and was privileged to have met some of his siblings. There was nothing I did not try to meet him. I always knew it was only a matter of time before the relentless vicissitudes of life would take its final toll on this extremely frail but prodigiously talented artiste.
Michael was supposed to be the peak of success but he was the limit of sadness. His fame eclipsed that of all his siblings combined. He was the very epitome of achievement. No artiste in history had generated as much controversy in one lifetime. Like the quintessential dancer that he was, Michael waltzed from one crisis to the other. He was the true example that the world may pretend to love success, but the world actually hates success. Every imaginary story was conjured, or concocted, around this stupendously famous man.
He packed more than the activities of a thousand years into the 50 years he lived on earth. The world is allowed a glimpse of such demigods once in a blue moon. Michael was a deviant in all ways. He defied the laws of gravity and motion. He was a spirit child, and he acted the part perfectly. He was bound to go the way he came, with a bang. It was impossible for him to go with a mere whimper.
In his time, most things he touched turned into gold. He became as popular as the Coca-Cola bottle. He was known everywhere and was more popular than most world presidents. In our school, every music group mimicked Michael Jackson. At the then University of Ife, one young man became famous on campus for his dexterous performance of Michael Jackson in “Beat it”. He is the same Femi Elufowoju who’s currently doing Nigeria proud as an actor in the elite theater of London’s West End. Michael was every child’s ultimate idol. Even for those of us who grew up in rural settings, and had no television sets at home, we knew this boy who danced better than James Brown. His name resonated like Iraqi bombs, exploding beyond boundaries.
This was the main cause of his problems. Success breeds more sorrow than joy. There is the intrusion of privacy. The financial demands of trying to put up an appearance. The envy of peers, and the subject of sibling rivalries. It was impossible to ignore Michael, whether you hated or loved him. To describe him as an icon was an understatement. Everything around him was big news. He was never going to live a normal life, like you and I. He was sentenced to his own prison, and would never be able to break free.
Michael lived in a society where the policy was everyone for himself and God for us all. He was a lonely child. He started life too early. And fame and fortune beyond imagination chased him. He was haunted by both. They became his albatross. He had to wear a mask to go out. He was said to have experimented with all manner of weird disguises. He earned the acronym, Wacko Jacko. He was easy prey for both genuine and counterfeit extortionists. They found all manner of excuses to take his money, and practically took him to the cleaners.
Michael lived and was sustained on maximum hype. He regularly reinvented both his person and his career. From being an innocent Black kid, he transfigured into a white ghost, who became whiter than snow. It was speculated that the record labels that made incredible fortunes off him had encouraged him to engage in bleaching away his blackness, a terrible habit that would later become an incurable obsession. It probably worked initially. But it soon became a tragic flaw in his persona.
Those who wanted any reason to detest him found perfect grounds for merciless assaults. He was insulted and abused. His unusual love for children was another sore point. He was called a child molester. Who knows? Neither you nor I were eye-witnesses. Such stories abound about newsmakers everywhere. As a devotee, we accepted him warts and all. He was human after-all. I learnt a lot from his life. That success would never guarantee happiness. That money would never buy peace. That your friends would rather watch you die when you get into trouble than offer a helping hand.
All those shedding crocodile tears now obviously saw Michael in his various stages of dilapidation – that those who can never match your talents would always attack your efforts. That at the end of it all, all is vanity indeed. Human beings are always quick to judge others. They leave the log in their eyes and chase the speck in that of others. Michael this, Michael that, was all we heard. Now that he’s dead, may be they’ll leave him alone, and allow the dead to bury their dead.
