Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says it will call 100 witnesses to testify at the presidential election petition court.

Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the PDP, had filed a suit challenging the election through which Bola Tinubu emerged as the president-elect.

Addressing the court on Saturday, Chris Uche, counsel for Atiku Abubakar and the PDP, said all the parties met and agreed on the number of witnesses that would be presented and the duration.

He said the PDP intends to call no more than 100 witnesses, adding that while seven weeks were given to call these witnesses, only three weeks will be needed since the issues are getting narrower.

Meanwhile, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it has two witnesses that will testify while the counsel to the president-elect said it has 39 witnesses ready.

All the parties agreed to streamline the number of witnesses as well as the duration needed for each party to call their witnesses.

For the evidence in chief, they categorised them into 30 minutes for the lead witness because they will tender and identify documents.

Fifteen minutes was proposed for each respondent for cross-examination and five minutes for re-examination.

However, 10 minutes was proposed for other witnesses of the petitioner and 10 minutes for cross-examination of these witnesses by the respondents.

It was also proposed that 30 minutes be given for the star witnesses of INEC, Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

On its part, Labour Party (LP) says it will call 50 witnesses to testify at the presidential election petition tribunal.

Peter Obi, candidate of the LP, had filed a suit challenging the victory of Bola Tinubu at the presidential election.

Addressing the tribunal on Saturday, Awa Kalu, counsel for Peter Obi and the LP, said they will require a period of seven weeks to get it done due to the fact that they haven’t done a forensic investigation of the BVAS as directed by the court.

Kalu added that they are waiting for some documents requested for.

They have also agreed that the star witnesses will need 30 minutes to demonstrate any electronic evidence.

That class of witnesses will be cross examined for 20 minutes and 5 Minutes for re-examination, while 10 Minutes was allotted for other witnesses.

For the respondents, 20 minutes was allotted for the star witnesses and 30 minutes for cross examination.

INEC said it has five witnesses set to testify in the LP’s petition and proposed seven days to get it done.

However, Abubakar Mahmoud, the lead counsel, disagreed that there should be a separate time for demonstration of electronic evidence.

Roland Otaru, counsel to the president-elect and his vice, proposed nine days to call their witnesses excluding expert witnesses.

The APC aligned with the submission of the counsel to Tinubu and Shettima, and said it will be presenting seven witnesses for nine days.

Hundreds of protesters on Saturday thronged the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja where Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president-elect’s election is being challenged.

A barricade mounted by the police to divert traffic away prevented the demonstrators from gaining entry to the court premises where the court’s five-member panel was holding hearing sessions on Saturday.

The protesters, including many women clad in black and red attires, carried placards with inscriptions urging President Muhammadu Buhari, whose administration is in its dying days, to live up to his promise of bequeathing a transparent electoral process.

Other placards called out the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, for what they described as a “shambolic election”.

The protesters marched through the Eagle Square to the headquarters of the Court of Appeal where the Presidential Election Petition Court is located.

They converged adjacent the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, Abuja, about 200 metres from the court premises where the election petitions filed by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party’s Peter Obi, and the Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM) against Tinubu election are being heard.

The protesters who go by the name ‘Free Nigeria Movement’ were chanting anti-electoral fraud songs while milling around a barricade by police operatives to divert vehicular traffic from the court.

Some of the women amongst the protesters were writhing on the floor as they demanded an end to electoral fraud and corruption in Nigeria.

Armed police officers stood by to prevent a breakdown of law and other.

Since the court began its inaugural sitting on 8 March, it has witnessed a handful of protests.

The protesters have consistently called for justice in determining the complaints before them.

A five-member panel of the court led by Haruna Tsammani is presiding over the petitions.

The protest echoes the acrimony that followed the announcement of Tinubu as winner of the keenly contested 25 February presidential election on 1 March.

The leading opposition candidates – Atiku and Obi – held separate press conferences in the wake of the announcement of the poll, alleging widespread manipulation of the results, and vowing to challenge the outcome of the election in court.

The two candidates, in March, beat the 21 day-deadline from the day of the announcement of the results to file their petitions to challenge the outcome of the election.

Three other political parties similarly filed separate petitions to challenge the election, but two of them withdrew their cases within the first week of the sitting of the Presidential Election Petition Court this month.

Apart from the petitions filed by Atiku and Obi, there is one more case by the Allied Progressives’ Movement (APM), making a total of three petitions now pending before the court.

PT

Bola Tinubu, president-elect, has returned to the country after a working visit to Europe.

The president-elect, who spent about 10 days in Europe, was received at the Abuja airport by Senate President Ahmad Lawan, Kashim Shettima, vice-president-elect, Godswill Akpabio, a former minister of Niger Delta affairs, and Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano, among others.

Tunde Rahman, Tinubu’s media aide, had said his principal would meet with investors and finetune transition plans.

The former governor of Lagos state is expected to assume office on May 29 when the second term of President Muhammadu Buhari elapses.

