Lifestyle

Igboho Sets for Nigeria after Release by Benin Republic

By Web News 485

Yoruba nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, also known as Sunday Igboho, has regained freedom after over two years of incarceration in the Republic of Benin.

A video clip showing Mr Adeyemo announcing his freedom and appreciating his supporters circulated on social media platforms on Sunday.

“I am now free to return to Nigeria and visit any country in the world,” he also told Tribune Newspaper.

“I have fulfilled all the legal conditions attached to my bail a few years back and I am coming home to Nigeria, my country of origin, any moment from now.

“I can confirm to you that I am now free to come back to Nigeria. There is no legal encumbrance again,” he added.

Mr Adeyemo was decked in white and seated on a plastic chair as he read out a prepared speech in the video clip circulating online on Sunday.

He thanked “sons and daughters” of Yoruba all over the world for their support, and also singled out a leading figure of the Yoruba nation agitation, Banji Akintoye; Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, and former President Olusegun Obasanjo, for their roles in securing his release.

He also acknowledged the sympathetic gestures he received over the death of his mother during his incarceration. He said that her body was still being kept in the morgue for him to return to give her a befitting burial.

Mr Adeyemo came to the limelight after he, in January 2021, issued a seven-day ultimatum to Fulani residents in Igangan in Ibarapa Local Government Area of Oyo State to leave to check kidnappings allegedly perpetrated in the area by herders linked to the ethnic group.

He would later lead a mob to burn down the house of the Seriki Fulani of Oyo State, Saliu Abdulkadri, in the community.

He soon became a target of the State Security Service (SSS) as he became more aggressive in his campaigns against herdsmen accused of kidnapping in South-west states, and agitation for the Yoruba nation.

He touted his agitation as the only way to liberate Yoruba people from insufferable attacks and being shortchanged in the Nigeria nation.

He was declared wanted by the State Security Service (SSS) over his agitation for Yoruba nation sovereignty.

SSS operatives would invade Sunday Igboho’s house, located in Soka, Ibadan, capital of Oyo State was invaded around 1:00 a.m. on 1 July 2021.

The spokesperson for the SSS, Peter Afunnaya, later said seven AK 47 rifles, pump action guns and 5,000 rounds of ammunition and other weapons were recovered from the apartment.

His vehicles, including his G-wagon, and Prado Jeep, and some valuable properties including furniture, and windows were destroyed.

He said security operatives recovered the weapons after a “hot gun duel between them and Igboho’s guards”. The SSS also admitted that two of Mr Igboho’s men were killed in the process while a security agent was shot in the right hand and hospitalised.

Mr Igboho later said the weapons were not his and that security operatives planted ammunition in his house to implicate him.

The secret police also declared Mr Igboho wanted.

On 19 July 2021, the campaigner for Yoruba self-determination was arrested in neighbouring Cotonou, Benin Republic, while trying to travel to Germany.

A local newspaper in the neighbouring country, Banouto, quoted Beninise authorities as saying Mr Igboho was nabbed at Cardinal Bernardin International Airport in Cotonou.

He was “disembarked from his plane, arrested by the Beninese police while he was trying to travel to Germany and then transferred to the Cotonou Criminal Brigade.”

On 17 September 2021, a judge of the Oyo State High Court awarded N20 billion cost “as exemplary and aggravated damage” against the State Security Services (SSS) over the invasion of Igboho’s residence on 1 July 2021.

However, the Court of Appeal in Ibadan in August 2022 nullified the N20 billion judgement because the lower court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.

Premium Times / Titilayo Kupoliyi

Subscribe to our Telegram and YouTubeChannels also join our Whatsapp Update Group

Lifestyle

Wole Soyinka Centre Sharpens Acumen of Women Journalists

By Web News 628

By Olufisoye Adenitan

The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism has trained twelve female Journalists on leadership skills in the Newsroom and Newsroom Engagements to improve women’s adequate representation in the media space.

The training Programme was implemented under the Report Women Female Reporters Leadership Programme, Champion Building Edition for Female Reporters in Nigeria 

The facilitators drawn from the media and legal faculty were, the Executive Director of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre WARDC, Dr Abiola Afolabi-Akiyode, the president of Lawyers Alert Nigeria, Rommy Mom, Director of News TVC News, Mrs Stella Din -Jacob and the Executive Director, Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, Mrs Motunrayo Alaka.