The problems were just too many for Michael. And the burden must have been too heavy to bear. It is difficult to imagine how he even lived for this long. He had marital problems. He had acute financial problems. From being one of the richest men in showbiz history, he became a pauper, as poor as a church rat. His grace to grass story was one of the most frightening examples of the fall of man. It could not have been easy. It was as if he had no family, and no friend.
The man had helped to raise money for the world, but the world failed to raise money for him, in his time of dire need. They watched his life collapse while everyone minded his own business. This is usually the tragedy of great people. They are often seen as the supermen who can solve all problems alone. But my illiterate mum knew better, and used to warn that there is a thin chord holding the heart to the human body. It is just too fragile.
Die-hard fans like me were hoping for a miracle that would teleport Michael back to his original state, when he was that adorable kid, and everyone thought he was older than Michael. Michael had that childlike innocence that made him vulnerable. But he was awesome. The world was not big enough for his stage. Music was his life and we had all foolishly believed that he could live, sing and dance forever. We followed his every move, shared in his triumphs, and suffered in his pains. He was human, very human. He had his foibles, like all mortals do. He tried to keep to himself a lot, and came out of his shrine only when necessary. He was called the weird one. He had to be. His life was too extraordinary and too sensational.
I was always hoping to meet him, one on one. And even dreamt of bringing him to Nigeria to live under our protection, when his troubles became too suffocating to watch. We toyed with asking the Ooni of Ife or the Alaafin of Oyo to make him an African Chief and get our government to turn him into our national treasure. That would have been feasible in a land that understood the power of entertainment and tourism. But one Arab tycoon stole him to Bahrain, where I believe life must have been very miserable for him. He was just too broke, and was facing certain humiliation of unimaginable proportions.
The bailiffs were after him like bullets. Before his very eyes, his prized possessions were auctioned. His Neverland Ranch, which was his recreation of paradise on earth, became a dead place and he had to give up the ownership of this private sanctuary. By the time the relationship between him and his Arab friend broke down, and he had to return Los Angeles, the damage had been done. He was forced to move into a rented apartment. Just imagine, from living in paradise to living in the pit of hell. It is better imagined than experienced.
What I admired most about him was how he kept readjusting to his excruciating conditions. He accepted his fate with uncommon equanimity. He was determined to prove that he wasn’t finished. He travelled to London recently to promote his forthcoming world tour. He needed to disappoint the cynics who thought he was down and flat-out. His plans were going fine. He had sold a record 750,000 tickets for his concerts. For him, the shows were meant to be the grand finale to an incredible career, the sort we are not likely to see again in our generation.
Also, he was working hard to leave a worthy legacy, and a formidable empire for his family, especially his children. He was said to have written hundreds of songs which he never performed, but were meant to be released only after his death. He was a workaholic. He probably died working. He didn’t want his fans to be disappointed in him. They were the reason for his existence. We meant everything to him, just as he meant everything to us.
You don’t have to be a doctor to know he must have died of exhaustion. The London concert was meant to be his final farewell to the world. He had gone as far as getting a personal trainer to beef him up for the tour. His existence depended on proving this ultimate point. It was a dangerous fixation that would prove fatal. He had been off-stage for too long. Unknown to him, age was no longer on his side. Everything that has a beginning must have an end. He did not accept the verdict of God. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh. It was time to go and the time to be set free.
The elephant collapsed two nights ago. I cried like a baby. My wife had always found my love for Michael Jackson very strange. If she did not know me well, she may have suspected me of unprintable inclinations. I had wished Fela truly kept death in his pouch. We would have begged him to keep Michael for us forever. But Fela himself was killed by death. It is one debt we all owe. Sooner or later, the king of all bailiffs must come, and take possession of all. This is the reason we must do our best and leave the world better than we met it.

