Jumoke Ogunleye

13/10/2024

07/06/2023

The Managing Director of Sahara Group, Mr. Kola Adesina on Friday, June 2, 2023, fulfilled one of his promises to his alma mater, the University of Lagos with the donation of Students’ Convenience to the Faculty of Management Sciences. Speaking at the commissioning of the project, Mr. Adesina desc...

18/05/2023

SHOW UP FOR LIFE

Sometimes life plays a hard one on us and all we feel like doing is crawling under a rock. I have had my fair share of such moments in recent years and even in recent months. Some of them i could not even share with anybody. The heavy clouds of personal tragedies can sometimes make us feel like giving up. I actually did give up for a while because it is the easy thing to do and that is a very cowardly thing to do but, after a while I mustered the courage to stand up again. This is because life didn't stop for one second due to my unpleasant happenstances. Eventually I had to make the decision to fall back in step with life, finding a rhythm that suits me and here I am today standing up forLife.

A lot of times people have found themselves at a loss of what to do with their lives when faced with challenges, tragedies and tough situations. Some who have committed su***de are among those could not find a silver lining in the horizon. Sometimes the heavy clouds of tough situations could bow our heads so low that if we fail to find the strength to lift up our heads we will not catch a glimpse of that lining of hope in the horizon. And from mine and the experience of others around me i found that there is always a reason to keep hope alive. I have seen unbelievable dark situations turn around for good. Should we hang on to hope that things will get better knowing that it may or may not? My answer to that is certainly we should. Hope does more for us than simply to remedy the situation. Hope keeps us going everyday and gives us a reason to hang in there. Hope also leads to opening up of ourselves to huge disappointments if those hopes are not eventually met.
Should we because of the possibility that hope will not be met or will be deferred resort to us resigning to our faith? Absolutely not. Everyone needs to take a chance on life because it is all that we can do and as long as one is still alive you have to show up. So here am I standing up and showing up for life. I will not allow the battering of life to keep my head bowed. I will show up for as long as I can. Dear friends will you stand up and join me in showing up for life?

18/03/2023

I know I said that I have hung up my boots for this election but I just have to respond quickly to something I just read on someone's wall accusing Yorubas that are supporting Igbos to take over Lagos as foolish. They said we are supporting the Igbos to seize our lands and turn us to slaves in our own land and I need to ask some questions. Please prior to this election period where or when did any incident of Igbos seizing lands in Lagos occur? maybe I was not aware of it. Where and when did any igbo have the effontery (in Lagos the land of plenty Baales, omo oniles and agberos who daily tax motorist, market women, okadas) to seize any land in Lagos or enslave anyone. Please where? Someone please show me or remind me. Prior to this election everywhere was peaceful and everyone was going about their lawful business, no incidents. But suddenly because someone wants to continue to hold on to power at all cost they push out a narrative of Igbo against Yoruba and some seemingly well educated people swallow up that vomit hook, line and sinker. Omashee o. I feel so much pity in my heart for them and the level of stupidity exhibited. If APC have done well they don't need to instigate anyone against each other because everyone in Lagos including the plenty mallams and other tribes are only here to better their lives. No one comes to Lagos to count bridges. Once the government does its job well no one really cares who sits in the saddle. I can never ever forget the time of Fashola when this same hooligan who has turned all our children to agberos did not want Fashola to have a second term despite how fantastically he performed, everyone in Lagos of all tribes was rooting for Fashola then. Even PDP refused to conduct their primaries and they offered Fashola automatic ticket if his party refused to give him the ticket. These are the same Igbos o that one drug baron Omo Ale jatijati today is preaching that they want to seize our lands. The same person who didn't want to allow someone who did very well for us in Lagos to continue as governor because of his own personal reasons. Tinubu doesn't mean well for anyone apart from himself. It is His machinery at work that puts out all those posts supposedly made by Igbos that they will take over Lagos and even Ibadan. Is it possible? Are they going to uproot the land and dump it next to Biafra? Haa, awon alai ni ironu bi ti ara galatia (Stupid Galatians). Igbos are the ethnic groups who live outside their borders the most. Why are they not taking over Osogbo, Akure or even Ibadan? Why please? Their population is everywhere in Nigeria in large numbers. Go and look at Oyo state, Seyi Makinde did not need to coerce anyone or spread any false narrative. He only gave good governance. 👍
That is the same thing Fashola did in his own time which made all the Obas to beg for him to be retained. He didn't need to go around like Ambode seeking who would bail him out. And the Lion of Bourdillon himself knew that he was playing with fire if he didn't put Fashola forward. Tinubu might be an evil genius but he is definitely not stupid. The people who do not see him for what he truly is are the ones that I pity. Throughout these past weeks we saw APC begging the Igbos, giving them money, inviting their leaders to special dinners while at the backend they stir up strife among the people with a rhetoric of they want to take over Lagos.
It is only a truly EVIL PERSON who would resort to doing all these things rather than doing the right thing which is to govern well with humanity and compassion.
If only Tinubu rather than spending time and resources to entrench himself as a warlord had done the right thing, and developed Yorubaland with all the humongous resources he spent on buying support all over the place, sponsoring/enthroning governors especially in the north and weaponizing thugs. If only he spent all that money wisely, every Yoruba child/adult/man/woman would carry his matter on their heads like tomorrow no dey. His name will never be erased and even children in the womb would leap for Joy at the mention of his name. Why is it that even till today Awolowo's name reverberates and is a rallying point for all Yorubas? It is because of his works and vision for the Yorubas. If Tinubu did just half of what Awolowo did with all the resources that he cornered to himself then I can assure you that a Chibuzor born of Igbo parents would change his name to Ayomide trying to pass himself off as a Yoruba just to be able to enjoy some benefits. I never knew the extent of mental poverty and deprivation that we have sunk to as a people. Yoruba my Yoruba, the pride of all tribes allowing yourself to be led by the nose by an "omo ti o ni iran" 😢 Omashe o. It is only those who don't see how evil and power hungry that Tinubu is that are foolish.
I beg I can't shout again 😒

