Columns
The craze for easy money in Nigeria and the Hanifa’s story (II), by Prof. M K Othman

The craze for easy money in Nigeria and the Hanifa’s story (II), by Prof. M K Othman
Deep Thoughts with Othman
In Nigeria, the Hanifa’s case is neither a common one nor an isolated one as there are few other Hanifas murdered by their supposed protectors such as guardians and trusted neighbours in the last five months.
Cases of 12-year old Sylvester Oromoni in Lagos and 8-year old Asma’u Shuaibu Wa’alamu in Zaria were reported in the first part of this piece last week. The craze for easy money has turned out to be the most adaptable and adorable trade for some people irrespective of gender and age differences.
Last month, security personnel paraded a housewife, 39-year old Maryam Abubakar who was deeply involved in running errands and sex racketing for bandits for money. She was audacious enough to confess before newsmen that “Bandits paid me between N30,000 and N50,000 naira for a round of sex. I helped them do their shopping to prevent them from arrest, I knew they were into kidnapping, banditry, and armed robbery but I decided to date one of them despite my married status because they give me lots of money. I brought girls to them and they were given 50,000 Naira per night each. I felt my 15-year-old and 17-year-old daughters can also benefit so I introduced them to the bandits and they were given lots of money….”
Children are not left behind in this “craze for easy money business”. In the first week of January 2022, Sahara Reporters reported the arrest of three teenagers; Emomotimi Magbisa, Perebi Aweke, and Eke Prince, all 15-year-old males, and natives of the Sagbama community of Bayelsa State. The teenagers accosted and hypnotized a 13-year-old girl, Endeley Comfort. Subsequently, they took her to an apartment in the community, cut her finger, and sprinkled the blood on a mirror for a money ritual. Residents of the community noticed the suspicious movements of the suspects and raised an alarm that led to their arrest and confession.
Endeley Comfort was lucky to be rescued with her life but Sofiat Okeowo, a 20-year-old girl, resident of Idi-Ape, Abeokuta was not that lucky as she was gruesomely murdered by her pretentiously, “lovely” boyfriend, Majekodunmi Soliudeen, a 19-year old boy. Soliudeen lured Sofiat to his room for supposedly a romantic escapade but held her down and asked one of his accomplices to cold-bloodedly chop her head with a knife. Soliudeen’s accomplices were 17-year-old Wariz Oladeinde from Kugba, 19-year-old Abdulgafar Lukman from Kugba, and Mustakeem Balogun from Bode Olude, all residents of Abeokuta town. They conspired, murdered Sofiat, cut her head, packed the headless body in a sack, and started burning the head in a pot for money ritual.
They were apprehended, confessed to committing the crime on January 28th 2022 at the Kugba area of Abeokuta, and are currently being prosecuted in the Court of law. These are teenagers who should be in school for their studies but are on the street with a devilish mind to make easy money. How did we degenerate to this level of decadence? Before answering this question, let me repeat the two questions posed in the first part of this piece; why are we crazy for easy money? Does money solve our problems or bring happiness to our lives?
The high level of poverty subjecting many people to suffering and tenacious fear of social insecurity has made many Nigerians have limitless love for money or position that can bring money. Our brains are synched to believing that money can solve all problems. This is entirely wrong. Money can buy a house and comfort but cannot buy sleep, money can buy friendship but cannot buy loyalty, money can pay school fees and buy books but cannot buy knowledge, money can attract people but cannot buy their love and affection, and several other things money cannot do.
However, money is still important in the life of a man as a lack of it can make us to be miserable, so also, having too much of it can make life unbearable. Shreds of evidence of people committing suicide due to lack of money are common but there are also cases of rich people committing suicide. The case of a German billionaire, Adolf Merckle, who committed suicide in 2019, is heart-rending.
Merckle’s family issued a statement explaining the pressure that resulted in his suicide. The statement reads; “the desperate situation of his companies caused by the financial crisis, the uncertainties of the last few weeks and his powerlessness to act, have broken the passionate family entrepreneur so he took his own life.”
To answer the question of money bringing happiness, let me quote an anonymous writer who said, “the difference between money bringing happiness and not buying happiness is that money changes your perspective towards the things that you admired when you’re not rich but it cannot save you from being human, because as humans, every day or some days, something bothers us”. Now, how do we get out of these doldrums, the calamitous disposition?
The responsibilities of righting the wrongs in our society are collective tasks; the government, parents, religious leaders, and community leaders. Law and order must regulate the activities of the three arms of government as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution. Nigerians must wake up to demand transparent and accountable governance. Corruptions at all levels must be fought using several strategies to achieve the desired results.