The Cable

The meeting between President-elect Bola Tinubu and Rabiu Kwankwaso, presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) has continued to raise dust, especially among leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano.

It would be recalled that Tinubu and Kwankwaso met for four hours in France, discussing a wide range of issues, including the possibility of the NNPP Presidential Candidate joining the incoming cabinet.

Responding, Abdulmajid Kwamanda, an APC leader in Kano, said Tinubu must not give any appointment to Kwankwaso, not even that of a messenger.

“We in the Northwest do not welcome Rabiu Kwankwaso to our party, APC. We do not accept the idea of Bola Tinubu giving him any appointment even as low as a messenger in our dear party. Should Tinubu ignore our outcry and appoint Kwankwaso, we are going to disrupt the entire APC in the north and withdraw our support for him,” Kwamanda had told reporters.

Moments after Kwamanda spoke, the audio of phone call between Ganduje and Ibrahim Masari, a former placeholder vice presidential candidate of the APC, leaked.

In the audio, the governor was heard lamenting being treated unfairly by the president-elect in meeting with Kwankwaso.

The governor had started the conversation by saying there is noise all over Kano over the meeting between Tinubu and Kwankwaso.

Ganduje said even though Masari had told him of the possibility of such meeting, there was nothing he could have done about it.

“But at that time, you could have spoken with him (Tinubu). You can (sic) call him and talk to him,” Masari said.

The governor was then heard saying “what could I have told him? Now he (Tinubu) is seeing Kwankwaso as an alternative to us? No problem. Because we don’t have a government? And it’s even because of him (Tinubu) we lost the government in any way.

“Even if he would see him (Kwankwaso), he ought to have called us too. Or don’t you understand, even if symbolically.”

In the audio, Masari, an ally of Tinubu, was then heard pacifying Ganduje and urging him not to be angry over the development.

He asked the governor to remain calm until he visits Tinubu on Thursday and until they meet in Abuja.

“And all these things are from God. And the calculation that he is doing is not even accurate… And this man, how did he end up with Jonathan?” Ganduje said.

Daily Trust gathered that the governor left Kano for Abuja late Friday and will hopefully be meeting Masari over the weekend before the former would meet with the president-elect, who returned to the country yesterday.

When contacted, Abba Anwar, Chief Press Secretary to the governor, said he had no authority to speak on the issue.

However, he never denied nor authenticated the veracity of the phone conversation.

Daily Trust investigative team subjected the audio to multiple verification processes, and found no indication of manipulation.

Daily Trust

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Key Donbass city fully liberated – Moscow

The Russian troops have completely liberated the strategic Donbass city of Artyomovsk, the scene of a grueling battle for many months, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed in the early hours of Sunday. 

The operation in the city known to Ukrainians as Bakhmut was executed by the “offensive actions” of the private military company Wagner Group with artillery and air support from regular Russian forces, the MOD said.

The statement from the MOD came hours after Wagner chief Evgeny Prigozhin announced on social media that his fighters had taken complete control of the city.

Ukraine has denied that the city had fallen to the Russians. Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar claimed that the statements about the capture of Artyomovsk were “premature.”

A salt mining city with a pre-conflict population of 72,000, Artyomovsk has become the stage of a bloody battle for many months as Russian forces nearly encircled it and were methodically pushing the Ukrainian army from its western suburbs. The city itself has been largely destroyed during the fighting.

Prigozhin warned earlier this month that his soldiers were taking heavy casualties due to ammunition shortages. He later said that the situation with supplies had improved and that Wagner troops were clearing the last pockets of Ukrainian resistance. 

** Putin congratulates troops on battlefield success

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated members of the Wagner private military company and regular soldiers with liberating the Donbass city of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, from the Ukrainian army, the Kremlin said in the early hours of Sunday.

Wagner chief Evgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday that his soldiers had taken full control of the city.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the capture of Artyomovsk several hours later.

According to the MOD, the operation was completed with the assault by the Wagner fighters who had artillery and air support from regular troops.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has claimed that the fighting for the city is not over.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia claimed on Saturday to have fully captured the smashed eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which would mark an end to the longest and bloodiest battle of the 15-month war.

The assault on the largely levelled city was led by troops from the Wagner Group of mercenaries, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said earlier in the day that his troops had finally pushed the Ukrainians out of the last built-up area inside the city.

Taking Bakhmut - which Russia refers to by its Soviet-era name of Artyomovsk - would represent Moscow's first big victory in the conflict in more than 10 months.

"As a result of offensive actions by Wagner assault units, supported by artillery and aviation of the Southern Group of Forces, the liberation of Artyomovsk has been completed," the Russian defence ministry said in a one-line statement.

Kyiv denied Prigozhin's claim earlier on Saturday, but did not have an immediate response to the defence ministry's statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated troops on capturing the city and said those who had distinguished themselves would be given awards, domestic Russian news agencies reported.

The claims came after a week in which Ukrainian forces have made their most rapid gains for six months on Bakhmut's northern and southern flanks.

