The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Babatunde Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, must be a terrible coward! Yes, you heard me.

His posture, his silence, his refusal to descend into the arena of verbal skirmishes, strikes, insults, and reckless outbursts from men of lesser stature: is this not cowardice dignified?

Some say it is weakness. Some call it timidity. Others whisper it is avoidance. Ooni is a coward? Nooooo. Nooo a thousand times

What some ignorantly label cowardice is, in truth, the rarest expression of maturity, the highest form of discipline, and the loftiest symbol of ancestral wisdom.

Only men with unshakable pedigrees stand tall when provoked, choosing silence over needless uproar. The Ooni does not need to roar like a wounded lion seeking validation. He does not need to scatter peace or split stones just to remind the world of his relevance. His throne, rooted in history, already announces him. His heritage, steeped in divinity, already crowns him. His antecedent, irrefutable and grand, already dignifies him.

The fact is that maturity is inborn. Maturity is not cheap talk—it is an inborn grace. Men of unstable background, men carrying the burden of ancestral tragedies and tainted legacies, may scatter fire to prove existence, for they are haunted by shadows of rejection and suicide.

But the Ooni? He is not of that stock. He is the custodian of Oduduwa’s heritage, the divine envoy of the Yoruba cosmos, a living symbol of continuity whose crown is not bought by noise but secured by destiny.

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So let the thunder of pretenders roar. Let them groan, fume, and grind their teeth in the desperation for attention. The Ooni does not bend to such vulgarity.

He does not join in mud fights. He is not a roadside royal in search of relevance. He is culture incarnate, royalty personified, wisdom enthroned.

Yes, if silence in the face of provocation is cowardice, then the Ooni is a coward. But if rising above pettiness, refusing to descend into verbal madness, and standing as a symbol of calm power is cowardice, then may every king be such a coward. We all know this truth: it is only the grabber of what does not belong to him that seeks attention by courting controversy, validation, and public notice.

A man who confiscates what is not his will raise hell to justify his theft. The Ooni, by contrast, has vision. He is steady and regal in his mission. He does not need to join issues with fire-splitting, stone-throwing petrol-bearers of disgrace—men whose antecedents drip with shame and destruction.

Bibire kì í ṣe f’owó rà—nobility cannot be purchased. You cannot compare a panda alàgbède (dross iron) with a diamond. The Ooni is not silver. He is a diamond. And diamonds are forever. It is simple you cannot give what you don’t have .

The Ooni of Ife is more than a monarch. He is Odùduwà—not merely a son of Odùduwà, but the embodiment of Odùduwà’s eternal essence. Hence you don’t expect him to give hoot to any un-royal antics.

For he is not Omo Ola. Ooni is the Ola gan gan gan. He is culture. He is dignity. He is timeless royalty.

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Ce finito. Good day. #ooni. #ojajaII.

The unveiling of the experiences of Mallam Garba Shehu in the political space as packaged in a book last Wednesday, was understandably graced by an incongruous audience.

It couldn’t have been otherwise, given the paradoxical role the esteemed journalist and public relations expert has played in the course of a so far distinguished career.

President Bola Tinubu who is out of the country was represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF Senator George Akume. The cream of the opposition was no less present, with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar present.

Also present was the secretary of the new coalition, African Democratic Congress, ADC, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, who was unusually out of place. An attempt by Prince Nduka Obaiegbena who was vice-chairman of the occasion, to lure Aregbesola to speak was unusually spurned by the oppositionist. What would make the normally animated political actor act coy was befuddling.

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Was it because of his present engagement in positioning the opposition to eviscerate the political structure that he had not too long ago fought fervently to build? Anyway, also present were many of those who helped in framing the present political configuration that now has Asiwaju Tinubu as the apex leader.

While some of them have been set aside or laid low, they were, however, proud to associate with Mallam Shehu, who served as an effective media mobiliser in enthroning Buhari to power.

