Columns
Don’t envy the journalist, you never know how he got there!
Published
8 months agoon

Let me recall an encounter. Some years back, my friend and ally was elected Senate President. Naturally, I went to see him. These were the days you could hop into a flight to Abuja from Lagos and think nothing of it as you would a taxi from Gwarimpa to Central Business Area in Abuja or a bus from Maryland to Costain in Lagos.
Not these days when you needed to engage in a major financial plan to make such a trip, no thanks to the era of “Change,” “Change the Change,” “Next Level” or “Renewed Hope.”
Yes, there was actually a time in Nigeria – not too distant also – when you could make a two way journey from Lagos to Abuja, on a one-week trip, inclusive of feeding, accommodation – and for some of my friends who added man no be wood – with N100,000 and still have some change to dash the man who pushed your trolly at the airport.
That was that era. I simply did that – jump into the next available flight to go and see my friend, hopefully to climb to higher ground – you know what I mean. But things were not the way it seemed. Unfortunately, I didn’t inform my friend before hand. I simply did what I should – what all Nigerians would do. Did I hear you say entitlement mentality. Yes! I felt that way. I accept and own the tag with my full chest.
But for two days, I could not reach my friend. Before now, when he was just Senator, we discussed everyday, sometimes for long hours into the night, both official and non-official issues. How could I have known so quickly so soon that my friend was now the third citizen in the country and that things had changed so tremendously? Well I found out the hard way.
So, for 48 hours, I was in my hotel, dialing repeatedly. Each dial came with the message – the customer you’re calling cannot not be reached, please try later. Frustration? That was an understatement. In the evening of the second day, I was already making my plans of returning back to Lagos when I struck luck. Just one dial and my friend picked.
Nna where you dey?, my friend asked. I dey Abuja now, I replied and went ahead to narrate to him how long I had been in town trying to reach him, to which he offered profuse apologies. I dey my house now, he told me, when I enquired where he was. That was how I set off to Apo Legislative Quarters.
It was in his house that the first shock hit me about how levels had changed. The crowd milling around everywhere announced that much. Of course, somebody was waiting for me at the gate and up and straight we moved to oga’s office inside the house, where he received me warmly.
For about four hours, from about 7.30 to past 11pm, we were just gisting about everything under the earth, including, of course his new job and its challenges, not forgetting the raison d’etre of my coming to Abuja.
He had wanted me to stay for some days more, but my job in Lagos was already under threat and I had to rush back and we agreed to keep the line of discussion open. But then, as I stepped out with my friend into the waiting room and outside, still engaged in spirited exchanges, I could see the hundreds of eyes boring through my vertebrae. Some of those eyes were not friendly at all.
They were eyes from all manner of men and women in thick, huge agbada, flowing gowns and tall gele – important men and women of all shades and sizes – watching this small boy in just jeans and tee-shirts. So, this was the “nonentity” who had kept us waiting? I could hear their thoughts from their stares.
But how could they know. How could they know that for this man, I was once just some cat’s whiskers away from taking a police bullet? During one of the political turmoil involving him and another heavyweight, I was actually in the thick of it and nearly got killed at one point.
What happened? I had just finished interviewing this opponent of his in his house when I stepped out into the streets and met a riotous situation with people running in different directions. A contingent of policemen, called to disperse a protest against this my friend was actually on duty – the Nigerian way, of course.
You know how policemen deal with defenceless citizens – it gives them special pleasure and some of them actually get the hard-on they had missed – when asked to torture, maim or even kill ordinary folks. So they were practically enjoying themselves doing just that.
Incidentally, their leader, an Area Commander leading the operation of sheer brutality and man’s inhumanity to these people was well-known to me and I thought I could intervene somehow.
But I never envisaged what would happen next. As I approached this my AC friend, who was himself a one-time a journalist, before joining the police and therefore had more than mere connection – in fact a soft-spot for his colleagues, what I saw was a lion in the jungle.