Featured

Shalina Healthcare Launches Franchise Drive to Bridge Nigeria’s Diagnostics Testing Services’ Gap

Published

2 days ago

June 18, 2026

Eric

At a landmark two-day summit in Abuja, Africa’s fastest-growing diagnostics chain unveiled a hub-and-spoke franchise model promising a bold target of 500 Points of Care across Nigeria in next 3 years.

Nigeria is losing more than one million citizens every year — not to untreatable disease, but to a healthcare system that cannot tell patients what is wrong with them in time. That is the stark figure Shalina Diagnostics placed before an audience of pharmacists, doctors, clinic operators, and investors gathered this week in Abuja for the company’s inaugural Franchise Partners Meet.

The event, spanning two days at the nation’s capital, marked the most public and ambitious statement yet from a company that three years ago set out to do what no pan-African private operator has managed: build a standardised, affordable, technology-backed chain of diagnostic laboratories across Nigeria, and eventually across the continent.

Speaking to delegates, Shalina Diagnostics CEO Mr. Nalin Singla framed the problem in three simple facts: there are not enough labs; the premium chains that do exist are priced out of reach for the common man; and local labs lack the trust, the consistency, and the fast turnaround that patients and clinicians depend on.

“One million-plus Nigerians die every year due to lack of quality and timely testing. This is a problem the market cannot ignore.”

– Abbas Virji, MD, Shalina Healthcare

The company’s answer is a hub-and-spoke model it based on 3 pillars : Quality, Affordability, Availability. Under the model, franchise partners operate small patient-facing collection centres and labs, gathering samples which are then processed at Shalina’s central reference laboratories equipped with advanced diagnostic technology. Results are returned electronically with agreed turnaround times.

Shalina Healthcare Managing Director Mr. Abbas Virji, who first conceived the diagnostics arm after COVID-19 exposed the country’s testing deficit, told the summit that the network effect of scale is the key to making affordability sustainable. “By having more collection points and more scale, we can achieve lower prices for testing. The power of the community coming together, having one system — that is how we solve this.”

A BUSINESS CASE BUILT FOR ENTREPRENEURS

For aspiring franchise partners, the numbers Shalina presented were designed to dispel the notion that healthcare is an expensive sector to enter. A collection centre can pay back within three months and a full-service satellite lab achieves payback within six months, with the potential to scale as the network grows.

“You bring the location. We bring the lab. That is the entire model.”

Nalin Singla, CEO, Shalina Diagnostics

A 27-YEAR LEGACY THAT COMMANDS TRUST

Shalina Diagnostics does not arrive in Nigeria as an unknown quantity. Shalina Diagnostics is a company launched by Shalina Healthcare, a group that has been manufacturing and distributing medicines across Africa for more than four decades, operating in 18 countries with 108 distribution depots on the continent. In Nigeria alone, the parent company has been present for 27 years, touching the lives of 40% Nigerians through 17,000 healthcare professionals, running a one-billion-tablet factory in Lagos, and more than 150 products registered with NAFDAC. The diagnostics business, now three years old, already has over 30 locations in 4 countries.

Ms. Opeyemi Akinyele, Managing Director of Shalina Healthcare Nigeria, told the summit that the diagnostics expansion is a natural extension of a mission the company has pursued since 1999. “We are anchored in three pillars — Quality, Affordability, Availability — and we are committed to delivering better health outcomes for every Nigerian.”

The company counts household names among its Nigerian pharmaceutical brands — Shal’Artem, Ibucap, Germol, Epiderm — and has earned the trust of the Pharmaceutical council of Nigeria and the Nigerian Medical Association, while the manufacturing facility has earned the commendation of NAFDAC & The House Committee onAIDS, TB and Malaria (ATM). That institutional credibility, the company argues, is something no start-up franchise competitor can replicate.

THE SCIENCE CASE: WHY DIAGNOSTICS CANNOT WAIT

The clinical argument for the summit was made by Dr. S.A. Sani, Associate Professor of Surgery and Consultant Surgeon at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, who laid out in unambiguous terms why access to diagnostics is not a luxury but a prerequisite for modern medicine. “Diagnostics affect approximately 70 percent of all healthcare decision-making,” Dr. Sani told delegates. “They guide prevention, screening, treatment, and monitoring. Without them, clinicians are flying blind.”