Parents should bear the full responsibility of parentage. They should be a shepherd to their children and other members of the family. Can we instil and inculcate morality and value system in all members of the family? As parents, we should be like a bee, providing honey most of the time and then stinging to correct and defend the family value. We should not spare the rod for our children if the need arises. At all times, we should be watchful, mindful, and accountable for our children’s doings and undoings. We should not hand over the upbringing of our children to school teachers. We should honour our children when they do well and sanction them when they do the opposite.
Religious leaders have significant roles in shaving conducts in society but must have the fear of God to play such roles correctly and deservedly. Can they shun wealthy people who are enmeshed in aggrandizement? Can we stop celebrating people with questionable wealth? Ill-gotten wealth should be despised by all and sundry. This is the only way to avoid the future occurrence of the Hanifa story.
Columns
Osama, For Good Governance and Social Justice Through the Radio

Osama, For Good Governance and Social Justice Through the Radio
By: Balami Lazarus
Osama. Does it ring a bell? Yes, it does on the Plateau. The Osama I am writing about is that individual who is known for his good works for humanity on the radio and outside the studio. Osama is a gentleman but is outspoken and has a mind of his own.
My Osama in this context is a personality, a brand, and a trademark. Osama is a broadcaster, radio presenter, and popular comedian on stage and in the entertainment industry in Jos-Plateau and beyond. Since the writing is sailing, I will later reveal the identity of who this young man is and why he is so passionate about good governance.
The fights for human rights, social justice, and good governance have been the cries and topic of discourse of so many Nigerians, especially good governance. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights activists are the leaders in these struggles, whereby their roles cannot be overemphasized. The quantum of spoken words, public lectures/enlightenment programs, workshops, seminars, etc., has not brought many changes in our systems because there was little or no action by you and me as Nigerians.
I remembered when I was very active in the struggle for human rights and social justice. As Deputy Secretary General (DSG) of Democratic Alternative (DA), we were much concerned with democratic alternative processes and social justice with a whiff of good governance, and this has been the case for some NGOs, as I know.
I came to understand from my experiences that, as a country, we have good public-oriented programs, but our major challenges are implementation and follow-up that come with too many talks but no individual action or collective responsibility because many Nigerians are fearful, and this has made me a one-man advocate/crusader for human rights and social justice. Like the subject of this work.
Now back to the subject. Osama is a brand package, fearless advocate, and mouthpiece for good governance on the Plateau through Town Hall, a popular radio program aired by JFM 101.9 FM. Jos is widely listened to. He was born as Ehis Akugnonu. But Osama has overtaken his certified name. Therefore, my continued use of Osama is justified in this work because I realized that many times your other name (also known as) tends to dominate and overshadow your real name.
Osama is redefining the fight for good governance by personal efforts through follow-up and speaking on them, putting the government on their feet to improve and do better. ‘I am for good governance, and I will continue to speak on this matter.’ He is purposefully driven by his passion for good quality and better systems to have an enabling environment where the systems are working for progress and development.
Balami, a publisher/columnist 08036779290
Osama, For Good Governance and Social Justice Through the Radio
Columns
In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying Ignoring Red Flags and The Panacea (2)

In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying Ignoring Red Flags and The Panacea (2)
By: Balami Lazarus
I saw it coming. As a writer, my works and I have been verbally attacked several times. I raised an eyebrow at how some readers react by using bad language on issues, opinions, and views. Well, that is their way of expression when they are displeased, but I feel it is grotty.
And here is the conclusion of the “controversial piece,” as one caller puts it. For me, there is nothing controversial about this discourse but the truth of the grotesque happenings in married homes. And the way out, as I earlier wrote, is divorce.
Recently there has been an inflation of brutal murders in marriages; those killed are mostly women and children, and fewer men. What justification does one have to continue in a marriage where there are threats, violence, and unhappiness generated by the presence of either the husband or the wife? And unknowingly one becomes prey hunted by an in-house predator.
Sharks areamong the most intelligent aquatic animals. Their sense of smell is very sharp; they can smell and detect blood or any red object in water from a far distance and come for it at near the speed of light. Therefore, women’s body chemistry is like that of sharks; they sense and notice things easily. But what is wrong with many of them in marriage that they are unable to detect landmines or red flags early in their marriages? Where there is a threat to life with the intention to hurt, harm, and/or cause grievous injury or death, that is when they realize they are living in gross bondage if they are lucky to come out of it alive.
