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Momodu: The Babalawo of Nigerian Media

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Sixty-five today, the publisher of Ovation International, Chief Ayobamidele Momodu, is a pride, not just of the media but the nation. Olawale Olaleye writes.

Chief Ayobamidele Momodu’s story of grass to grace is public knowledge. All of the information is already out there. This is because he discusses his life and its intricate trajectory at every given opportunity with glee and self-esteem.

At the punch of a button, you’d have all you need to knowabout this proud media guru and indigene of Edo State, who chose to “naturalise” in Yorubaland, making Ile-Ife, the source, his birth station. Little wonder, his other names include Ojutelegan Ajani.

With a bit of mild activism spurred by instinctive resentment to abuse of any sort, this celebrated writer has conquered where many could not even dare. And, where many had failed, Bob Dee, as everyone calls him, is not one to be stifled by the failures of others. He’d rather make his own mistakes and learn from them.

His indomitable spirit, typical of the average Nigerian – man or woman – who carries him or herself with rare confidence and self-worth, is also why life has been unable to relegate him in the scheme of things.

He does not only catch up with trends in journalism and communications in general, but he always makes a conscious decision at self-development, just to stay active on the job, timelessly. That he has remained relevant for several decades is not a function of accident.

His willingness and readiness to help others, no matter what the issues are, is one trait that speaks to his individuality, and clearly a reflection of his thorough upbringing and the tolerant Yoruba environment, where life began for him – diped in the milk of kindness and their cultural hospitality.

With an enduring voyage on the media landscape, cutting across imposing brands and years of solid experience before setting out to do something different, not before building solid and expensive contacts in this multidisciplinary calling, it simply belies logic that anyone at all would question whether or not Bob Dee is a journalist?

With tongue-in-cheek and evident cynicism, an aide to the Minister of the FCT, LereOlayinka, during a recent interview on the Arise News Television, questioned Bob Dee’s journalism background. For convenient mischief, he’d rather he was a Babalawo because he studied Yoruba as his first degree. The effrontery alone is appalling!

A graduate of Yoruba and Master’s in English Literature from the University of Ife, (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife in 1982, Momodu got his first media job as staff writer with African Concord magazine, owned by the late Chief MKO Abiola, and later transferred to the Weekend Concord as a pioneer staff.

This graduate of Yoruba wrote the first cover story for the newspaper in March 1989, and contributed to other titles such as the National Concord, Sunday Concord, Business Concord and of course, his turf, the Yoruba newspaper, Isokan.

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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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