Gboyega Otolorin

#Gritty

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

In 1970.... 😭😭😭😭😭

[archivi.ng @StartArchiving]

In 1970, four Lagos officials travelled to Sweden and paid £68,000 for 98 used buses to serve as city buses in central Lagos.

Four months later, the deal became a media scandal in Sweden after reports revealed that the buses were already 17 years old and had been marked for demolition because they were no longer considered roadworthy.

The Swedish State Commission for Traffic Safety said there were no spare parts available to restore them. Yet, by the time of the report, 30 of the buses had been retouched and were ready for shipment to Nigeria.

New Nigerian newspaper observed: "One wonders how buses unsuitable for Stockholm roads can be used in Lagos."

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@aonanuga1956 What is this! What is this?

WHAT EVEN IS THIS???????????????

MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lord, swiftly punish everyone involved! Let them and their generations never know peace in Jesus name. Destroy all they hold dear and put their generations to shame! In Jesus mighty name!

[Daniel Otabor @DanielOtabor]

Bayo,

I will drop the same message I sent to Segun. And if I see this same rubbish from @otegaogra, I will drop it for him too. I need those under your tweets, and the global audience to realize that Nigerians are not dumb, we just have government officials who major in foolery. Below is the statement:

This statement is reckless. It is exactly the kind of communication that destroys public confidence in government.

You have asked Nigerians to believe that Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi simply woke up one day, created a fictitious presidential council, appointed himself Director-General, gained access to senior government officials, met with the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, was received by a federal government agency, had his activities reported by national newspapers, and somehow found the same “non-existent” council in the 2026 Federal Budget with an allocation of over N1.3 billion. This is the story you expect Nigerians to accept?

Punch Newspapers reported on 25 July 2025 that Adeyemi, as Director-General of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, met with Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu to discuss legislative backing for investment initiatives. The meeting was photographed and reported publicly.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission also publicly acknowledged receiving a delegation led by the same Adeyemi in that same capacity.

Then there is the 2026 Appropriation Act. It contains a budgetary allocation of more than N1.3 billion for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council. These are official records. They cannot be wished away by a press statement.

Your statement does not answer the real questions. How did a fictitious council make its way into the Federal Budget? Who prepared the budget? Who defended it before the National Assembly? Who approved it? Who signed it into law? How did a non-existent agency receive a budget running into billions of naira? How did its so-called Director-General gain access to the National Assembly? How did he secure meetings with senior public officials? How did a federal government agency publicly recognise and receive him?

Can you see that there are multiple unanswered questions? Don’t be a stupid guy, Segun. If your answer is that everyone was deceived, then you are admitting to one of the biggest institutional failures in recent history. If that is not your answer, then your statement is incomplete and deliberately avoids the central issues.

Nobody is asking you to interfere with a matter before the court. If Prince Adeyemi committed any offence, the courts will determine that. What Nigerians will not accept is an attempt to erase documented facts from the public record because they have become inconvenient.

Your responsibility as Special Adviser to the President on Social Media is to inform Nigerians with facts, not to insult their intelligence by pretending these events never happened.

This matter is no longer just about Prince Adeyemi. It is about the credibility of the Presidency itself.

Until the Presidency explains how a supposedly non-existent council appeared in official government engagements and received a budgetary allocation exceeding N1.3 billion, every attempt to dismiss this as the work of a lone impostor will be met with justified scepticism.

Nigerians deserve answers. Answers that you cannot just spin or deflect from.

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@OyinkanSxo @JollyPaps1 A better example is Lauryn Hill and I think someone has already mentioned her.

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@OyinkanSxo @JollyPaps1 I did say he has other successful albums. But only one masterpiece and that is Born To Do It.

That's the album he will forever be remembered for.

Usher is not a good comparison. Some ppl would argue 8701 was Usher's best album not Confessions.

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@JollyPaps1 @OyinkanSxo The ultimate one album hit wonder (even though technically he shouldn't be there because he has other successful albums) is Craig David.

'Born To Do It' was so good, flawless, superb, iconic! In a perfect world, he should earn $$$ millions every year for life for that album.

