News

Osinbajo is No Saint, Consolidating for 2019 by Dr. Ismaila Farouk

Published

7 years ago

June 29, 2019

Eric

…The Cabals fight back and dirty

Contrary to the widely held belief that Vice President Osinbajo, a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a senior advocate of Nigeria, and a Professor of law is above board, a forensic analysis of his activities since he assumed office reveals that the VP has consistently abused his office, negating the principles of Federal Character and has systematically favored members of the Redeemed Church and his Yoruba tribe.

A first pointer to what was to become a pattern of this incestuous scheme was the nomination and subsequent appointment of Pastor Okey Enelamah, who was his Deputy and later successor at the RCCG, Banana Island, Lagos. Pastor Enelamahs appointment came as a shock to Nigerians because apart from the fact that he was Pastor Osinbajos successor at the Redeemed Church, he neither worked for President Buharis victory nor believed in staking for the success of the Nigerian Project. Most importantly, Pastor Osinbajo had pushed for the appointment of Pastor Enelamah as Minister of Finance against his benefactor Bola Tinubus choice of Wale Edun.

While Nigerians were trying to come to terms with the shock of Pastor Enelamahs nomination, VP Osinbajo took a step further in his nepotistic disposition in the setting up of his office and selection of personal staff. First, he chose his former colleague at the University of Lagos Ade Ipaye who was also his Special Adviser while he was Attorney General of Lagos to serve as his Chief of Staff. Unsurprisingly, Ade Ipaye hails from Ogun State, the VPs State of origin. He went on to relocate Laolu Akande, an indigene of Ogun State who was hibernating in New York to serve as his Media Adviser. For his Chief Economic Adviser, he appointed Ambassador Dipeolu also of Yoruba extraction. The VP didnt stop there, of his 10 Principal Officers in his office, 9 are from his Yoruba ethnic group! For a man who was elected to represent the interest of the entire Country, this is embarrassingly tragic indeed. It is on record that as Vice President, Atiku Abubakar had a plethora of southerners in his office: Chris Mamah, Onukaba Adinoyi Ojo,Tokunbo Adeola, Dr. Azuh Ndukwe, Phil Agbaso, Dr. Isu, etc. He did not concentrate appointments in his native North East.

While the VP was plotting as to how to corner power for his Yoruba Brethren and RCCG Members, he immediately at the onset of administration instructed Major Agencies of Government to patronize – his Law Firm SimmonsCoopers Partners. The Firm had a field day in the Ministry of Justice, NNPC Group, DPR, Ministry of Works, and virtually all the Parastatals in the Ministry of Trade and Investment. Curiously, the Managing Partner of SimmonsCooper Tunde Irekera, was recently appointed the Director General of the Consumer Protection Council. It is instructive to note that Tunde Irekera was the immediate past DG of the CPCs trusted adviser and his Law Firm SimmonsCooper Partners handled all the legal work in the Agency. This, however, didnt deter the VP from installing his stooge in the Agency.
More curious is the fact that while Pastor Enelamah implemented a major shakeup in the Agencies under his watch, he spared the grossly incompetent Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council Segun Awolowo who is a brother in law to the VP.

In their quest to colonize the Ministry of Trade and Investment, the VP appointed another of his stooge Yewande Sadiku, of Yoruba extraction as the Executive Secretary of Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, The strategy, is to appoint her Managing Director of the Bank of Industry so she can build his war chest. Nigerians are watching..

In his quest to perpetuate his ilk in Government, the VP has capitalised on the magnanimity of President Buharis implicit confidence in him to plant his,Yoruba and RCCG Brethren in Key Agencies of Government.

In a calculated attempt to corner the Countrys Sovereign Wealth Fund, the VP appointed his long standing crony Mr. Zeitlin as the Chairman of the Board of National Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment Authority despite the fact that Mr. Zeitlin was indicted by a New Delhi court in India. Not done with having control of the Sovereign Wealth Fund, the VP, in clear contravention of the provisions of the Pension Reform Act 2014, orchestrated the illegal dissolution of the Board of the National Pension Commission and appointed his crony, Funsho Doherty, as Chairman and two RCCG Brothers Benjamin Ovbiosu and Akinwale as Commissioners, in a flagrant violation of the Federal Character Principle which stipulates each Geo-Political Zone must have only one nominee on the Board.

Then again, the VP went ahead to appoint his RCCG Brother Mr. Okoh, a disgraced erstwhile banker as DG of the Bureau of Public Enterprise. It is important to state that the VPs Law Firm had retainership with the defunct New Nigeria Bank while Okoh was its Managing Director. Both men subsequently became Business associates. The ostensible reason why Mr. Okoh was sent to the BPE is to corner choice assets for the VP in the next round of privatization.