As students at Pluto College Sharam in Kanke-Plateau State, we were told and made to understand as boys to treat our girl students with love and care and be there for them when the need arises. That was one of the lessons that came from the late Dr. Sumaila Ndayako (Rector), as he was known and called. As boys, we dared not humiliate, insult, or threaten them in any way; rather, we were to take them as our sisters by extension. This has taught me to respect and care for the opposite sex.
Moreover, my association, membership, and experience with some human rights organizations have enlightened me with rights, liberties, and freedom garnished by respect for individual differences, rights and privileges, consent, and action. With this knowledge put together, I consider marriage never a do-or-die affair but a privilege with consent to be a husband to a woman who also has rights/consent to be a wife and live in matrimony. Why then humiliation, abuses, and domestic violence?
I have observed in my experience as a married man that if you take away some women from their husbands, they will die, and vice versa. Despite the domestic violence and abuses inflicted on either party, he/she is willing and prefers to die in such gothic marriage situations because one among them has a deep spiritual attachment to the marriage. This is common in Christendom, where “till death do us part.” My question here is, what kind of death? Intentional, accidental, or natural? This created injunction clause does not hold water in life-threatening marriages.
Living in a shark-jaws marriage, I always blamed women who had seen the red flags but refused to leave such marriages and the house-husband (husband). I further came to understand that patience and the pretext that all is well have caused damage to both spouses in terms of emotional and traumatic agonies and some to their graves.
Therefore, spouses that are trapped in this valley of death with its quagmire should know that marriage is a thing of choice. Likewise, divorce is permissible as a panacea for both to be alive to breathe freely.
Balami, a publisher/columnist, 0803677929
In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying Ignoring Red Flags and The Panacea (2)
Columns
In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)

In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)
By: Balami Lazarus
In the quite beautiful town of Zhimbutu, where men held sway, lording over their wives, some with brutality, few with love,
care and romance others in different ways. While some women are also lords over their husbands with impunity. Fear of getting married gripped young ladies seeing the ways their mothers were being treated and relegated to the background in the affairs of their homes as married women.
The home of Mr. and Mrs. Kwanchinkwalo Xhosa is full of regrets, anger, and bitterness, where Mrs. Xhosa has been treated as an object in the marriage partnership. The red spots were obviously fermented with bubbles ready for brewing.
Similarly, some good number of marriage homes are full of regrets where love, peace, and understanding
and harmony are strangers rejected and kept in a labyrinth of doom where one of the parties is placed in a perpetual tan of unhappiness surrounded by fear in the thickness of smoke, a forced resident.
Long before, now as a young man, a legitimate product of marriage. I took marriage as a mere secular social contract of partnership bounded in love and understanding where two have agreed to live together as husband and wife in matrimony.
However, I have never taken marriage to be a do-or-die affair, which has been the stock of some persons, even when and if the two—husband and wife—can no longer live together, having exhausted reasonable avenues to no avail. Here I am.
for outright divorce as a panacea for the final dissolution of the marriage.
To this day, I have been asking myself, why did I even get married in the first place? For sex, procreation, companionship, norms, tradition, or obligation? While marriage to a larger extent has deprived me and many others of some air of freedom and liberties to do or not to do at any space of time, I suppose. Moreover, the enterprise called marriage has taken away the ‘who’ in many men and
women and made them something else. It has further forcefully taken the lives of many spouses who ignored the red flags and fear of divorce. And besides, many have taken upon themselves to live or die in an unhappy/venomous venture of marriage that is infested with ‘dysentery’ and ‘cholera,’ where death is lurking because husbands or wives lack the guts, will , ability, and/or capacity to invoke the dead-end solution.
Let me now punctuate the work with some questions: Were you forced into it? Was it under duress? Was it at gunpoint? I believed the answers were all no. What will then prevent an individual from liquidating his unprofitable marital interest in such an intense business called marriage to be free from wahala that may likely result in crime?
In such a situation, I advocate for divorce as the only and final panacea, which has a comfortable place as a clause in my dictionary of marriage. Divorce is rarely used in some quarters, no matter what. While my wife and I have sincerely agreed in the course of our marriage journey that at any point in time, with or without any reason/cause, either party can quietly and peacefully walk out of the marriage to avoid who knows what?
In the history of failed marriages and crime findings, it has been shown that one of the parties is forcing his/herself on the other spouse because one of them has a profound and compounded emotional or spiritual attachment to the marriage. The case of the late Mrs. Osinachi Nwachukwu (2023), the gospel singer, was a classical example. Patience and excessive spiritual attachment led to her being killed by her husband, one Mr. Nwachukwu. The same is also applicable to men who fall victim in the hands of their wives. This situation has created two prime suspected killers living in a marriage cocoon.
Balami, a publisher/columnist. 08036779290
In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)
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