In her opening remarks at the training in Lagos, the Executive Director of WSCIJ, Mrs Motunrayo Alaka said the idea behind the project was to build the capacity of female Journalists that would be great leaders in the newsrooms to spur the changes and stereotypes in the industry

In her presentation on skills needed for investigative reporting and storytelling with a woman’s lens that compels action, the Director of TVC  News, Mrs Stella Din-Jacob emphasized that female journalists needed to be deliberate and ensure women sources in the news for adequate representation.

Also, the Executive Director, of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre WARDC, Dr Abiola Afolabi- Akiyode, said female reporters needed to break away from the stereotypes and Perceptions the society imposed on them but they should take charge and be intentional in disrupting the media spaces.

In his own submission, the president of Lawyers Alert in Nigeria, Rommy Mom emphasized the need for female journalists to be on their toes in reporting issues of women and Girls from the perceptive of the law.

Rommy Mom mentioned that laws are in place to check abuses against the rights of women but journalists must be deliberate to hold policymakers accountable to ensure the implementation of the laws 

Some of the female journalists, who spoke with Radio Nigeria, Fortunate Ozo Of NTA, Blessing Oladunjoye of BONEWS, Sarah Ayeku of TVC, Ijeoma Okereke Adagba of CJID and Victoria Bamas of ICIR, said they would be intentional in reporting issues of women and redirecting their reportage towards changing the narratives of the stereotypes against women .

They promised to interface with other women in the newsroom to ensure a good working relationships that would enhance productivity 

 Olufisoye Adenitan of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, Positive FM Akure was part of the participants for the 2023 report Women FRLP Fellowship.

Subscribe to our Telegram and YouTube Channels also join our Whatsapp Update Group 

Exceptional Africans

Wole Soyinka Bags Cambridge Varsity Honorary Degree

By Web News 834 Post a comment

One of the most prestigious honours in the world, the Cambridge varsity honorary degree was on Wednesday, conferred on Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, alongside nine others “who have made outstanding achievements in their respective fields,” the varsity’s official site noted.

 Other recipients Recipients of the Cambridge’s honorary degree, aside Soyinka, include Ghanian philosopher, Professor Kwame Appiah; literary scholar, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr, Developmental Biologist, Professor Edith Heard; Music Composer, Dr Judith Weir; and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Dr Ali Smith.

The ceremony, which took place at the varsity’s Senate House had over four hundred staff, students and guests in attendance.

Chancellor of the varsity, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, presided over the ceremony, which was conducted in Latin and English.

Soyinka, who is a playwright, poet, novelist and political activist, won the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986.

He has held visiting appointments at higher institutions in Cambridge, Legon, Atlanta, and Yale.

Culled/ Olaitan Oye-Adeitan

News

OAU VC: Soyinka Decries Indigenes’ Protest

By Web News 656

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has described the protests embarked upon by some Ile Ife indigenes over the announcement of a non-native as the next Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University as “crazy”.

Soyinka, a former lecturer at OAU, spoke at a lecture titled, ‘The Politics of Black Intellection and Creativity, at the University of Pennsylvania, the United States’, which was the first of the newly-inaugurated Distinguished Lecture series in African Studies.

Reacting to a question by Professor Wale Adebanwi, Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies, Department of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Soyinka said he’s “shocked” over the incessant kidnappings, ritual killings and violence that have become the order of the day in Nigeria.

Asked to express his reaction to the agitations that the next Vice-Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University must be an indigene of its host city, Soyinka faulted the protesters.

He said, “An Ife person wrote me and say, look at these people disgracing us. I told him to go there and disgrace them. You are an Ife person. You should be in the front line.

“The Ife people should say those people don’t belong to us, we don’t know where they came from. And they should be dealt with ruthlessly. Why should there be an Ife VC anywhere? I just don’t understand what they put in the water these days. It is crazy.”

Since the announcement of Professor Adebayo Bamire as the 12th substantive VC of OAU, some Ife indigenes commenced protest.

The protesters argued that an Ife indigene should have been appointed.

According to report, Prof Rufus Adedoyin, who hails from Ile-Ife, came ninth in the screening, which saw sixteen candidates shortlisted for interaction for the post of VC by the Joint Council and Senate Selection Board.

Determined to ensure the installation of an Ile-Ife indigene as the next OAU VC, some indigenes entered the varsity’s campus with charms and other fetish objects on Monday.

They also closed the varsity’s two major gates, thereby preventing staff, students, and other stakeholders from either coming into or leaving the University.

The protests by the Ife indigenes started last Thursday, March 17, 2022, shortly after the University Governing Council, led by its Chairman, Owelle Oscar Udoji, announced a professor of Agricultural Economics, Bamire, as the 12th substantive VC.

Punch/Taiwo Akinola