N/B
This post is a response to what I read on someone's wall calling those of us supporting Labour Party as foolish and a message sent to me by a Professor also calling me the most stupid person in the Universe.

24/02/2023

EXPECT TINUBU TO FIGHT DIRTY

A few weeks ago the APC presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu was captured in a video urging his team to SN**CH, GRAB and RUN AWAY with POWER because it would not be served as "A la Carte" in a restaurant. I was largely not surprised by the charge because it is obvious that BAT has been running with this Mantra all his life.

BAT is a man that has always utilized all and any means within his power to achieve his purpose and it has been working for him. This election will definitely not be different. While it is an admirable thing to be dogged and tenacious in pursuing one's ambition, there is however something very wrong with utilizing ANY means AVAILABLE to achieve it.

Indeed BAT's utterances show clearly what plans he has for the coming election, GRAB and SN**CH are not words one uses when one intends to play fair and square. To BAT this is a power game, one in which he is well versed at playing and it is also a Life Long ambition which he has no intention of giving up on.
He has said it severally that it is a fight, it is a battle and that he is willing to get dirty for it and that is why he urged his supporters to grab, sn**ch, run away with and employ any means necessary to get the power and we have it on record in his very own words.

As a Collation officer for the Ajeromi LGA in Lagos State in the 2019 elections I had the opportunity to witness the real life performance of this mantra that BAT and APC runs with. Ajeromi Ifelodun is a densely populated suburb in Lagos largely inhabited by people from the south south and southeast of Nigeria. The leading candidate for the House of Representative in that election was someone from the opposition party and there was a very reasonable expectation that this candidate would clinch the ticket. We had been on ground a day before to adequately prepare for the election and it was obvious that the atmosphere was very tense. Several area boys milled around the LGA Secretariat issuing subtle threats that no one cept the candidate of the APC would be allowed to clinch the ticket. When voting started on the day of the election and it was obvious from the votes counted at the polling units where voting was not disrupted that the APC candidate was very likely to loose the election, areas boys swung into action and carted away about 51 ballot boxes. At many other polling units the counting process was disrupted with guns. Youth corpers and other polling agents had to scamper to safety abandoning the process. A few of them were hurt in the ensuing melee. Gun shots were being fired right over our heads and all around us. The fear was palpable. The army unit stationed at the LGA Secretariat did a good job of protecting the Secretariat and they did not allow the Secretariat to be overrun by gun touting boys even though we were surrounded by them.
The gunshots, onslaught and harassment from the area boys continued into the next day disrupting the entire collation process. The Nigerian Army had to send in a unit to evacuate collation officials from the Secretariat around 12 midnight of Sunday the day following the election. Our assignment had to be concluded at the INEC head office in Yaba. From the results that came in, the PDP candidate was in a clear lead in all the polling units that had results but due to the violence, the results of 71 polling units in Ajeromi/Ifelodun was canceled or not received and the election was declared inconclusive.

