Olaniran News Network ONN

  Late Bolanle Raheem The euphoria that greeted this year Christmas has turned sour for the family, friends and well wishers of a Nigerian pregnant lawyer, Mrs Bolanle Raheem who was gruesomely murdered by a Nigerian police officer simply known as ASP Drambi Vandi. Mrs Raheem who was returning to her home from the Sunday Christmas service was said to be in the car with her husband and her child when the trigger-happy, blood-letting Drambi snuffed life out of her and her unborn babies as late Bolanle who was seven month pregnant was expecting twins according to the statement released by her family. According to the information obtained by the Olaniran News Network (ONN), ASP Vandi and his rogue officers who were attached to the notorious Ajiwe police station had tried to stop Raheem’s vehicle for reasons yet to be known. ASP Vandi asked them to park and Bolanle’s husband who was driving the car needed the vehicle in front of him to move so that he could park well, and immediately the ro

Kperogi  Over the last few days, several video clips of Bola Tinubu’s disturbingly cringeworthy verbal mishaps during speaking engagements have flooded social media platforms and have caused me to wonder if we’re witnessing the real-time mental decline of Nigeria’s leading presidential candidate who could be president next year. Because Tinubu has also been the victim of a well-coordinated blizzard of carefully designed falsehoods in the last few days, I wasn’t sure if the videos I saw were digitally manipulated to undermine him. So, I decided to look up the longer versions of the videos on YouTube on Friday before writing this column. The clip that particularly provoked intense feelings of anxiety in me was one in which Tinubu momentarily departed from his prepared speech in Owerri, Imo State, on Thursday and spoke in a language that was neither English nor Yoruba, the only two languages he speaks. I didn’t believe the clip was real, so I checked TVC News’ live feed of the event, whic

  Pa Reuben Fasoranti In 1996, his car riddled with bullet holes inflicted by General Sani Abacha’s goons aimed at assassinating him, Yoruba Afenifere leader, Senator Abraham Adesanya, had made a bullseye statement. That statement appears to explain the raging furore among the leadership of the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, today. Adesanya’s father had twenty children. He was the only one initiated into the awo secret cult by the older Adesanya. As such, Senator Adesanya was known to be highly fortified with the powers of his ancestors. It was a time when the demonic Nigerian state under Abacha sought to wipe out any dissent to its infernal rule. The then Lagos police commissioner had inspected the spatter of bullet holes on Adesanya’s car and concluded that no human being could have survived that assassination attempt. Alarmed and apprehensive of further associating with Adesanya, his driver, who survived the assassination attempt with him, had immediately eloped, sacked

  It’s very rare to see Dino Melaye, a former Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial district and the AAC Presidential Candidate Omoyele Sowore at the same venues but the two were brought together by the night event of tributes organized for the late human rights activist Ariyo Dare-Atoye. Dino Melaye at the event donated in cash the sum of five hundred thousand Naira with the pledge to be donating the same amount every year.  Shortly after Dino announced his cash donation, Sowore takes a swipe at the way Nigerian politicians are carrying large chunk of cash around especially Naira notes following the Central Bank’s decision to redesign the Naira notes.  With Dino’s countenance in the video, it’s obvious Omoyele Sowore’s pesky jibe makes him uncomfortable.

  Atiku Atiku is a conflicted bigot, consumed by inordinate ambition. He remains a bare-foot slave to an empire the Nigeria of the twenty-first century has outgrown. In 2011, he battled Jonathan for PDP ticket, on the argument that the ‘North has not used up its two term slots’, following Yar’Adua death in office on May 5, 2010. (Forget that he stubbornly refused entreaties not to go to court when the same Umar Yar’Adua was declared winner in 2007 in the spirit of ‘northern solidarity’ and fought like a wounded lion up to Supreme Court.) But he got a shellacking at the PDP primaries in 2011. In 2014, he, still driven by that inordinate ambition, again led the rebellion of nPDP to evacuate PDP in protest of Jonathan’s bid for 2nd (3rd???) term; that it was ‘the turn of power to shift to the North’, for the ‘sake of justice and equity’. In 2018, realising he stood no chance against President Buhari’s winning 2nd term in 2019, he migrated back to PDP. Of course, he suffered another shella