The list is endless. From INEC to NNPC, Non-Career Ambassadors to the management of critical Regulatory Agencies, the VP has surreptitiously embedded his lackeys in positions of authority against all known norms of equity, fairness, justice and Federal Character. Clearly the VP does not believe in the unity of the Nigerian State given his actions in the last 23 months. While he pretends not to have political aspirations, he has commenced covert campaigns for 2019 because he believes that President Buhari would not be in the position to contest at that time. It is public knowledge, for instance, that the VP has mandated a senior member of the RCCG leadership to mobilize and coordinate Christians in the Northern part of the Country with a view to driving his 2019 Presidential bid. This is a sinister plot that is unknown to the VPs benefactor and Godfather Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who is banking on the VP to hand over to him in 2019 in the event of President Buhari not running for a myriad of reasons.

Indeed, in what can be viewed as a strategy for building a financial war chest, the VP has pushed forward his Brother-In-Law and trusted aide Lanre Osibona to front for him in shady business transactions with multinationals in oil and gas, power and construction sectors, among others. The said Mr Osibona, who was a stranded IT Personnel in London is reportedly now hosting Champagne Parties in Abuja and other exotic cities around the world. It was gathered the Mr Osibona in his capacity as the Aide overseeing the VPs schedule, has been exchanging appointment times with juicy contracts. A case in point is the major contract that General Electric gave to a company fronting for Mr Osibona and the VP simply because the former was able to facilitate a meeting for the power sector players.

Not satisfied with cornering deals in the power sector, the VP and his stooge, Mr Osibona have in collaboration with the Minister of State Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu cornered all the juicy deals in the NNPC Group. They have also extended their inordinate greed to the Ministry of Niger Delta and the NDDC, where the VP has completely taken over the job of the Minster. While Nigerians were hailing the VP for his shuttle diplomacy to the Niger Delta States a few months ago, they were oblivious of the fact that he was actually going there to further his nest and fortify his war chest for 2019.

Nigerians should also not be blind to the fact that the extant raging battle between the VP and President Buharis Chief of Staff is grounded on the fact that the VP always embark on 3 times a week trips to Lagos with over 40 aides on each of their trip at tax payers expense and often fraudulent trips to Lagos using the Presidential Air Fleet and claiming bogus estacode. An infuriated Chief of Staff had to escalate this to President Buhari, hence the current power tussle in the villa.

Given the foregoing, the question Nigerians are asking is whether the self professed Pastor, Professor and Learned Senior Advocate is truly the saint he purports to be. The answer to this question can be situated in one of the VPs sermons at RCCG. In the said sermon, he admonished the congregation to refrain from worshipping the God of Baal and that they should instead worship the Almighty God. In todays parlance, the God of Baal symbolizes the God of Money and Power. It is also of silence in the face of injustice.. VP Osinbajo should please practice what he preaches..

Dr. Ismaila Farouk
Writes from Zamfara.

News

Gunmen Kill Driver, Abduct Passengers on Benin-Ore Expressway

Published

1 week ago

April 20, 2026

Eric

Gunmen suspected to be kidnappers have attacked a commercial bus operated by GUO Transport along the Benn-Ore expressway, killing the driver and abducting several passengers in what underscores Nigeria’s deepening insecurity on major highways.

Reports indicate that the assailants ambushed the South East-bound vehicle, opened fire on the driver, who died at the scene, and subsequently whisked away passengers to an unknown destination.

The incident is believed to have occurred along a notorious stretch of the highway linking the South-West to the South-South, long plagued by banditry and abductions.

While official confirmation from security agencies is expected, local sources and a circulating video showed that passengers might have forcefully been taken into nearby forests, a tactic commonly employed by kidnapping syndicates operating along the corridor. Similar attacks in the past have involved mass abductions, with victims later released after ransom payments.

News

Police Retirees Block Aso Rock Gate, Demand Action on Pension Scheme

Published

1 week ago

April 20, 2026

Eric

Some retirees of the Nigeria Police Force under the aegis of the Police Retired Officers Forum of Nigeria (PROF) have staged a protest at the Presidential Villa in Abuja demanding President Bola Tinubu sign the Police Exit Bill passed by the National Assembly in December 2025.

The bill seeks to withdraw the Nigeria Police Force from the Contributory Pension Scheme.

The protesters, under the scorching sun, walked from the Three Arms Zone in Abuja through the street in front of the Police Headquarters.

They carried placards with various inscriptions, in addition to the Nigerian flag and the flag of the Nigeria Police Force.