Article contributed by Vincent Ikuomola, a health correspondent based in Abuja

Photo: From left: Chief Operating Officer Shalina Diagnostics, Mr. Gaurav Bahl, MD Shalina Healthcare Nigeria, Opeyemi Akinyele, Global Head Commercial, Shalina Diagnostics, Jayant Rajani, Group Managing Director, Shalina Healthcare, Mr. Abbas Virji, Chief Executive Officer Shalina Diagnostics, Mr. Nalin Singla and Country Head, Shalina Diagnostics, Manoj Walia, during the day 2 of Shalina Diagnostics Franchisee meeting in Abuja Tuesday Photo

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The Judicial Coup That Failed: How Desperate Power Mongering Manufactured the FHC Abuja Ambush Against Opposition Parties

Published

3 days ago

June 17, 2026

Eric

By Comrade Ibrahim Garba Wala (IG Wala)

The Handshake Movement has watched with a mix of amusement and deep patriotic concern the frantic, desperate, and legally hollow theatrical display performed today at the Federal High Court, Abuja, presided over by Justice Peter Lifu.

Let it be known to the perpetrators of this palace script, the underground puppet masters, and the anxious Nigerian public: this is not a judgment; it is a political hatchet job dressed in judicial robes, and its bubble is already burst.

1. Stripping the Mask.
The Fingerprints of the Office of the Chief of Staff
We in The Handshake Movement do not speak in parables. We deal in hard truth and intelligence. The so-called “National Forum of Former Legislators” who initiated this suit are not independent actors driven by constitutional purism. They are political mercenaries, specifically assembled from the network of individuals who served and worked closely with the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who today commands the office of the Chief of Staff to the President.

The strategy was simple but clumsy: use a shadow proxy group to establish plausible deniability for the presidency, while deploying the weight of the state to strangulate the political space. To make this collusion even more laughable, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, an official who is supposed to represent the entire federation, bizarrely abandoned all pretenses of neutrality in April and joined the matter as a plaintiff.

This is a textbook institutional gang-up. It is a manufactured, state-sponsored ambush designed to eliminate the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and other viable opposition platforms because the ruling elite is terrified of a fair contest in 2027.

2. The Legal Absurdity and Judicial Contempt!
To the legal mind, today’s pronouncement is a house of cards built on shifting sand. It completely collapses under the weight of two undeniable facts:

A. Overriding the Constitutional Regulator.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the only body legally empowered to register and evaluate political parties, filed an explicit counter-affidavit stating under oath that the ADC has met all constitutional thresholds, broken no laws, and that no basis for deregistration exists. For a trial judge to ignore the regulator’s own submission in favor of a proxy group’s political sentiments is an extraordinary judicial overreach.

B. Defying the Superior Court.
More egregiously, Justice Peter Lifu was fully aware of a subsisting order of the Court of Appeal issued on May 22, 2026, directing a strict stay of proceedings on this very matter. By choosing to flagrantly bypass an active directive from a superior court to rush out this verdict, the judge has engaged in a form of institutional rascality that undermines the entire hierarchy of the Nigerian judiciary.

3. The Panicked Subversion of a Failing Regime.
We must ask ourselves: Why the panic?
Why the desperation to wipe viable alternatives off the ballot right after they have successfully concluded their primaries and fields?

The answer lies in the streets of Nigeria. The incumbent administration is facing a massive, irreversible crisis of legitimacy. Having failed completely to secure the lives of our citizens from rampant insecurity, and having plunged millions of families into unprecedented, crushing economic hardship and starvation, the ruling party knows it cannot face the Nigerian electorate in 2027 on the merit of performance.
Because they cannot convince the voters, they have resorted to trying to choose the voters’ options for them. This judgment is a desperate attempt to manufacture a civilian dictatorship by judicial decree. They want to hand a second term to the incumbent without a contest.

Our Unshakeable Position: The Bubble is Burst.
The Handshake Movement warns those who are playing with this political fire to cease and desist immediately. Nigeria belongs to its citizens, not to the whims, caprices, and survival instincts of a panicked cabal operating from the corridors of power.

1. To the Judiciary.
We are immediately petitioning the National Judicial Council (NJC). A judge who actively disregards an appellate court’s stay of proceedings order cannot be allowed to bring the entire legal institution into disrepute for partisan convenience.