A supplementary election took place a month after. The Electoral Officer ( EO) who headed the INEC unit at the LGA refused to go back to conduct a supplementary election and another EO had to be appointed. Collation officers were called back to do the job again and we braved our fears and went. This time around the situation was much calmer. The environ was saturated with thugs and agberos called in from other areas in Lagos. They were openly welding weapons and amulets. Voters had been intimidated and threatened a day prior to the elections and on the election morning as recounted to us by some residents and consequently voter turnout was very low because anyone who was not an APC supporter feared for their life. At the end of the day the APC candidate was declared winner.

Snatching, grabbing, running away with ballot boxes and vote buying is not a tactic that is new to the political space in Nigeria but BAT has taken it to new heights. The stakes in this election is so high that the tension is palpable. Already reports of intimidation of residents have filtered in. Market people and residents of Eti-osa have been threatened by a Baale. PDP and Labour Party supporters have been attacked during campaign, you can only imagine what more BAT has up his sleeves. Go around the entire Lagos. You cannot find the poster or banner of any candidate other than APC candidates. This is the man that some people want to hand over Nigeria to. A Mafiaso style warlord who has held Lagos State by the jugular for the past 24 years and taken over more than half of the public property of Lagos State. A man who has legalized agbero activities and given them pride of place. You can imagine what he will do as President. It is really terrible that common sense has departed many Nigerians. God help us 🙏

24/02/2023

It's less than 24 hours to the elections and I am so happy that it will soon be over. The campaigns and arguments for and against will not be required anymore. It will be time to live with the consequences of our decision although I very much doubt if our decision will be allowed to see the light of day based on all the evidences flying up and down about plans to rig and buy votes.

I have tried my best and I am so very proud of myself. When history is being recounted it would be told that I stood on the side of truth and justice. Every where I went and at every opportunity I got I tried to awaken the sensibilities of our people to the great potential of Nigeria lying waste only because of bad leadership.
I spoke to my students, I spoke to my friends and family members, I spoke to strangers at petrol stations, gas plants, the supermarket and markets and I posted almost everyday on social media about the need to put a competent and worthy leader in the saddle.

Is it about Peter Obi? Definitely not, it is about Nigeria and us becoming the Great Nation that we ought to be. Several supporters of BAT have boasted to me telling me that I will definitely cry after February 25th because they are certain that their candidate Tinubu will win the election and I just can't help but shake my head in pity and laugh in Spanish.
I laugh not because it is not possible for Tinubu to win the election but because I have deep pity for them and their vacuous thoughts. Firstly it shows them up as being deeply unpatriotic and second it shows that they are full of pride and arrogance and, they are definitely ungodly.

Unpatriotic because boasting about who will win shows that it is just a power game to them. The presidency is not a trophy to be won and to show off with. It is work, a lot of hardwork and commitment. It would only make sense to me for these people to boast to me that I will see what their candidate will achieve and that I will eat my words when their candidate turns Nigeria around for the better. That is the real deal not just to win and that is why I accuse them of lacking in patriotism. Our allegiance should be to a better Nigeria not to any individual. The individual should only be relevant if he is able to bring about a better Nigeria.
They are arrogant and ungodly because they have decided to take the place of God forgetting that God rules as he wishes in the affairs of men and He has the power to overturn even the most carefully orchestrated plans.