“My friend, who are you?” He was addressing me! This was a man who used to come to my office whenever he was driving by or who usually invited me for media jobs. He was now acting as if he had suddenly seen an armed robber. “I say who are you?” He didn’t even allow me to utter a word before barking further orders – “will you run away! Run away now before something happens to you! Save yourself now! Save your life now!”
Nobody told yours truly what to do. Half-walking, half-running, I hurried off from the scene, wondering if this was a dream. Of course, some of his men practically having real fun, were already advancing menacingly towards me, growing like fierce dogs as I hurried away.
Now, none of those scores of eyes boring into my skin as the big man escorted me out of his office in Abuja that night were aware of this dangerous incident or even many more others. They were never aware about how many times I had sprung this man out of very tight corners right from when he was just an ordinary man before he went to the Senate and later Senate President. They never knew how many long hours we spent together strategising. They only saw a young man in jeans.
Why did I write this? Reminiscences! When I watched the verbal brawl between Rufai Oseni of Arise News and Lere Olayinka, on today’s edition of The Morning Show, the popular breakfast programme on ARISE NEWS, television network, I couldn’t help recalling those pairs of eyes on my back on that day. They were eyes of anger and jealousy.
Now, don’t ask me between Lere and Rufai, who is jealous? Just picture this! Who among the two would easily be recognised in the streets or at any gathering of important personalities in Nigeria or abroad? Who is likely to draw Nigerians into the street today if it is heard that he was arrested, justly or unjustly? Who is readily going to get easy visas from foreign embassies without producing the intestines of an ant?
Between Lere, who has used his journalism certificate to defend, first, Ayo Fayose and now Nyesom Wike and Rufai, who uses or pretends to use his Animal Anatomy certificate to make attempts at holding governments accountable, no matter how badly he does it, who is more useful? Therein lies the answer!
Journalism is a Special Purpose Machinery (SPM) for ferreting out malcontent, maladministration and malfeasance in the society, especially in government, without which governance degenerates into an irresponsible cabal or a syndicate that perpetrates its actions in darkness. Who has discharged this responsibility or pretended to do so?
Bottomline: Journalism is earned by words and actions and not by lighting a candle and covering it under a bushel. It is also a choice! Don’t envy those who have earned it, go earn yours! _ The Tiny Voice
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Columns
ADC ticket: In this Atiku, Obi matter, the joke is on Dele Momodu!
Published
2 weeks agoon
January 9, 2026
Compatriots, come, let’s reason together. You know one of the biggest diseases this country is cursed with today is hypocrisy. It is a major malaise that has not only afflicted the people at every level, but eaten deep into their hearts and souls at any given time.
This obviously debilitating condition, is the reason Nigeria is currently in its sorry state today. Nowhere is this quite demonstrably evident than the political field. I will give you an apt example to adumbrate my position.
Without the disease of hypocrisy, Bola Ahmed Tinubu would not have been President today and Nigeria would have been saved the nightmare that his coming into power has inflicted on the populace.
I’ll explain. Throughout the events culminated to the disastrous 2023 presidential election, the burning issue around the vortex of that exercise was zoning. This was the factor around which Nyesom Wike, leading the G-5 – group of five Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members – anchored his agitation.
Many chieftains of the PDP, especially from Southern Nigeria, sang it like a credo that it was the turn of the region to produce the next President after Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner. In fact, it was the Governors from the South that began the agitation, culminating in the Asaba Declaration.
But see where it got quite interesting. Majority of these chieftains trumpeting the refrain equity, justice and fair-play would always stop half-way. For instance, it was the same Wike that shouted his voice hoarse about equity in the PDP, that tipped the presidential election in Rivers in favour of Tinubu instead of Peter Obi, the only Igbo candidate in that election.
Is it that the self-same Wike did not know that the justice, equity and fair-play of the 2023 presidential election was that a Peter Obi from the South East, deserved that position more, given the political trajectory in Nigeria?