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Among those present were Senator Olurunnimbe Mamora, the deputy director-general of the Buhari campaign in 2014/15, Dr Kayode Fayemi, the immediate past governor of Ekiti State, renowned for his strategic roles in the overthrow of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and of course, the presidential running mate, Prof Yemi Osinbajo.

There were also some non-political actors, including General Yakubu Gowon, who served as chairman, Garba Shehu’s roommate at Barewa College, Alhaji Lawal Garba, and many beautiful ladies, including the vivacious former executive secretary of the Nigerian Investment and Promotion Commission, NIPC, Saratu Umar.

Mallam Shehu’s unique pathway of meandering between political camps without as much as hurting anyone, perhaps, flows from his humble inclinations. As he made known in the book, According to the President: Lessons From A Presidential Spokesman’s Experience, and also on Wednesday at the book launch, his father was a driver!

Garba Shehu’s innate modesty is despite his exposure and upbringing in the North’s elite institution, Barewa College.

Garba Shehu apparently would not go the way of some present political actors in padding his beginnings or lifting his parents above what they were.

The book launch also opened another glimpse to the political persona of Buhari who was unavoidably absent due to his present physical infirmity. The erstwhile Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha, who was repeatedly lapped as the boss of bosses, gave a peep into how Buhari emerged as president.

According to him, the leaders of the alliance that brought forth the APC had taken into consideration the fact that Buhari had consistently scored 12 million votes in past elections. As such, they had an informal agreement to push Buhari forward as the 2015 presidential candidate. He justified the astuteness of the decision in the fact that Buhari eventually scored 15 million votes in the 2015 election, meaning that the other alliance leaders brought in 3 million votes to lift Buhari to victory.

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Unfortunately, his narration was, however, muddled up in the reportage of the book launch, as many news reports quoted Boss Mustapha as saying that Tinubu did not make Buhari president. However, Buhari could not have been president without the political perceptions brought by Tinubu and other alliance leaders.

Undoubtedly, one of the most visible contributors to Buhari’s victory who was present at the book launch was Atiku Abubakar, who is undoubtedly celebrated as the author’s first renowned political principal.

It was a sort of irony for Atiku as he kept an unusual silence for most of the ceremony, given the fact that Mallam Garba was his donation to Buhari, the man who not only defeated him in the 2019 presidential election, but also set up, or rather ALLOWED Tinubu to achieve victory in 2023.

It must have been mixed emotions for Atiku seeing his ‘son’ as it were being celebrated by those who ‘did him in’.

It is, however, telling that for all the time he was with Buhari that Mallam Garba Shehu did not for once backstab Atiku, especially in the vicious politicking that preceded the 2019 election. He was loyal to Buhari and also not forgetful of his origin as many political actors and their minions are wont to.

Your correspondent is aware that the Buhari presidency left the bashing of Atiku to Femi Adesina, who served as Special Adviser on Media to Buhari. Though Garba Shehu was older in terms of media experience at the onset of the Buhari presidency, for one reason or the other, Adesina, who was a successor to Shehu as president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE was appointed Special Adviser and the later, as Senior Special Assistant.

It was an arrangement that was bound to breed envy, backstabbing and friction. As journalists know, there can only be one editor in a newspaper. However, because of the personalities of the two men involved there was no crisis and two editors edited Buhari hamoniously for eight years.

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As Shehu revealed at the book launch, one facilitator of the harmony that flowed in the media department of the Buhari presidency was Dr Fayemi, himself a former journalist.

Recognising the potential for conflict in appointing two celebrated journalists in the media department of the presidency, Dr Fayemi had called the two of them to his hotel suite after the announcements and given them the sober advice of working in harmony. He told them that they were to act like two men married to one wife! And so for the eight years that they worked, there was no notable report of brinkmanship!

By Emmanuel Aziken

Culled from Vanguard, first published on July 12, 2025

By Daniel Igbinosun

Look, I have never set foot in Harvard Business School. Unless you count that time I Googled “Ivy League tuition fees” and nearly fainted into my keyboard. But Benue street MBA on the farm? Oh, I have logged serious hours there.