Prigozhin, who has repeatedly denounced Russia's regular military for abandoning ground captured earlier by his men, said his own forces would pull out of Bakhmut in five days to rest, handing the ruins over to the regular military.

"Today, at 12 noon, Bakhmut was completely taken," Prigozhin said in a video in which he appeared in combat fatigues in front of a line of fighters holding Russian flags and Wagner banners. "We completely took the whole city, from house to house."

Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi, reacting to Prigozhin's comments before Russia's announcement, had told Reuters: "This is not true. Our units are fighting in Bakhmut."

SPLIT BETWEEN WAGNER, RUSSIAN FORCES

Whether the Ukrainian forces have left Bakhmut or not, they have been slowly pulling back inside it, to clusters of buildings on the city's western edge.

Meanwhile, to the north and south, they have seized swathes of territory from Russian troops.

Russia has acknowledged losing some ground around Bakhmut in the past week, while denying assertions by Prigozhin that the flanks around the city guarded by regular troops have collapsed.

Kyiv says its aim in Bakhmut has been to draw Russian forces from elsewhere on the front into the city, to inflict high casualties there and weaken Moscow's defensive line elsewhere ahead of a planned major counteroffensive.

The battle for Bakhmut has revealed a deepening split between Wagner, a mercenary force that has recruited thousands of convicts from Russian prisons, and the regular Russian military. For two weeks, Prigozhin has been issuing daily video and audio messages denouncing Russia's military leadership, often in expletive-laden rants.

In Saturday's video he said that because of the "whims" of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, "five times more guys died than they should have". He thanked Putin "that he gave us this chance and great honour to defend our motherland".

Moscow has long claimed that capturing Bakhmut would be a stepping stone towards advancing deeper into the Donbas region it claims to have annexed from Ukraine. It has made it the principal target of a massive offensive that failed to capture any significant ground elsewhere.

Prigozhin has acknowledged that Bakhmut, formerly a city of 70,000 people, has little strategic significance, despite its huge symbolic importance because of the scale of losses in Europe's bloodiest ground battle since World War Two.

KYIV PREPARES COUNTEROFFENSIVE

Saturday's claims came as Kyiv prepared its counteroffensive, the next major phase in the war after six months during which it kept its forces on the defensive while weathering Russia's big offensive.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attended the G7 summit of major industrial powers in Japan on Saturday, winning pledges of support including a signal from Washington that it would now back the training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 warplanes. Previously, sending combat aircraft had been a taboo.

En route to Japan, Zelenskiy stopped at an Arab summit in Saudi Arabia.

The Vatican said on Saturday that Pope Francis had asked Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of the Italian bishops' conference, to carry out a peace mission to try to help end the war.

RT/Reuters

Sudan's army and paramilitary RSF sign seven-day ceasefire

Sudan's warring factions signed an agreement late on Saturday for a seven-day ceasefire as fighting that has plunged the country into chaos and displaced more than a million entered its sixth week.

The ceasefire will take effect at 9:45 p.m. Khartoum time (1945 GMT) on Monday, the sponsors of the talks, the United States and Saudi Arabia, said in a joint statement.

Numerous previous ceasefire agreements were violated. However, this agreement will be enforced by a U.S.-Saudi and international-supported monitoring mechanism, the statement said without providing details.

The agreement also calls for distributing humanitarian assistance, restoring essential services and withdrawing forces from hospitals and essential public facilities.

"It is past time to silence the guns and allow unhindered humanitarian access. I implore both sides to uphold this agreement — the eyes of the world are watching," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

The fighting between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has led to a collapse of order. Stocks of food, cash and essentials are rapidly dwindling, and mass looting has hit banks, embassies, aid warehouses and even churches.

Aid groups have said they are unable to provide sufficient assistance in Khartoum, the capital, in the absence of safe passage and security guarantees for staff.

AIR STRIKES

Air strikes were reported on Saturday by eyewitnesses in southern Omdurman and northern Bahri, the two cities that lie across the Nile from Khartoum, forming Sudan's "triple capital". Some of the strikes took place near the state broadcaster in Omdurman, the eyewitnesses said.

"We faced heavy artillery fire early this morning, the whole house was shaking," Sanaa Hassan, a 33-year-old living in the al-Salha neighbourhood of Omdurman, told Reuters by phone.

"It was terrifying, everyone was lying under their beds. What's happening is a nightmare," she said.

The RSF is embedded in residential districts, drawing almost continual air strikes by the regular armed forces.

Eyewitnesses in Khartoum said that the situation was relatively calm, although sporadic gunshots could be heard.

The conflict, which began on April 15, has displaced almost 1.1 million people internally and into neighbouring countries. Some 705 people have been killed and at least 5,287 injured, according to the World Health Organization.

In recent days ground fighting has flared once again in the Darfur region, in the cities of Nyala and Zalenjei.

Both sides blamed each other in statements late on Friday for sparking the fighting in Nyala, one of the country's largest cities, which had for weeks been relatively calm due to a locally brokered truce.