Throughout that time and even now, I stretched my antenna to the numerous interviews granted by Bode George, as he waxed the morality of the argument like a gospel singer. But in all, he would always stopped at the mantra that it was the turn of the South without extending the issue to the other leg of the argument – Ndigbo.
How else would anyone describe it? Even the Atiku Abubakar, who they directed all their arrows could not help but fire back at their hypocrisy when he told the world that had the PDP ticket been zoned to the South East, he wouldn’t have contested.
Now, to the music playing today. Aren’t you hearing the same lyrics as you did in the months and days before 2023? Doesn’t it capture the same subterfuge, half-truths and outright lies? Aren’t you seeing the same actors as well?
They trumpet it to your ear the unwritten political tradition made it mandatory the that the presidency must remain in the South, but lack the same moral suasion to underscore that the same arrangement also makes it mandatory that it must also rotate around the three zones with the area that has not produced, having the first choice of refusal – in this case – the South East.
Hear this: “In recent time, some groups have introduced aggression and rambunctiousness into a fledgling cooperation, and collaboration, of all. How can a coalition work if some groups, insist they must produce the top ticket by donation, and coronation, without election or persuasion? Why unleash tantrums and expletives on one another as if one group can win National elections without the others?
“This is why, and when, ADC must rise up and enforce discipline before it is too late. This was how NYESOM WIKE held PDP by the jugular till it became too late to be dislodged or expelled. ADC should be a party of love and not a Fuji house of commotion…”
This was Dele Momodu. You know the people he is tagging as aggressive and rambunctious? The Obidient Movement! You know why? In recent times, this group have become quite loud in demanding that Peter Obi, their principal should never accept the vice-presidential slot to Atiku Abubakar in the ADC coalition arrangement.
They insist that Obi should settle for nothing outside the presidential ticket. This of course, has unsettled people like Bob D, who believe that the former Governor of Anambra State should play the second fiddle to the former VP, not because the latter is fitter and would do a better job, but for purely personal reasons of advancing their individual interest at the end of the day.
Now, it is not that brother Dele doesn’t understand the issues behind the agitation of these people. Sure, he does. He knows that the Obidient Movement is not afraid about Obi squaring up to Atiku for the ADC ticket if the process would be free, fair and democratic. But would it be?
Could Bob D swear he was not aware that many delegates to the PDP primaries in 2022 where Atiku eventually picked the ticket went home with as much as $50,000. Is he not aware that it was for the same reason that Obi pulled out of the PDP contest – that it was because he swore that he would not buy votes of the delegates – that he pitched his tent with the Labour Party eventually?
Would Dele Momodu swear with his conscience and all that is good in him that he’s not aware that Obi won the 2023 presidential election above Atiku, his principal and that – give or take – Obi towers above the ex-VP in terms of organic votes in today’s Nigeria?
Sure, he does. More so, is he saying he’s unaware that much of the suffering Nigerians are undergoing today is traceable to Atiku’s stiff-necked intransigence to drag what doesn’t belong to him. Again, he sure does. But he’s got a job to do!
But hear him blaming Wike, for the ugly fate of the PDP, instead of Atiku – for usurping the slot of the South. He forgets that the same slot donated to him exclusively in 2019 by the same party. What a barefaced hypocrisy!
Today, he carries the same duplicity to the ADC and pretends that Nigerians are fools. Now, when brother Dele, tells you that Atiku is the only one that could match Tinubu, ask him what he really means. Is it that the ex-VP would rely on credible votes of the people? Whosai! What he really means is contrived votes through corruption of the institutions – bribe INEC, bribe the judiciary and commandeer security.
Pray, is this what Nigerians want? What difference does it make if Atiku cheats the system to emerge President? Isn’t it akin to selling the monkey and buying a dog – thereby retaining a squatting animal in your house?