2. To our Candidates, Mobilisers, and Millions of Citizens.
Remain completely calm, resolute, and focused. This judgment is legally dead on arrival. The moment the appeal is entered and an immediate Stay of Execution is filed, this desperate ambush is frozen. Do not halt your campaigns. Do not slow down your grassroots structures.

3. To the Oppressors.
You have miscalculated. By trying to bury the opposition through backdoor maneuvering, you have only succeeded in unmasking your desperation and uniting the democratic forces of this country against you.

The ADC and the coalition of progressive movements will be on the ballot in 2027. Democracy cannot, and will not, be strangled in Nigeria.

Comrade Ibrahim Garba Wala (IG Wala) is the Lead Advocate, The Handshake Movement

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2027: Arise News Anchor Alleges Fresh Plot to Keep Atiku, Obi Off Ballot

Published

3 days ago

June 17, 2026

Eric

Arise Television anchor, Rufai Oseni, has alleged that there may be attempts to prevent key opposition figures, including Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, from appearing on the ballot for the 2027 general elections.

Oseni’s remark followed a Federal High Court judgment ordering the de-registration of some political parties.

Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja, on Monday, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Accord Party (AP), Action Peoples’ Party (APP), Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), and Action Alliance Party (AAP) over alleged constitutional breaches.

The judgment arose from a lawsuit filed by the Incorporated Trustees of the National Forum of Former Legislators (NFFL), which argued that the affected parties failed to meet constitutional and statutory electoral performance requirements necessary for continued recognition as political parties.

Justice Lifu subsequently barred INEC from recognising the affected parties, accepting nominations from them or permitting them to participate in activities related to the 2027 general elections.

The ruling, if upheld, could affect the political ambitions of several politicians, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is the ADC presidential flag-bearer, and Osun State governor Ademola Adeleke, who is seeking re-election on the platform of the Accord Party.

But speaking on Arise TV’s Morning Show on Tuesday, Oseni described the court ruling as a “test” of public reaction, warning that more actions could follow ahead of the next general election.

According to him, opposition parties such as the African Democratic Congress, ADC, and the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, should be cautious, claiming that efforts could be made to stop major figures from participating in the election.

Oseni argued that the judgment was part of a broader process aimed at shaping the political landscape ahead of 2027.

He maintained that the ruling came despite some of the affected parties having recorded electoral victories in recent elections.

He warned that Nigerians must remain vigilant to safeguard the country’s democracy, stressing the need for judicial reforms alongside efforts to tackle insecurity.

Oseni said: “NDC, ADC should be careful because there will be attempt, and this is me predicting now, to ensure that Obi, Atiku and other big contenders are not on the ballot.

“This that you saw yesterday is just a test. This is not the real place where the whole thing is going. This is me predicting now.

“You know before you have a show you test the microphone. They want to see the reactions of Nigerians. More is still coming.

“You can see how they carry a judgement when ADC won two House of Representatives seats in Kogi, one Kogi House of Assembly seat, APP one chairmanship seat in Jigawa, Zenith Labour party won several seats in Abia, but they still went ahead and issued judgement for deregistration after the Court of Appeal, a higher court, said it should stay on that.

“If we want to deal with this judicial rascality, can I tell you something? The judge that gave this judgment, nothing will happen to him. Nothing on this earth. They are just coming.

“And who is leading this group? Gbajabiamila. Have you forgotten what Gbajabiamila said on Hon Ajibade’s birthday? So they are just coming. This one is just a test. The next one they will do is the NDC.

“With the way they’re going, if Nigerians don’t shine their eyes when they will finally have this election, you will not have the major contenders in the ballot. This thing they have just done is to test reactions from Nigerians.

“I saw this thing coming. You know we are going into an election in which Atiku Abubakar is the only major candidate from the North. It’s not like the last one you have Kwankwaso that can split the Kano votes. And you have Peter Obi and general consensus that a lot of people are in abject penury, insecurity is raging hard.

“This is the beginning of many things. They are just testing the microphone. It’s engineered. More is coming. Nigerians, it is you that will save your democracy. Judicial reforms have become so important as insecurity in Nigeria.”