A local activist told Reuters there were sporadic gun clashes near the city's main market close to army headquarters on Saturday morning. Almost 30 people have died in the two previous days of fighting, according to activists.

The war broke out in Khartoum after disputes over plans for the RSF to be integrated into the army under an internationally backed deal to shift Sudan towards democracy following decades of conflict-ridden autocracy.

Reuters

Turbulent anger of Obidients landed on Lamidi Apapa last week. By the time their anger petered out, Apapa had lost his cap to a God-knows-who. Esu Elegbara, the trickster deity of the Yoruba people, it will seem, lives in caps. Though most of the exploits of Esu exist in myths, Yoruba constructed a pantheon of beliefs that implicate the Esu as divisive and full of tricks. One of such, sauced in mythology, was translated into a very sobering track by ace Yoruba Awurebe musician, Dauda Akanmu Adeeyo, popularly known as Dauda Epo Akara. Famous for his anecdotal offerings affixed to virtually all his songs, Adeeyo got this sobriquet, for which he was more known by than his actual name, while he was a pupil in primary school. His uniforms were always soaked in bean cake oil called Epo Akara.

The Ibadan maestro entitled the track under reference Itan Ore Meji – the tale of two friends – in a parent album he called My Mother. Like Epo Akara, in 1987, Donald Cosentino, a lecturer in the Folklore and Mythology Programme of the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote an article for The Journal of American Folklore which he entitled Who Is That Fellow in the Many-Colored Cap? Transformations of Eshu in Old and New World Mythologies(Vol. 100, No. 397. Jul. - Sep., 1987). In it, he also situated the Esu as author of dissent, “an exponent of ceaseless rearrangements” and a dissembler. Esu, said Cosentino, is a counterpart to Ifa, who the Yoruba see as the Lord of Divination and through whom sacrifices and propitiations are made to God for peace in the world.

Epo Akara and Cosentino’s narratives are not dissimilar. The two of them began this folklore thus: There existed two friends who were so fond of each other and inseparable. They were objects of discussions by the whole village. In fact, sang Epo Akara, won ki ja, won kii ta – they never had a word of disagreement since they began their friendship from their infancy. So, one day, Esu swore to cause irreparable discord between them. The object he cast for that dissention was a cap. So the Esu sowed a multicolored cap, something in the mould of Dolly Parton’s coat of many colours. The colours, says Cosentino, have been “variously described as red and white; red, white and blue; or red, white, green, and black.”

Epo Akara, however, put the colours of the cap as white and black. So the Esu transformed himself into an irresistibly dressed, handsome young man in dainty Aso Oke and Sanyan cap. As the two friends sat in a foyer chattering, Esu walked between them and in the words of Cosentino, “put his pipe at the nape of his neck and hung his staff over his back.” As Esu walked past the two friends, in the rendering of the Awurebe musician, the first friend called the attention of his pal to the cap, which he said was black. Once he had money, the friend remarked, it would be his delight to buy it – bi mo ri’ru e, ma ra’kan, Balarabi, Wali Muhanmonda. The friend fired back, insisting that the cap was white and insulted the other friend by asking if he was blind – ab’oju re o ri’ran? Then, a very deadly brawl ensued between the duo as they came to blows.

While Epo Akara insisted that, having achieved his dissembling aim, Esu transformed himself into who he was and settled the quarrel, Consentino argued that the tiff came to a halt when the disputants were brought to court. In court, the scholar said, Esu confessed to his trick, boasting that "sowing dissension is my great delight." In the rendering of the Folklore and Mythology scholar, Esu then fled. As he fled, Esu lit fire along the way, mixing up all the possessions of fleeing townsfolk. He also tested and exposed friendships along the way, thereby creating and destroying wealth. He then laughed at the ignorance of the people about his innate destructive nature.

Nigeria’s Labour Party, (LP) it will seem, is where Esu Elegbara has made his temporary home now. Last week, the party’s internal tiff reached a cancerous level at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja. In the glare of the whole world, the timely intervention of police officers prevented miffed supporters of Peter Obi from skewering the flesh of the party’s Acting National Chairman, Apapa. Apapa and Julius Abure, hitherto suspended national chairman of the party, were embroiled in a leadership tussle. This led to blood-baiting hounds, suspected to be sympathetic to the Abure faction of the party, pouncing on Apapa. The wolves had prevented Apapa from addressing the press and shoved him dangerously off television cameras. In the process, one of them took off Apapa’s cap. He later took possession of it.

Speaking at a press conference after the attack, the 73-year old Apapa rained curses on the person who removed his cap. He had said: "My cap is here as you can see it. It was not burnt, and the boy who removed my cap will suffer it in his life. I saw him, he's a young chap. He'll never grow old by God's grace. He deserves it, you know why? I didn't use cutlass on him."