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@DoubleEph She is not an elected official. Though being so close to the President, her words definitely reflect the direction or philosophy of this government.

However, my own worry is this, all these billions she is giving out, where is this money coming from????

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@FolushoxFolarin Apparently $100 million is nothing???? Because it's not $90 billion, it means she's not a thief ba?

I really hope this is not some weird PR clean up campaign for Diezani because may God punish everyone involved.

#CorruptionWillDestroyTheCorrupt

[GorgeousDreamer @DrianneBelleza]

Stop Disrespecting Black Americans

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

Thank you.

[Channels Television @channelstv]

Workers in the US capital removed President Donald Trump’s name from the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, the venue said, after a federal judge ruled that its renaming was unlawful.

The effort came after a judge rejected a last-minute bid by the center’s board to halt the removal of Trump’s name, marking a setback for the president’s broader push since returning to the White House to place his name and image in official spaces — an abrupt break with American political tradition.

An eager crowd had gathered outside the arts center Friday night, cheering occasionally as workers erected scaffolding to take down the signage. Thousands monitored from afar via livestream, too, awaiting the moment when Trump’s name would be torn from the wall.

https://t.co/4Wq7LIk3oe

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@Abbakar_himself @SeniorMan_ I made the exact same mistake of saying this out loud. Speaking it into existence.

Sadly it was not to be.

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@Boripe_ @seunonigbinde The mistake YOU are making is to think other political parties are alternatives. Perhaps you are young and you don't know PDP era. 2027 is a battle of the political elite vs. all Nigerians.

FYI, the political elite are all in the same party. The joke is on the voters.

[Abubakar Adam Ibrahim @Abbakar_himself]

Sometime in 2006 or 2007, I don't remember what year precisely, I stumbled on a very shocking case while reporting from the courts for a national newspaper. When the case was called, the judge seemed infuriated because, in the usual manner, the police had been dragging out the case with little conviction.

The whole thing started in 2002, four years before that day, when a middle-aged man was arrested by the military during one of the crises in Jos. He was tortured and then eventually handed over to the police, who "conducted" their "investigation" and took him to court. The charge sheet was sensational. The man, whose name I can't recall, was accused of being a "mercenary fighter from Niger Republic" and was allegedly brought to Jos two days before the clashes in 2002. Since his arrest, he had been detained, first in military custody, then the police, and then remanded in prison after his first court appearance.

Occasionally, he was brought to court only for the police prosecutor to ask for more time to conclude their investigation. Since there was no one arguing for the suspect because he had no lawyer and couldn't speak for himself, the judge would often grant the police's prayer. But on that day, when the police prosecutor asked for another adjournment, the judge was visibly frustrated and tongue-lashed the police prosecutor. He was tired of the lack of diligence from the prosecution. He opened the case file, and the only "evidence" the police had presented was a "confessional statement" the suspect had signed.

When the judge asked the suspect if he had written the statement, the man seemed confused. The police prosecutor said the suspect had written the statement, but the judge asked him to let the man speak for himself. He repeated the question. Still, the man looked flummoxed.

"Ka amsa mana," the prosecutor shouted at the suspect.

That was when the judge realised that the statement was written in English, but it seemed the suspect did not understand a simple question like "Did you write this statement?" He switched to Hausa to ask the suspect if he spoke any English. He didn't. He asked him if he wrote the statement. The suspect said he could neither read nor write because he never attended school. The prosecutor jumped up to explain that the police took the statement for the man. So the judge asked the court officer to show the man the statement and asked him if he recognised his signature.

"Do you remember signing this paper?"
"Yes, Ranka ya dade."
"Do you know what the paper says?"
"No, ranka ya dade."
"Did anybody read and translate the statement to you before you signed or after you had signed it?"
"No, sir."
"So why did you sign it?"
The man looked apprehensively at the police prosecutor.
"Look at me and tell me the truth," the judge demanded.
"They kept hitting my hand with a stick and asked me to sign it, so I did."

A collective gasp from the court, not of surprise, but of realisation that something like this often happens in police interrogations. You could see the trauma on the man's face as he recalled how he was beaten and tortured, how he was told that if he didn't sign, he would never go home. It was horrible seeing a middle-aged man cry like that. The court fell silent.