Picture this: my team and I sweat all day harvesting peppers. Heroic, right? Come nightfall… other heroes emerged. Turns out, while we napped, thieves treated our farm like an all-you-can-steal buffet. My precious peppers became community property.

Lesson #1: Farming is not just about seeds and soil. It’s 50% agriculture, 50% “Agbero Security Services.”

Textbooks suggest “optimizing supply chains.” I hired vigilantes. Not exactly in the syllabus, but when life gives you pepper thieves… you give them a reason to run. That is how I earned my first Street MBA badge.

(Translation: “MBA” here means:

• Manage Before Anybody Appears
• Mistakes Bring Adjustments… and mild panic.)

Then came Planting Season: The Sequel. Hired new guys to plant soya beans. Payment? Per line planted. Simple! Right. No.

I popped over to another farm. By evening, they swaggered to my house: “Boss! We planted 120 lines! Pay us like kings!”

Cue record scratch.

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My seasoned crew just the day before only managed 55 lines. 120? Did they grow rocket-powered hoes? The math wasn’t just not mathing… it was doing interpretive dance.

I sent my farm manager to investigate. The verdict?

Lines planted: 48. This is actually a generous count. Very generous. The quality of work was average at best. Maybe a D7. Seeds tossed like confetti. Some barely covered. Others probably in the next local government.

If I had paid them, I would have funded a masterclass in How To Scam Your Boss 101. Did I lose money? Sure. I also lost trust and time. That’s agribusiness heartbreak we have to experience every now and then

But Benue does not just break You… It builds legends

Tired of waiting for expensive tractor parts, some young wizards started building their own from scrap metal and sheer audacity. Now they rent these Franken-tractors to small farmers. They did not just fix engines; they fixed the whole farming game.

I have heard of a squad of grandmothers that when cassava prices crashed. They said no wahala! They started processing, packaging (in snazzy transparent nylon!), and selling direct to schools. While others cried, these aunties counted profits in wrappers so bright, they doubled as solar panels.

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My Street MBA Curriculum (So Far):

• Hope is not a strategy. Suspicion is. (Supervise or be surprised!)
• Not everyone on your payroll is on your team. Some are just… auditing the class.
• Security isn’t an “extra.” It’s budget line #1. Right after “vengeance snacks.”
• Never reward noise.Reward proof. (Or at least seeds that are actually in the ground.)
• True entrepreneurs are often just rocking rubber slippers

Nigeria is not just a market; it is a live-action business simulator on Expert Mode.

Surviving here? You’re not just tough. You are Benue-certified.

Over to you: What is the most expensive lesson YOU have learned? Tag that warrior who earned their MBA dodging potholes & power cuts!

Stayed tuned for next week column

Daniel Igbinosun writes from Canada

\#StreetMBA \#BenueBusinessAcademy \#FarmingIsntForTheFaintHearted \#NigerianHustle

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By Azu Ishiekwene

Peter Obi has the best chance against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027 of all opposition candidates. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) may have received a slightly higher percentage of the votes (6.9 million or 29.1 percent) in the last presidential election; still, that was poor for Atiku, a sixth-timer in the presidential race.

Obi had less than one year to prepare after his former party, the PDP, shafted him, followed by the bitter struggle for control between Atiku and the former Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, which left the party in ruins.

Outside the wreckage, Obi scored 6.1 million or 25.4 percent of the votes, toppling the All Progressives Congress (APC) in its traditional Lagos stronghold, energising young voters, and causing a stir amongst the complacent political elite.

Born to survive

After coming a solid third, the question was whether he could keep the momentum, strengthen the LP and manage his vibrant, sometimes fiercely unruly crowd of “Obidient” followers until the next election cycle.

He has, so far. To have survived the tumult in the Labour Party (LP), which now has three rival claimants to its leadership, and watch from the outside, what could be the final burial rites of his former party, the PDP, Obi has done well.

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Yet, as surely as success invites its perils, he is entering what may prove to be the most delicate phase of his political journey, two years before the next presidential election. Obi is confused, and dangerously so, when he needs clarity the most.