Were Apapa’s curses of Janus colour and texture as that of Adedara Arunralojaoba, Ijesaland’s – domiciled in Osun State – most evocative musician who sang Adamo music during his lifetime? Janus, you know, is the Egyptian binary god with two faces.  Some installments away, I narrated this Adamo musician’s encounter with another musician, Ayinla Omowura, in Ilesa in the 1970s. Omowura’s drums began to get torn in subsequence as he set out to sing at a live gig where he and Adedara had been invited. In the words of Arunralojaoba, on arriving the bandstand to take over the evening belt of entertainment of invited audience, Omowura had been drunk to stupor with his assumed musical superiority. Speaking to Dele Adeyanju, a renowned broadcaster, in an interview, the Adamo musician had attributed the torn drums to God fighting his battle for him and not any traditional African spiritual attack. Adedara was known to have at one time been a member of the Ogboni fraternity. So, were the torn drums God’s own way of fighting for Adedara against his adversary, or the scenario was a product of metaphysical invocation?

The removal of Apapa’s cap reminds me of the same violence and indignity suffered by Bola Ige, ex-governor of old Oyo State, in the hands of sponsored miscreants like those hooligans in the LP. It was at the height of the intra-party sabre-rattling of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). At a ceremony held on Saturday December 15, 2001 where Olusegun Obasanjo’s late wife, Stella, was conferred with a chieftaincy title by the Ooni of Ife, wolves suspected to be in the herd of Iyiola Omisore, erstwhile Deputy Governor of Osun State, pounced on Ige in similar cavalier but blood-baiting manner Apapa was to witness almost 22 years after. They seized the cap of the man, known as Arole Awolowo – Obafemi Awolowo’s heir – caps which, unlike Apapa’s, he was never to set eyes upon again.

Five days before this, an attempt to impeach Omisore was held at the Osun State House of Assembly. Odunayo Olagbaju, believed to be one of Omisore’s Rottweilers, was at the forefront of the disruption of the impeachment proceedings. Allegations were rife that Olagbaju was also the coordinator of the violent seizure of Ige’s cap. Four days after the attack on Ige, Olagbaju was mysteriously assassinated in Ile-Ife. Exactly four days after Olagbaju’s assassination, Ige was also taken out in what appeared like cult-like revenge killings. Today, Omisore is Southwest progressives’ highest-ranking national official, representing the Yorubaland which venerated Ige as an avatar.

Beyond their ethno-cultural implications as significant aspect of dressing and fashion, caps also have mythic qualities among the Yoruba especially. Aside caps’ aesthetic and symbolic elaboration of the body, they are also seen as weapon in the hands of Esu. The cap perhaps gained that relevance due to the renowned place that the head has in African epistemology. The head receives special aesthetic attention as a result of its spiritual and biological importance. Among the Yoruba, the head, called Ori, is a site of spiritual intuition and destiny. It is as well a harbinger of a man’s reflective spark of human consciousness. It is an Orisa, or god, of its own and is not only venerated but worshipped. To acquire a balanced character – iwa-pele – the Yoruba believe that the individual, working in tandem with this Orisa, can achieve this desirable personality. When he does, the individual then receives an alignment with his Ori, the divine self. People whose destinies are skewed are advised to worship their Ori whose variant among the Igbo is chi. So, when a cap, the decorative ornament of the head, is rudely removed as was done to Ige and Apapa, Yoruba see it as bad omen, symbolizing a rude yank-off of the human person.

Immediately after the seizure of Ige’s cap, some knowledgeable elders in sorcery and witchcraft opined that there existed causality between the cap’s removal and his eventual killing. For a people who use metaphysics as human agency to explain what the common eyes cannot penetrate, when Ige eventually died, the narrative of the connect between the removed cap and his death took front burner. So, in the seizure of Apapa’s cap, was Esu Elegbara on the usual roller-coaster of his famous trickster prowess, or does the act just symbolize a fatality to either Apapa, the Labour Party or the boy who bit the bullet by removing the cap?

The chief accusation against Apapa is that he is the Esu Elegbara in the Labour Party who this destructive god lent his heart for a fee. As Epo Akara and Cosentino narrated in their works, could Apapa be the modern or Nigeria’s political party version of the trickster deity, who is sowing dissention in the party? Ask those who are ranged against him to explain why, they will tell you that Apapa has received humongous bribe from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to act as the Judas within the party. On an Arise television interview last week, Apapa asked those who leveled such allegations to provide evidence. Again, in his insular trickery, I saw Esu Elegbara laughing rambunctiously. Do those who give bribes leave traces? Should those who also leveled such allegation against this old man sincerely do this without providing evidence? Are they themselves the Esu, being on the payroll of Abure, to ensure that Apapa is fought to a standstill?

Precedent is however on the side of those who accuse Apapa of acting the script of the APC. Nigerian politics is so enmeshed in indignity and amorality that virtually all those who engage in it possess scarred souls like the devil’s. They even tell you that politics and morality are in perpetual enmity. If you observe, the highest fusillade of attacks, both judicial and verbal, from the APC to any party, is towards the Labour Party. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its commissars receive scant attention of that party. It must believe that that party is already mortally wounded. APC, peopled by a commune of scavengers, vultures and deadly hit-men, will logically rent an Apapa for a dissembling assignment. If I must hanker a guess, it must be because the LP poses the greatest social threat to the legitimacy that APC needs, not necessarily during the current judicial process but after it. Thus, employing an Esu Elegbara within the fold of the LP for this dirty job is a politically wise decision for a party whose men, in the name of politics, will kill their mother and rope their father for the murder without batting an eyelid.