Anyway the wait is nearly over. The Yorubas have a proverb that says "Orun nya bo, ki se oro enikan"
Meaning that "if the heavens will fall it won't be selective and choose who to fall on, it will fall on all".
Whatever our decision tomorrow we will all live with the consequences.

Make sure to vote.
Shun any form of violence.
Happy Elections People

10/01/2023

LEADERSHIP IS ABOUT CARING

I have been meaning to pen down my thoughts about two very interesting conversations I had with two eminent personalities last week Wednesday 4th January 2023 and here it is. The first conversation was with the first female Vice-Chancellor of the University of First Choice who paid a visit to my Faculty. This afforded us the opportunity to intimate her of our challenges and I specifically brought to fore the ordeal that my Department was facing in terms of staffing. From her response it was quite obvious that she genuinely empathised with us and was very willing to work hand with us to seek for ways to ease our distress. She also gave us tips on what she thought we needed to start doing to surmount the problem. One thing that clearly came across to me from her response was that SHE CARED.

My second conversation later that day was with an erudite and renowned Professor and supporter of Bola Ahmed Tinubu for President. We talked about the coming election and he reminded me of how he warned me in 2015 that Buhari was not the Messiah that we thought he was and how he has been proved right. He capped it up by telling me that no matter what we the enemies of BAT did, he would win the coming election. What resonated loud and clear from this boast was the difference in the basis of the passion that we had for supporting different candidates for the upcoming election.

For me I am passionate about supporting the candidacy of Peter Obi not because I know him personally or expect to be rewarded for supporting him. Neither is it because he is my tribesman or religious brother and, it certainly is not because I consider him to be my fellow cohort in hatred for Tinubu. I am supporting Peter Obi because I think that he is the most competent for the position having what I consider to be the required capabilities necessary at this point in time to turn around the floundering ship of Nigeria and, most importantly because I believe that he genuinely cares that Nigeria does not become a shipwreck.

This is contrary to what one can deduce from the words and actions of BAT. From his antecedents as governor for eight years in Lagos State I do not think that it is on record that Tinubu ever sat down with our secondary school students and school captains to know what their problems were or how he could help them to solve it. We did not see Tinubu painstakingly taking his time or going out of his way to alleviate the challenges of our teachers, nurses, artisans or even pensioners. What Tinubu spent his time doing was playing politics; a lot of politics, which by the way is an act I know that he is master of.

A very famous story that made the rounds few years back whilst BAT was governor of Lagos State was an allegation of how he treated pensioners who visited him at Alausa Secretariat to seek his intervention on the issue of unpaid pensions. It was allegedly reported that he asked them why their children were not taking care of them and how come they were not yet all dead. Whether this allegation is true or not one thing that can be easily ascertained is that BAT left a huge backlog of unpaid pensions and pensioners suffered unduly under his leadership. Pensioners from all over Lagos usually had to assemble at Alausa for rigorous and unending verification exercises that sometimes resulted in fatalities. All this changed immediately Babatunde Raji Fashola became governor. BRF was so touched by the plight of the pensioners that he immediately decentralized the verification process to LGAs and also cleared the backlog of unpaid pensions. BRF went above and beyond to institute a system whereby canopies and chairs were always set up at LGAs during the verification exercises and refreshment was also provided for the pensioners free of charge. I had first hand information about all this then from some pensioners I knew who would not stop praying daily for BRF for his benevolence and for treating them differently than BAT treated them. What this act portrayed, as well as several other acts by BRF during his tenure as governor was that HE CARED. BRF’s performance in Lagos was so sterling that the ordinary masses felt the impact of his leadership. This was the same person that BAT nearly thwarted his chances of re-election by denying him the party ticket such that, major opposition parties offered to give BRF an automatic ticket to re-contest if his party failed to give him the ticket. In my opinion BAT only capitulated to the yearnings of the people because it would have tantamount to him committing political hara-kiri.