No, Bob D! Nigerians are clamouring for a complete break from this system of climbing to power on a staircase of stashes of cash. They want a President that has their mandate. That is what they see in Obi. It is only him that will give them that clean break. That is the reason for their agitation.
Dele Momodu deceives nobody when he cries democracy. The discipline here is to end cash-induced politics. Therefore, if anyone should be called to order, it’s the people that insist that Nigeria must continue on the road to Golgotha.
Columns
Benjamin Kalu versus Alex Otti: Forcing Ndi-Abia to drink APC’s poisoned cocktail
Published
3 weeks agoon
January 4, 2026
Compatriots, do you know how irredeemable our national politics is? O no! you don’t know. Let me give you an interesting story – two in fact – to underscore the parlous situation. The two happened at different times within an election circle.
Some years ago, I had this very interesting conversation with a state governor who was a friend. He had picked interest in playing tennis, knowing that I was a tennis player, as I still am. We had earlier discussed about revamping and putting to use the two tennis courts in the governor’s lodge.
So, this Saturday morning, I had driven to the government house bringing along the tennis items I bought for him – tennis shoes – racquet, bag, shorts, shirts and others. I met my friend having breakfast and he invited me.
While at the table, our discussion delved once again towards his performance. Without mincing words, this man was virtually on a gravy train in terms of popularity.
His approval rating was so high that the din was reverberating beyond his state to the national and even international level. I told him so, when he asked me what the feelings out there were. Of course, we had agreed from the beginning that I was going to be his eyes and ears in the outside word to tell him the truth – the real – authentic truth not dressed in sycophancy or praise-singing.
I actually meant every word of it when I told him that his rating was quite high. Naturally, he was happy. We were both happy. But it was in the euphoria of the moment that my friend gave me the shock of my life – as at that time – because nothing shocks me today regarding the Nigerian polity or politics. Who could imagine that Nigeria would become a one-party state as we’re witnessing today?
Terrible Sunny – that was his name for me – you know, this thing you’re seeing now is just for two years. After this, we’re going to pause and prepare for election. Even if it warrants importing soldiers from North Korea, I’m prepared to do that.
The bread and egg in my hand hung mid-air, as I paused to stare at him, not sure I heard right. Importing soldiers from North Korea, what for? I asked. Don’t you know we’re going for war? That was his reply. War, what war – with what you’re doing now in the state, if you sustain half of it, your re-election will be a stroll in the park, I told him.
You know his reply – Terribly Sunny – you don’t know politics. Of course, I needn’t recount the level of argument we had as I tried to persuade him about the futility of the line he was about to toe. I was definite that my position of relying on tangible evidence of delivery – what the late Chukwuemeka Ezeife used to call eye-marked achievement was the way to go.
Folks, all my attempts not only failed, but my consistency earned me enmity as my friend, whom I helped become a governor by the fact of my providing his media backbone got sucked in and eventually got encircled in the morass of evildoers – the hyenas and brood of vipers hovering around government.
Now, this wasn’t the only time I was told this about not knowing politics. Another of my friend, this time a Senator, who later became a Senate President, also used exactly the same words. In his own case, I had visited him on the morning of an election and overheard him giving directives. It was clear that he was instructing his field-soldiers on how to rig election for him.
When the coast was clear was, I confronted him, because like the governor, we had more than casual relationship. He was also a friend. Oga, no be election una wan rig so? It was both a joke and a serious statement. Do you need to rig. This election is in your hand, I stretched!
Again, the same expression – Sunny you don’t know politics. You only know how to write. Sometimes you need to teach this people a lesson. So, in his own case, even though he could win re-election effortlessly, his own reason for rigging, was to teach his opponent a lesson – for contesting against him – which was an affront. As I said, this same Senator, later became a Nigerian Senate President.
Why do I tell this story. You must have seen the latest video of our brother, Benjamin Okezie Kalu telling Alex Ottit to cross over to APC or kiss second term goodbye. Now why do you think he is talking this manner?? He knows that head or tail, he stands no chance to confront Alex Otti, who stands in a class of his own as the best governor in Nigeria today in terms of performance.
