Olaniran News Network ONN

Jideofor Adibe  The 2023 BRICS Summit held at the Sandton Convention Centre, South Africa, from 22-24 August 2023, has come and gone. It was the 15th edition of the annual international conference normally attended by the heads of state or heads of government of the six member countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The Chairman of the 15th edition of the Conference and South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa also invited the leaders of 67 countries to the summit of which several honoured the invitation. Nigeria sent its Vice President, Kashim Shettima. BRIC is an acronym coined in 2001 by then Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill in a research paper that underlined the growth potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China. The grouping began to evolve as an informal club in 2009 as an initiative of Russia. South Africa became the first beneficiary of the group’s expansion in 2010 when it was admitted into its fold, changing the acronym from BRIC to BRICS. South

Lasisi Olagunju Today's Yorubaland is a very reluctant part of Nigeria. But it is also the most conflicted of the parts. Its goals are difficult to define - even by itself. A friend from the non-Yoruba part of Edo State asked me at the weekend if the serial declaration of today as a public holiday in the South-West was not a step towards self-determination. I laughed. There is actually supposed to be a Yoruba national day but there has been no agreement when it should be. Instead, four of the six states in the South-West are on holiday today in celebration of what they called Ìsèse Day. Outsiders may not understand what this represents; even many of us inside do not know what purpose the Day serves beyond the justice of "what is good for Muslims and Christians should be good for those who are neither." The truth is, there is a disconnect between today's Ìsèse Day and majority of Yoruba people's contemporary concerns and interests.  Should today's Ìsèse Day be

  Olu Fasan One of the popular myths around Bola Tinubu, stemming from his time as governor of Lagos State, was that he had an uncanny ability to pick competent teams of technocrats to run the affairs of state. Indeed, some genuinely wanted Tinubu to be president and “run Nigeria as he ran Lagos.” But the myths have busted since he became president. Not only has he muddled through policy after policy, the famed gift for talent-spotting gravely eluded him as he unveiled a middling cast of ministers, characterised by two fundamental flaws.  First, Tinubu will have the largest cabinet in Nigeria’s political history. With 48 ministers and over 20 special advisers and senior special assistants, with cabinet-level status, Tinubu will have the most bloated and unwieldy cabinet of any past president. Second, he will be the most prebendal president in Nigeria’s history. Of course, politics and governance in Nigeria have always been based on patronage and clientage networks, as Richard Joseph po

Late Pastor Odukoya He lost his first wife Pastor Bimbo Odukoya in a plane crash and lost the second one to cancer. His world had shattered with tragedy after tragedy. He was inconsolably devastated. He couldn’t hold it anymore. Pastor Odukoya was the General Overseer of the Fountain of Life Church in Lagos with membership strength of over 8,000 worshippers. Born in 1956, Odukoya married his first wife Bimbo, a charismatic televangelist in 1984 but her life was cut short when she died in a plane crash in 2005 at the age of 45. Late Bimbo Odukoya Pastor Taiwo later married his second wife Rosemary Simangele Odukoya in 2010 but the marriage was also cut short when the 47 year old Rosemary died of cancer in November 9, 2021. Late Simangele Odukoya Few weeks after the death of his second wife, Pastor Taiwo Odukoya’s twin sister Kehinde also died and it became unbearable for him to hold himself together. Pastor Odukoya died in the US on August 7, 2023 from a yet-to-be disclosed cause.

  Tinubu It should by no means be surprising that the 2023 general elections have unravelled in the most controversial, heart-rending, and unprecedentedly flawed manner that they have. At the decisive juncture that ushered in the elections, Nigeria had a choice between dangerously seeing through a sham or courageously confronting the intractable conundrum of its existence. As I had observed in the past, the former, which became the decided course of action, promised nothing but the usual gratification for the ever-remorseless perpetuators of this tragic enterprise. Now that Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the President of Nigeria, however contested his position may be, Nigerians must decide how they want to outlast this rogue wave. It is clear that, on the one hand, we have at the helm a steersman whose corporeal existence is shrouded in nauseating opaqueness. The gracelessly falsified biography of Tinubu imbues us with zero confidence as to the uprightness of his character and intentions. On the

Ajuri Ngelale  Brain and beauty, a highly civilized Ajuri has been on the spotlight for the past three years when the calls to have Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu replaced were heightened by Nigerians on the social media. His oratorical skill is so phenomenal that messages were flying everywhere for Ajuri to come on board to occupy the position that would boost the image of Nigeria at home and abroad.  Happily, Ajuri himself has proven to be the cynosure of all eyes during the electioneering campaigns, showcasing a vigorous support for Mr Bola Ahmed Tinubu to emerge as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Whenever Ajuri speaks, he holds the audience spellbound with his power of eloquence.  Even though some Nigerians call him a cloned version of Lai Mohammed who goes by the moniker Lie or Liar Mohammed, Ajuri has the persuasive power of presenting black as white in a polite way that would make you apologize to him even if that black still remains black. An investigative reporter,