Adventure to ADC

He is flirting with the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the party former President Olusegun Obasanjo vowed in 2019 would unseat the APC, but which failed disastrously to do so. The ADC’s past failure is not necessarily a bad thing. Nor is the renewed crisis in the party; they all have problems, only different in severity.

The problem is that Obi is unsure whether to join the ADC, which, like the bat, neither resembles a political rodent nor a coalition bird, or to stand firm and try to repair a fractured LP before the next election. Although he says he is not desperate, pinching himself while saying so, he believes this might be his best chance to become president, which is a fair ambition.

After being governor for eight years, running mate to Atiku in 2019, and his own man in 2023, Obi is qualified for the number one spot. His prospects are brighter, in my view, than Atiku’s, who is exhausted from chasing a marabout’s prophecy or Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s, who is in this race to entertain.

A coalition to nowhere

The problem is that, for reasons best known to him, instead of focusing on repairing the LP, broadening his base and appeal, Obi has fallen for the seduction that his salvation lies with joining Atiku, Amaechi, and former Governor Nasir El-Rufai in a coalition to nowhere. I’m shocked.

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Obi has forgotten what brought him this far. It was certainly not the political dinosaurs he is now in love with. Polls showed his strongest support was with women aged 18 and 24, who comprised 82 percent of the cohort that voted for him. Others included the largely urban middle class and social-savvy Nigerians, across regions and age groups, apart from disaffected voters. Instead of cultivating and expanding his hold on these demographics, he has been infected by the obsession that his salvation is with the group he turned his back against.

In a political system that requires the winner to secure no less than 25 percent of the votes in at least two-thirds of all the states, Obi’s main challenge is bridging this divide, especially across the North, where he is very weak. But his approach to solving this problem is dangerously flawed.

Chasing a phantom

His misjudgment is that he needs assistance from two prominent Northern politicians, Atiku, El-Rufai or any of the vagrants from the legacy CPC. They cannot and will not help him because their broken dreams have consumed them. NNPP leader Rabiu Kwankwaso might have been, by far, a more valuable ally, but he will not accept a subordinate role.

The obsession with relying on the “tripod” or any single region, claiming that it’s the sole determinant of the pathway to power, has been shattered more than once since 1999, with Obasanjo’s election being one and Muhammadu Buhari’s another.

In what he has framed as possibly his most consequential attempt at the presidency in 2027, it is tragic that Obi either doesn’t believe or is too confused to give it a shot without using the coattails of some exhausted Northern politicians.

Under the sheets

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I know that politics indulges strange bedfellows, even actively encouraging intimacy amongst them under the sheets. Still, it came to me as a stunning surprise that Obi should so easily find accommodation with El-Rufai, who has called him some of the most horrendous names in the book, the most flattering of which was an ethnic bigot, a tyrant, a joke and a Nollywood actor.

As for Amaechi, the man who doesn’t like money except when it comes in the form of a Rolls-Royce, Obi should know him better.

But these are Obi’s new friends and associates – political wanderers, united mainly by ambition to seize power and have it for themselves for its own sake. He’s perfectly entitled to his new company, but I wish he would pause, reflect, and perhaps watch his back.

Trouble at home

In his south-east home base, Anambra Governor Charles Soludo thinks he’s superior and that “Obidients” are a nuisance. In Imo state, where Governor Hope Uzodinma thinks himself the only highway to Abuja, the governor would mount a tollgate against any perceived threat to his franchise. Of course, there’s no love lost between Obi and the only LP, Governor Alex Otti of Abia state.

There’s nothing for him in any coalition of the disaffected, and his running mate Datti Baba-Ahmed said so bluntly. To paraphrase him, a coalition with Atiku, el-Rufai, Amaechi, and other internally displaced politicians is a coalition of the second fiddle.

As things stand, Obi is neither here nor there. After being with Atiku all these years, and despite the wreckage the former vice president made of the PDP, which is now survived only by his ambition to become president, it’s surprising that Obi thinks that ADC or any other coalition with Atiku will work for him.