Don’t get it twisted! Otti doesn’t oppose President Bola Tinubu, the deity to whom all political forces in Nigeria today are bowing. No! His only offence is that he chose to serve the deity his own way. Instead of defecting to the APC, he wants to remain in his party.
In fact, it is said that Otti has actually promised that he would donate at least 50 pre cent of the votes of Abia people to the President. But even though these promised votes are going to be contrived – actually stolen from the storehouse, because no Abia man will vote for Tinubu – yes – neither Tinubu nor APC will get up to 1000 organic votes in the state – this effort is not enough. They want to rub it in.
APC or you fall. You know why? How can I be a Deputy Speaker and my state is in the hand of a non-APC governor? This obvious ego-tripping statement is the reason why the people’s will must be rubbished. Because as you know it is all boiled down to the strategy of winning elections in Nigeria which Dr. Sam Amadi actually captured recently – bribe INEC, bribe the judiciary, commandeer the security.
Now, if you look at this our brother – take another look at him, what do you see? Didn’t you find the charisma of Nnamdi Azikiwe, the intellectual endowment and captivating eloquence of Oyi of Oyi, Chuba Okadigbo – or is it the courage and boldness of Mikael Iheonukara Okpara and Sam Mbakwe rolled into one.
Yes! He stands the chance of being the new political phenomenon coming from the South East from what I see. But what does he do with the talents nature and his creator have endowed on him. He has packaged them and donated to Tinubu – a man that has maintained the ignoble record of being the worst President Nigeria has ever been cursed with.
Ask him to point at one thing Tinubu has done in the South East and see how he would skirt around the issues and paint the image of a non-existent castle in the air. Ask him what this APC has brought to the states in the South East, where they have been existing for more than four years now.
Now, the same man that is boasting of his APC standing sleeps and wakes up from his mansion in Abuja and Umuahia to the fact that Nnamdi Kanu, his constituent and cousin is in prison today. He knows that Kanu is languishing in Sokoto prisons and eating watery beans not because he killed 30,000 people as his fellow brother Orji Uzor Kalu claims, but because he is an Igbo man.
But what has he done? What can he do? He’s as helpless as the next man in the street regardless. Use your number six now to set him free! Whosai!
In the earlier story. My friend the governor, ended up winning his second term, of course importing his North Korean soldiers – or the local variant. But ask me what became of him. Ask me where he ended up.
Today, he shares the reputation of Idi Amin – that flesh-eating demon of Uganda for the brutality and mass murder that happened in his state with many fingers being pointed at him.
Today, he is as worthless as a faeces-soaked toilet paper. He cannot even win a local government councillorship. This was a man that, had he sustained as much as half of what he used to import those soldiers, would have remained one of the best things that happened in the Nigerian polity since the discovery of white rice and fresh fish pepper soup.
We shall see how this Tinubu project works, both for Otti and his promise of 50 per cent votes and for our brother BOK, who wants to force the poisoned cocktail through the throat of Abia people.
But how many times do I need to warn that whosoever commits evil in Igbo land and against Igbo people answers for it? It’s worse when you spill blood. I won’t say more.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
Columns
Actress Doris: Eating the forbidden fruits, like the days of Eve
Published
1 month agoon
December 16, 2025
What made Eve eat the forbidden fruit? Why was she vulnerable before Satan, the Devil in the Garden of Eden? Ponder as you chew this salacious story of Sister Doris Ogala and our so-called “Pastor” Chris Okafor.
You had everything that gave you pleasure. But there is just one you were warned not to touch. Then, boom! The devil comes along and begins to lubricate your imagination and before curtain falls, it’s done! What remains are the consequences.
So, why the hues and cries? If a woman as perfectly made as Eve, living in a perfect environment, with everything bright and beautiful at her disposal could still fall to an imaginary life of extra pleasure, how much less a Doris Ogala living in a world so defaced and corrupted?