Today, supporters of Tinubu are quick to ascribe the developments in Lagos to him when it is well established that the giant strides achieved in the development of Lagos cannot be attributed to him. Some are quick to say that BAT was the one who picked BRF for the job but my question to them is that why does Tinubu always have problems with the people he picks especially when they spread their wings to fly? Why do his protégées later turn out to be his adversaries? (BRF, Aregbesola, Ambode, Osinbajo). The answer is very simple; you only remain in Tinubu’s good books as long as he can perpetrate himself through you. Everyone he lifts up or puts in position is expected to dance to whatever tune he dictates. It matters not whether his protégée performs well or whether the protégée is more capable than he is as was the case with Vice-president Osinbajo. Very simple put, Bola Ahmed Tinubu does NOT CARE. His priority and number one requirement from his protégées is that they remain loyal to him and his cause and not to the cause of the common man on the street or the cause of a better Nigeria. To him it is all but a game of politics and of plots and alignments to win the ultimate price; POWER. Little wonder the claim of “EMILOKAN” and the boast about him putting Buhari in power. This same sentiment is what we see playing out when Tinubu’s supporters confidently boasts that, ‘come what may’ he will win the coming election. For them it is all about Power and who clinches it but for us it is not about power or about Peter Obi or even Tinubu. It is about electing who we think can birth a new Nigeria. Nigeria is our focus.

We want a Nigeria where it is not business as usual, where only the strong eat and the weak languish in penury. For us it is about building a land of prosperity for all, where merit will always rank above mediocrity, where the likes of MC Oluomo and others without any evident means of livelihood will not live in splendour whilst professors live in squalor. We want a Nigeria where the best of our young lads and brightest brains will not scamper to all the nooks and crannies of the earth in search of a better life. Does Bola Ahmed Tinubu CARE to give us all these or is it just a matter of the actualization of a personal ambition? Your guess is as good as mine.

When we supported Buhari back in 2015 it was because we believed that he would bring about change and stamp out the massive corruption that was rife through fuel subsidies, bogus security contracts and insurgency in the northeast. Tinubu sold Buhari to us for entirely different reasons: it was a political arrangement unbeknown to us (this he confirmed during his now famous EMILOKAN speech). In 2019 when the failings of the Buhari government had become evident to all and all who supported him in error clearly backed out, Tinubu still continued with the political arrangement to the detriment of the fate of Nigerians. Every campaign promise he made on behalf of Buhari had failed to yield fruit and Buhari performed worse on all the metrics’ that was used to judge Jonathan (exchange rate, security, inflation, fuel subsidy) yet, Tinubu persisted to bring Buhari in for a second term in office. Please pray tell, how can anyone be convinced that Tinubu is the best for Nigeria?

If peradventure BAT wins and is able to build a new Nigeria as his supporters claim that he will, I will be the first to stand in line to offer my sincerest apologies and to say thank you to him. Do I think he can do it? CAPITAL NO. His words, actions and antecedents show that he simply DOES NOT CARE.

Jumoke Ogunleye
Ph.D. FCA

05/11/2022

It is so terrible to know that we live in the same world as these people. All our leaders want to do is to Lord it over us and oppress us with power distance.
The time is near to either choose to be liberated or to continue in servitude to the EMILOKANs of this world. Let it be our own turn too, not only for the wives, children and friends of people who call themselves our leaders. Look at Leadership at work in UAE. Some people sat down and envisioned a beautiful lives for their citizens and executed good plans to achieve it. SELFLESSLY
Did you read that, SELFLESSLY I said. How can you sell a candidate who despite boasting that he has more money than a state still receives pensions and benefits running into millions from a state that has gutterroads all over, children still schooling in flooded classrooms, hospitals with not enough beds, I can't exhaust the list. Though no one can solve all the problems of a people but let us at least see that you are trying your best within the means that you have. Donate your pension to your local government or your ward such that they bless God for having you. Leaders who only think to tax the masses like the slave masters of Egypt and some are still hailing them, for what? I don't understand, please can someone help me, I can't fathom why.
Someone asked me why I take this issue so personally and I ask why not. If we don't fight for our future no one is going to hand it over on a silver platter.
Wake up Nigerian Youths FIGHT for your future and grab it from these greedy ancestors parading themselves up and down looking for just more power and feathers to add to their cap.

03/11/2022

We still have honest people who speak truth to power but selfish interest will not allow some to see straight. The Bible says do unto others as you would wish them to do to you. EMILOKAN

24/08/2022