Led by its National Coordinator, CSP Raphael Irowainu, the protesters described the retention of the NPF in the Contributory Pension Scheme as fraudulent and illegal.

They also said the CPS is inhumane and obnoxious.

According to them, the protest seeks to prevail on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to give assent to the Police Exit Bill passed by the National Assembly on 4th December 2025 and transmitted to the President on 16th March 2026.

They said that when signed into law, the Act will totally exempt the police from what they called a “slavery and untimely death-inducing pension scheme.”

The protesters, accompanied by some of their spouses and children, also blocked Gate 8 leading into the Presidential Villa, causing obstruction to vehicular movement.

Efforts by Villa security personnel to dissuade them from the protest proved abortive as they insisted on seeing the President.

They laid their mats in front of the gate, singing songs of solidarity, while some of them lay on the floor.

As of the time of filing this report, no one from the Villa had addressed the protesters.

CSP Irowainu said that their main purpose is to prevail on President Tinubu to sign the bill exiting the Nigeria Police Force from the CPS, which he said has been passed and transmitted to him by the National Assembly.

He lamented that while other security agencies in the country such as the Army, Navy, Air Force, SSS and others have all been exited from the scheme, the police remain trapped in it.

“Our major aim here is to prevail on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to sign our bill—the bill exiting the police from the Contributory Pension Scheme—passed by the National Assembly on 4th December 2025 and transmitted to him on 16th March, 2026, into law, nothing more than that.

“The soldiers have been exited, the SSS has been exited, the Air Force has been exited, the Navy has been exited, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has been exited. The police, who are the father of them all, are trapped in this obnoxious Contributory Pension Scheme,” CSP Irowainu said.

It is not the first time retired officers are staging a protest over the CPS. In July last year, they demonstrated at the National Assembly to demand their removal from the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

The demonstrators, mostly elderly, stood in the rain holding placards and chanting anti-government songs.

Some of the retired police officers also besieged the Force Headquarters in Abuja to protest against the CPS.

Addressing the protesters at the time, the then Inspector General of Police, IGP Kayode Egbetokun, said the welfare of retired police officers was being addressed, but that the exit of the Force from the Contributory Pension Scheme was not something that could be implemented immediately.

He, however, advised the leaders of the protest to refrain from spreading misinformation, stressing that the Force could not abandon its own.

News

IGP Disu Orders Ban on Illegal Checkpoints Nationwide

Published

2 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

Eric

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Olatunji Disu, has issued a sweeping directive to Commissioners of Police nationwide, ordering an immediate end to extortion, illegal checkpoints, harassment of citizens and other misconducts.

He declared that restoring public confidence in the Nigeria Police Force is now a top operational priority.

The order was contained in a signal to members of the police management team including Commissioners of Police (CP) and other operational commanders.

In the marching order, the IGP acknowledged the deep mistrust many Nigerians feel toward officers, describing it as “painful” and unacceptable.

He said citizens now fear encounters with the police as much as they fear criminals, warning that such a reputation cannot continue under his leadership.

According to him, the directive marks the beginning of a determined effort to rebuild discipline within the police and re-establish its legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

The order specifically outlawed the routine collection of money from motorists on highways, the operation of unauthorised checkpoints, and the practice of arresting citizens and forcing them to withdraw cash from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) or Point of Sale (PoS) devices.

The IGP also condemned the use of officers for private duties in homes and businesses, describing such deployments as abuse of authority and a violation of existing presidential directives on VIP protection.

Officers were further directed to comply strictly with approved dress codes, remain clean-shaven and adhere to established uniform regulations.

The police boss warned that harassment of citizens in any form would no longer be tolerated, stressing that the Nigerian public is not the enemy of the Force but the reason for its existence. At the same time, he assured officers that the institution would equally defend them against intimidation or disrespect from members of the public, noting that the dignity of the uniform must be protected on both sides.

Holding command leaders directly accountable, the IGP said Commissioners of Police would henceforth be responsible for misconduct within their jurisdictions.

He ordered them to demonstrate measurable improvements in discipline within seven days or face formal queries and possible transfers where lapses persist.

He emphasised that supervisory failure would no longer be ignored at any level of leadership. To ensure compliance, the directive introduced new oversight measures, including independent monitoring of field operations and public reporting channels through which citizens can lodge complaints directly with Force Headquarters.

A Citizens Commendation System will also be established to recognise officers who demonstrate professionalism, with monthly honours to be drawn from public nominations across commands.

Describing the directive as a decisive turning point, the police chief said Nigerians have grown weary of promises and now expect visible change. He ordered all commanders to brief personnel under their authority within 72 hours and confirm compliance in writing, declaring that the process of cleaning up the Force has begun and will be sustained until public trust is restored.