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Long memories

Politicians from the Southeast face a double jeopardy of ruinously expensive election costs and, after the Civil War, deep mistrust amongst the political elite, especially in the North. Despite fervent claims of no victor, no vanquished, nothing is forgotten or forgiven, and appeasement will fail.

Obi is with the wrong crowd, and worst of all, faces a serious risk of losing his party’s support. He should cultivate and use help wherever he can find it, but not at the expense of what he has built, especially in the last two years. He is now doing precisely what desperados do.

Except, of course, if he was lying about not being desperate for power.

Ishiekwene is Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the book Writing for Media and Monetising It.

Culled from TheCable.ng

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Carbon markets that fund forest preservation and tree-planting might actually be worsening climate change by increasing risks for wildfires that emit massive levels of greenhouse gases, a new United Nations-affiliated report says.

Forests have been seen as one of the most effective places to counter climate change by absorbing carbon emissions. But that’s changed, says a May paper from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), an academic arm of the international U.N.

In the past decade, wildfires of record-breaking size have erupted in places such as Canada, Australia, Siberia and the Amazon rainforest. This week, forest wildfires forced evacuations of thousands of Canadians in Manitoba and Alberta provinces.

“Forests and peatlands have increasingly transitioned into massive carbon emitters in many parts of the world due to increasing wildfires,” the report says. Climate policies and carbon-mitigation activities ”fail to account for these substantial emissions.”

The report highlights weaknesses in a central global strategy for addressing climate change — planting and protecting trees — which has attracted billions of dollars from polluters that fund the projects to offset their own carbon emissions. A large share of the money is paid through the voluntary carbon market, a largely unregulated system that has come under increasing scrutiny over its integrity.

Recent major wildfires have been particularly harmful. The 2023 forest wildfires in Canada emitted more greenhouse gases than the total industrial emissions of any country in the world except for China and India, Ju Hyoung Lee, a research fellow at UNU and lead author of the report, said in an interview from Seoul, South Korea.

In California, wildfires in 2024 destroyed parts of forests that were supposed to be storing carbon through an offset program under the state’s cap-and-trade carbon market.

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Without systematic monitoring of forest conditions, the paper says, the voluntary carbon market and other policies that promote forests “may unintentionally exacerbate wildfire hazards.”

Planting new trees to absorb carbon could have the opposite effect, the report says, as more heat and increased carbon dioxide emissions from climate change accelerate forest growth while also depleting soil moisture.

“Planting more and more trees in such an environment with the purpose of carbon mitigation will likely increase carbon emissions due to future fires,” the report warns.

When the businesses certifying forest projects in the voluntary carbon market consider wildfire risk, they normally look at historical incidents of fires, Lee said. But, she added, “Forests are changing, and our forests [won’t] be like what it was like for the last 20 years.”

Historical data often leaves out the past five years, which includes some of the worst fires on record, Lee said.

As a result, fire risk is typically underestimated by nonprofits such as Verra, which sets standards for and certifies climate projects to be listed on the voluntary market, Lee said. Representatives for Verra did not respond to a request for comment.

Concerns about forests and their changing dynamics have existed for more than a decade, Kaveh Madani, director of the UNU-INWEH, said in an interview from Toronto.

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The report hopes to get the message out, Madani said, that existing forest programs and certification standards were developed using science that’s now outdated — and the projects ”can increase the risk of increased emissions, in some cases.”

Madani emphasized that not all forest programs in the voluntary carbon market and elsewhere create a wildfire threat.

The paper advocates reforming the voluntary carbon market and similar systems to better account for forest conditions and to prevent unintended consequences, including more wildfires.

Rainfall, soil health, and expected future droughts and heat waves should be considered before approving forest projects “as a carbon emissions reduction solution,” the paper says.

Satellite observations could identify areas where forests are growing and fuels are accumulating, leading them to be excluded from carbon markets “due to the potential high emissions in case of future fires,” the paper says.

The risk of wildfire and other environmental conditions that could damage forests “must be included in our planning for the future and the schemes that we have in place,” Madani said.

By Anne C. Mulkern & E&E News

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