Esu Elegbara seems to be on the trail of the Labour Party and is not relenting yet. At the tail end of last week, until the clarification given by the court, the Federal High Court in Kano was reported to have declared the votes polled by the Abia State governor-elect, Alex Otti, Labour Party’s only state governor in the last general election, as wasted. It however reportedly refrained from nullifying the certificate of return issued by INEC to the governor-elect. A newspaper later on published the clarification of the court, stating that it denied annulling the election of the governor-elect.

If you think it is only in LP that Esu Elegbara wrecks its havocs, you are mistaken. In the PDP, he began his life-sworn disruption and destruction, as they say, as a pre-election cancer. By the time Atiku Abubakar and his party realized that Esu was in cahoots with the party, Elegbara had destroyed all the cells within the body of the party, finally and permanently retiring the Adamawa-born politician from his serial quest for the Nigerian presidency.

Elegbara, it will seem, is on his way to the APC as we speak. From reports, the party is on its way to a political liaison with Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso, New Nigerian People’s Party (NPP’s) presidential candidate. President-elect, Bola Tinubu, was reported to have met the NPP boss for political talks in Paris last Monday. There is the need for enough senators to complete the circus of a pliable National Assembly. I imagine the mind of Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Kano State governor, at the moment. The Nigerian politician, in pursuing his persuasion that politics and morality are not friends, devised what is labeled a “no permanent friends, no permanent foes” lexicographic feature of politics. But, must politicians be indistinguishable from serial adulterers? Esu Elegbara must be somewhere now, devising his next trickery. Will he wear Ganduje like an apparel?

Soji Adesida takes a rude bow

April 28 was a particularly bad day for the Adesida royal dynasty of Akure. That day, their son, Anthony Adesoji Adesida, a.k.a. Stag, was killed during a brawl in the state capital. A Prince and Pastor, he had sought armistice between two feuding personalities at the venue of a party. One of them, consumed by a deadly anger, had shoved him off violently. Stag hit his avuncular head on the naked, coarse floor. As his head made jangling crack on the irreverent concrete cement floor, little did aghast onlookers know that the amiable, personable and affectionate Adesida had just a few minutes left to keep a reunion appointment with his Creator. He was 65 years old.

Soji Adesida is dead. The news reverberated round the ancient city of his birth, Akure and Ibadan, where he nested as place of domicile and work for decades of his life. In those decades, he cultivated a commune of friends who, today, are still mourning his departure. He sowed imperishable seeds of affection in their lives.

Adesida’s Akureness was what I first encountered. He had been told of his Akure brother who was in a seeming adulterous liaison with the pen and was causing some uproar in the public sphere, he told me. So, when we met, Adesida was all over me. His dotting brotherhood reminded me of Baba Saliu. In a panegyric for this friend of his, my musical god, Ayinla Omowura, had lauded Saliu’s father who he said, whenever he saw him, it was a case of a human being intoxicating the other like the searing laceration that liquor gives the stomach – bi Baba Saliu ba ti ri wa, eniyan pa ni, o j’oti…  

Each time Stag read my piece, he proudly and exhilaratingly announced that his Akure brother had penned “the wonder.” In a piece I did last year on Polaris Bank, he tackled a staff of the bank who had a dissenting opinion from mine. He eventually linked her up with me so that I could impugn her stand. Such was the texture Stag was made of. You could imagine how downcast I was to be told that such a wonderful brother had been killed.

This Friday, Akure will stand still for one of its own as Stag is lifted down the vault of a rude earth that would be unconscionable enough to demand to swallow the remains of such an affable man. We will however erect a cenotaph for this great Akure son in our hearts. On it, we will engrave this epitaph: Here lies a man who lived and died Akure.

Rest in peace, brother.

Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war ~ Proverbs 20:18.

Introduction

Starting right, going great and finishing excellently is God’s plan for every marital union. Nevertheless, the holy union can be fulfilling only when and where God's purposes are fully tracked, clearly understood and lovingly embraced.

Every marital union established on earth is assigned to a clear agenda from heaven, and in order to excel in it, couples must choose never to settle for ordinary relationships, but rather strive to glorify God through a kingdom-focused togetherness, till the end of time.

In normal godly Christian homes, the man is incomplete without his wife, neither is the woman. Jesus Christ said they both become “one flesh” (Matthew 19:5-6). Thus, there should be a willing, working and winning together in marital relationships to fulfill destiny!

This may entail some tough, critical and intelligent choices — physical, emotional and spiritual — but that’s the irreducible minimum if you desire to excel in your marital journey.