  Greek mythology, in the Aeschylus tragedy called Agamemnon, told the story of Cassandra. She was a pretty damsel highly sought after by the god, Apollo. The god promised that if Cassandra gave in to his advances, he would give her the power of prophecy. Though the damsel accepted the proposal and was immediately proclaimed blessed with the gift by Apollo, Cassandra refused to return the affection. Enraged by this insolence, since the god Apollo lacked the power to revoke a divine pronouncement, he placed a curse on Cassandra, to wit that her prophecies would never be believed. The effect of the curse was so sweeping that even when Cassandra accurately predicted the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon, her warnings went unbelieved and unheeded. So, when people like Nigerians are torn between believing a government that specialises in offering condolences when they are killed by terrorists, and a government known for proactively guiding its nationals from obsequies, such people can

 APC/OYETOLA'S "O'LULE" PETITION AND THE "PEPPER DEM" REPLIES OF INEC, ADELEKE AND PDP   MR. GBOYEGA OYETOLA Outgoing GOVERNOR,  OSUN STATE I think I can take a moment now to give an insight into and share my personal thoughts about the election petition filed by Governor Oyetola and his APC to challenge the outcome of the Osun 2022 Governorship election successfully conducted by INEC, thereby challenging the victory of the PDP's candidate, Senator Ademola Jackson Nurudeen ADELEKE at the said Osun 2022 governorship polls. For reason of strategy, technical plan and most especially keeping faithfulness to the admonition of the highly revered Learned Silks leading the Team of counsel for INEC, ADELEKE and the PDP, I have held my peace ✌and kept silent all the while, despite pressure from some quarters calling on me to share my personal view on the petition filed by Oyetola and his APC. I think the replies filed by the respective respondents are now in the p

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth is dead. Details later…

Lasisi Olagunju  Olúségun Obásanjó's mother told him at the very beginning that if pounded yam is not much, it must be made hard and tough (iyán tí kò pò, ó gbodò yi). Read his biographies. Ashabi Obasanjo Bankole had only him and his sister, Adunni. Her hearth had enough embers, her mortar and pestle had diligence but her yam was small and she knew it. So, she did extra work in the making of her Olusegun's pounded yam. The result is the mouthful which Nigeria has had of the soldier since 1975 – or rather, since he journeyed into the army in 1958. I am not sure if I meet Obasanjo tomorrow I will greet him. At least, if I can avoid him, I will. And that won't be because I was not trained to greet elders. I will avoid him because this elder I greeted twice in the past and twice I got the same response: He snubbed me – and you know what snub means: ignore, rebuff, repulse. Those are not nice words. On each of those occasions, what I felt was that the sun should not ignore a vi

  Owei Lakemfa THE news went round. The Federal Government and striking lecturers in the country’s public universities organised under the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, were meeting on Tuesday, August 16, 2022. Not a few hoped that the six-month strike by the lecturers would be resolved. But the outcome was as disappointing as the cavalier way the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, presented the report of the meeting to the nation. Also, it does not appear that the Buhari government is dealing honestly with the country on this issue. Let us examine two contradictory claims made at a press conference in the Presidential Palace by Minister Adamu a day after the botched meeting. First, he said: “All contentious issues between government and ASUU had been settled except the quest for members’ salaries for the period of strike be paid, a demand that Buhari has flatly rejected.” The brazen claim here is that all contending issues between government and the lecturers have

 TO MEND A BROKEN NATION: THE EASTER METAPHOR (ON NIGERIA): (Easter Message by Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, Diocese of Sokoto, April 17th, 2022) 1: Hello brothers and sisters in Christ, men and women of goodwill everywhere, I send you hearty greetings and felicitations as we celebrate the risen Christ. Easter is here again. For all Christians, Easter is a metaphor for our lives as individuals, families, communities or nations. Easter is a metaphor for how shame, scandal, powerlessness, weakness, and opprobrium suddenly transform into glory, honour, pre-eminence, laudation and applause. It is a fulfilment of what the Master himself had foretold when He said, ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain, but if it dies, it bears much fruit’ (Jn. 12: 24). And the Psalmist had said, ‘Those who sow in tears will sing when they reap.’ (Ps. 126:5). 2: The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are central to the Christian faith and yet, as St Paul said,