As you’re reading this, there are scores of Doris’ even within your tiny street alone. I just read one quite recently. It had to do with a lady in a perfect love-encrusted relationship.
The young man had even proposed and marriage rites were supposed to start in weeks but as the lady went to fix her hair at a salon, a man who came into the shop, ended up picking the bills of everyone.
That was it! Numbers were exchanged – fat alerts – appointments – then one thing led to the other – a lush-plush life of luxury – or so she thought.
She even had the temerity of terminating a three-month pregnancy of the ex’s baby, of course, alongside the relationship. Then, gbosaa! Bubble bursts!
She had travelled to the village to see her parents where she spent some weeks only to return to her new home and found everywhere under lock. All attempts to connect with the new guy failed. Bobo – the sharp man he was, had returned to the US.
Our gold-digger, having no other option, decided to make a bid for the ex. Of course, the gate was closed. Slammed against her face! The young man told her that the only condition was to recreate his baby she terminated, to which she had no solution.
Our lady, is now 49. She has gone beyond desperation, having visited all the churches, worship centres and prayer houses in virtually all cities and villages of Nigeria where she faced all manner of scams by the scam-masters themselves – pastors – who obviously also had their fair share of her honeypot to boot. Depleted bank accounts? O! Sure!
Clearly, that snake that bit Eve has not rested. It is still going around and about striking other women with its tail.
Now, how long have I read even on this Zuka platform alone, fellow women warning others that there are a million husbands out there with love and flowery proposals only to turn to tigers and vipers the moment they succeed in luring them out of their matrimonial homes? How many times.
How many times have they been warned that the only position out of their homes is that of a side-chick of a sugar-daddy – not even from a bachelor – for a bachelor has a full bag of spinsters to pick from?
But there’s a greater danger! Today’s liberalised world! It’s here! In the days of our grandmothers, kpekus was for procreation. They finish their duties with it, sealed up and trained their children, living happily thereafter. Our mothers were satisfied with just missionary.
But today? In just one night – doggy – bicycle – scissors – flying monkeys – bow and arrow – swimming fish – bicycle kick – etc. There is even fisting – plate-licking and even nyash-eating – a full complement! End-game? Dissatisfaction! Bitterness! Unhappiness! Divorce!
Harried by day and haunted by night, men, now punish themselves at every point trying to keep up. The other room rather than an abode of pleasure is now of torture and nightmare chamber!
As men jump from one REMEDY to the other, they practically become prisoners to all manner of scammers both in open markets and social media, taking advantage of the apparently huge market to merchandise all forms of dangerous items that go as drugs, sold at pocket-tearing prices.
You could find a N60,000 pack of 25 groundnut and alligator-pepper wrapped in a tea-bag as the supposed endgame or a N70,000 bottle of 30 pieces of capsuled ground bitter cola being sold as the perfect treatment for ED, big gbola and guarantee for long-lasting kerewa. Phew!
Now, who knows which one outside the obvious – the glittering world of our pastors – filled with opulence and luxury that lured our sister – our modern-day Eve out of her home, where she most probably had a secure and happy life?
Maybe another long elaborately-veined and sturdy Gbola! Money or Gbola? Who really knows what she’s crying for and why she seems so implacable that she’s now trying to kpai herself. Your guess!
Remember: Onye amu di mma amaghi ihe onye ibi n’afu! Translated: A man with healthy manhood doesn’t know what his brother with elephantiasis of the scrotum is going through. This is an Igbo proverb.
So, you might choose to mock or sympathise with Sister Doris. But be sure that before the cock crows tonight, you would have seen dozens more of our sisterly. Worse still, nobody knows whose daughter will be the next victim.
But surely there are more where this came from. Mark my words! _ The Tiny Voice!
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January 25, 2026 3:09 am
January 25, 2026 3:09 am
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