Understanding The Divine Destiny for Marital Unions

Basically, destiny refers to God's appointed and ordained purpose for your life. It is what God has predetermined you to be, and to become in His divine agenda (Ephesians 1:11).

Nothing exists without a divine purpose (Colossians 1:16). And, God always wishes to see us being fulfilled in His Will because He created everything for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11). Hence, there’s a fixed and predetermined purpose of God for every Christian home.

Before the partners met, or had loved each other as a couple, God had sketched out their lives with certain plans He expects them to accomplish together on earth (Jeremiah 29:11). He predestined each home for His peculiar ends.

Without equivocation, the grand purpose of God for everything — organization, institution, animate or inanimate, including your family unit — is to serve and glorify Him (Isaiah 60:6; 1 Peter 2:9).

Additionally, marriage is also intended for partnership, preservation, pleasure, provision and procreation of godly seeds for the enhancement of the human society (Malachi 2:14-15).

God sculpted us into being and fashioned our destinies before we were ever born (Jeremiah 1:4-5; Psalms 139:16). It would be outrageous, utterly foolish and very dangerous, therefore, for any mortal to attempt to contradict what God — the Infinite Wisdom — has already ordained.

However, one gets sad to read of many people in Scriptures who ended up aborting God’s plan for their lives, just because of marital issues. An example of this is showcased in a brief panorama of Samson’s life and his dented destiny.

Samson was a man of clearly defined destiny, a Nazarite, born for a purpose of beginning Israel's deliverance from bondage to the Philistines (Judges 13:1-25)! For twenty years, Samson walked in the authority of his destiny by the sheer strength of the Holy Spirit.

He drove the fear of God into the camp of the Philistines. He also judged Israel and brought hope to the entire nation. But, Samson aborted his destiny by chasing after a harlot, Delilah. Knowingly flirting with danger, he lost it all!

Samson could have lived out his days in dignity, and as a vessel of incredible honour and victories by the operation of the Holy Spirit, but he rather became sensuous and degenerated very fast.

He lost the conqueror’s anointing that had brought him immense honour and respect amongst his people. He ended as one of the most pitiful weaklings and a major tragic figure in biblical history: a conquered conqueror!

He lost all his dreaded strength, and his eyes were gouged out! Though, reminiscent of his glorious destiny, Samson brought down the Philistine temple in his dying day. Yet, he died a most miserable, cataclysmic death, having missed his destiny altogether!

Unfortunately, for similar marital misadventures, Solomon, Lot’s Wife, Vashti and Michal also experienced upturned destinies. Particularly, Solomon died without a successor for his great successes. His incredible wisdom profited many other people greatly, but worthless to himself in that respect.

What could be responsible for these sad incidents? I suspect ignorance played a big role. Outright lack of right information or faulty information could be devastating and very frustrating to anyone, including starry destinies.

Please note that irrespective of your success outside your home, you’re still missing your marital destiny if you are not glorifying God in your household, becoming more and more like Jesus, loving God and being practically involved in demonstrating His love to the world.

Particularly, the Christian homes that desire to enjoy divine distinction must resolve, like Joshua’s household, to serve the Lord together (Joshua 24:15). In fact, it seems like a good wife/husband occasionally evolves as a reward for courageous commitments to the cause of kingdom advancement (Judges 1:12-13).

There must be a definitive enthusiasm for mutual support for the callings of God upon our homes. The entire household must unite to do things that please God, loving Him heartily, and modeling His love to the world through our spiritual activities such as soul-winning, giving, intercessory prayers, etcetera.

Planning To Fulfill Destiny In Marriage

In order to fulfill your marital destiny, you must make a family plan and live according to it (Proverbs 20:18). Marriage plans will provoke marital focus. Even if it doesn’t look perfect, yet it's on the way to fulfilling destiny.

Start with where you are today. Honestly jot down some words to describe your relationship presently — silent, unhappy, disconnected, together on paper, lacking sexual intimacy, confused, frustrated, drifting, or, growing, hopeful, wonderful, fun-filled, energized? Dream up a marital mission with your mate to bring about improvements.

Poor decisions will always lead to wrong choices, and wrong choices will lead to failed homes. Make room for changes in attitude where necessary. Your home is destined to become the home you determine it should be.

Your destiny is greater than your present challenges, so make serious commitments together to stop the matrimonial wandering today. Keep your marital mission on your minds. Determine to pick up your destiny in God, and deliberately resolve to glorify Him in it.

Above all, allow God’s grand plan to steer your marriage and order your everyday steps (Jeremiah 10:23-24). Your lives don’t belong to you anymore, but to the One who predestined you to His Will. With His involvement in your lives, your marriage can still become truly extraordinary.

It’s Now In Your Hand!

In conclusion, please know that your colourful marital destiny is in your hands, right now (Micah 6:8). The level of success that you attain in your marriage, including the degree of happiness you access in it, is in your hands.

See, destiny is an interplay between grace and conscious self-effort. In fact, what we call “fate” is just another word for people's past choices coming to a head (Deuteronomy 30:19-20). It’s the practical wisdom you access from God and your right actions that deliver your joyful consequences (James 1:5)!

Often people delay in doing what they ought to do, waiting until it becomes too late. But, you must swing into action today, seizing this golden moment to make your marriage a wonder!

Accept responsibility for your destiny. If you don’t change direction, you might end up where you are heading. Either through your wrong choices or willful ignorance, your marital successes or failures have been brought on by none other than yourself.

Friends and brethren, it is choice and not a blind chance that determines destiny. Choose to make your home count for God in glorious togetherness (Luke 10:41-42). Determine to live each day together to please God while time remains. You won’t miss it, in Jesus Name. Amen. Happy Sunday!

** Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

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As a young believer, the Holy Spirit told me something that shattered me. He said heaven is not for me. “There is no food in heaven. There is no sex in heaven. None of the material possessions you crave is in heaven. What would you want to do in such a boring place?” He asked.

The truth of the matter is that Christians are not interested in heaven. The earth is where all our treasures are in.

Jesus asked a man sick for 38 years if he would like to be made whole. Would you believe the man did not even answer “Yes?” So, I ask a similar question to anyone reading this. Do you want to go to heaven? Or would you rather go to Dubai or Paris?

If you say yes to heaven, then you might need to provide the evidence to confirm you are telling the truth and not merely grandstanding. 

Where salvation is concerned, we all answer “No” by our actions and inactions. Paul confesses: “I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.” (Romans 7:14-15).

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” (Romans 7:18-19).

Nobody answers yes to salvation. That is why it is a gift of God to a select few. If even only one man had answered yes, it would not have been necessary to send Jesus. Everybody answers “No” to salvation.

Left to man, there would be no salvation. With man, salvation is impossible. But with God, all things are possible. That is why salvation is entirely by grace. Man cannot meet its requirements. Man does not even want it. We do not desire it.

We want lands, we want houses, we want money, we want fame, but we don’t want salvation. Had it not been for the Lord, who is full of compassion and lovingkindness, we would all be condemned.

Isaiah confesses this to God: “You welcome those who cheerfully do good, who follow godly ways. But we are not godly; we are constant sinners and have been all our lives. Therefore, your wrath is heavy on us. How can such as we be saved? We are all infected and impure with sin.” (Isaiah 64:5-6).

Listen to me, if you are not offended by Jesus you will learn a lot from Him. Jesus asked a sick man if he would like to be healed because He knew the man does not desire healing. When a man desires healing, you will know.

When a man is determined to go to heaven, you will know. He will not make excuses for his sins. You will not have to harass him to come to church. You will not have to station a policeman in his bedroom to make him read his Bible.

John warns: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.” (1 John 3:8-10).

The man who wants to go to heaven sets his face as a flint. When you slap him, he won’t slap you back. When you abuse him, he won’t respond. When you cheat him, he won’t retaliate. It is not even so much that he is a good man as that he would not want anything to jeopardise his salvation.

Just think about it. How can you allow your eternity to be determined by one temporal sexual act of 30 minutes duration? David nearly lost his kingdom because of a sexual transgression. How can you allow eternity to be determined by one foolish act of unrighteousness?

God is the thief in the night, and He has put a gun to your head. He says: “If I hear one sound from you, I will shoot you dead.” Will you make a sound?

“Don’t worry,” says the devil. “He’s just threatening you. I can assure you that He won’t shoot.” “Are you sure?” “I tell you He won’t shoot. Make a sound and see.”

Whatever it takes

We must be determined to do whatever it takes for the sake of salvation.

Paul says: “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Philippians 3:7-8).

What things were gain to you that you have counted loss for Christ? What things are gain to you that you are prepared to count as loss for Christ?

A lady phoned me from the United States to ask: “Doctor, since you gave your life to Christ, what have you gained?” I told her she does not understand kingdom dynamics. She was operating in the psychology of the world.

What she needed to ask was: “Since you gave your life to Christ, what have you lost?” Then I would have been able to show her my CV of losses. Many things that were gain to me I have counted them loss for Christ. If I had not, I would not be able to write this.

Those who want to go to heaven are unshaken in their determination. They don’t entertain distractions. Blind Bartimaeus wanted to be healed. Some people told him to keep quiet, but he did not listen to them. Bartimaeus cried out even more until he got Jesus’ attention.

Jesus called the Syro-Phoenician woman who sought healing for her daughter a dog. She did not care. “You can call me a dog, a monkey or even a cow. It does not matter so long as my daughter gets healed.”

Friends of a paralytic removed the roof of a building to get to Jesus. They did not care that they damaged a man’s house. They would do anything to get healing for their friend.

What about you? What price are you prepared to pay for salvation? How valuable is salvation to you?

Salvation is free. Freely have you received. But please don’t get carried away with the freedom, or shall I say the free-ness. Although it is freely given and freely received, you still must work it out.

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12).

The salvation of the soul is perfected: “in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.” (2 Corinthians 11:27).

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