The prosecutor rose to speak. The judge asked him to sit down and shut up. The judge berated the prosecutor because that was not the first time "confessions" like that had been obtained and presented before the court.
He looked at the paper and shook his head. "Do you have any idea what this statement claims?" he asked the suspect. The man had no idea. So the judge decided to read it and translate it. The first sentence claimed that the statement was obtained under no duress. The suspect was stunned and wanted to take off his shirt to show his scars from the torture. He held up his crooked finger that was broken during the interrogation.

Again the prosecutor tried to explain it away, but the judge shushed him. "You people have had years to prosecute this case, and what have you done since?"
What broke that suspect's heart was not the denial of the torture in the statement but what followed. The judge read and translated that the man claimed to have been born in the Republic of Niger. That he and others were offered money and weapons, brought across the border into Nigeria, and arrived in Jos two days before the outbreak of that round of riots.

The suspect was stunned. He kept asking, "Me? Me?" He cried the sort of crying that comes from the deepest parts of a man, like a man realising that his whole life had been ruined by a lie. It was the sort of heart-wrenching cry that touched every heart who witnessed it.
When the judge ordered him to be quiet and answer his question, here is the picture that emerged: On the day of that particular riot, he was preparing to go to his menial trade when news broke that there was another crisis in town. He decided to stay home in the Rikkos area along with his family in a house that he had bought the land for years before and built from scratch, and had been living in with his two wives and children. Sometime during the day, some soldiers had broken down his front door and taken him out. They rounded him up along with some other persons, picked up from various places, and drove them away. Later, they were handed over to the police as "suspected rioters."

The judge asked him if he had been to the Republic of Niger before. He had never been to Niger Republic before. His grandfather had married his grandmother in Jos, where his father was born, and where he himself was born. He offered to take the judge to his house to see it for himself and to see his family. The judge asked him to describe where in Rikkos his house was, and the man gave a vivid description of what the place was like before he built his house brick by brick, details a foreign mercenary brought in days before his arrest could not have known. And yes, his Hausa sounded very much like a local, not like some foreign Hausa speaker.

With a lot of head shaking, the judge adjourned the case and warned the prosecution that if on the next appearance date they did not present their case, he was going to dismiss the case and acquit the suspect.

Unfortunately, I wasn't in Jos on the next appearance date and never found out what happened to that man. I don't even remember the man's name, but I will never forget how that day in court made me feel.

I remember this case today because I see the possibility of a similar scenario playing out again. The police decided to present some traders in court as the suspects in the Angwan Rukuba killings. We were never told when and how they were arrested or what sort of evidence indicted them.

That man from 20 years ago was illiterate and had no one to speak for him. But these traders being linked to the Angwan Rukuba killings have people speaking for them, including Christian traders they had helped protect during the recent incident.

This sort of lazy police "investigation" is meant to assuage public outrage, not to honestly find the guilty party; it is not even intended to get a conviction, just to mask their failings, drag out the trial until public interest is thoroughly exhausted while the real culprits go about their business of killing. If these men are guilty, let the evidence show it, and let this trial be swift. If they are not, I hope they will sue the police for damages.

I keep thinking how that man from 20 years ago lost years in detention for something he never did because he was a perfect scapegoat, who spoke no English, could not afford a lawyer and would probably have been condemned if not for a judge that broke protocol and spoke to him in a language that he understood. Twenty years later, we are still unserious about insecurity or justice

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@Jollz It's a tough decision but there is only one right decision and that is to return the money.

Any other thing you do makes you an accomplice in your father's theft and you are liable to receive every legal punishment, curses, negative blowback that he was due to receive. Period.

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

For all Nigerians, this is it please.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

In a previously unaired interview with tech entrepreneur and conservationist Dax Dasilva, filmed three months before her death at the age of 91, Jane Goodall shared her advice for how to keep hope in the face of so many global problems: “Act locally first. And do something.”

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@RomeoOriogun It's not doomed brother. You're a Nigerian and you're not doomed. You have a bright future. I have a bright future. As long as there are those of us who believe in honesty and hard work, those others who are on their way down cannot keep the country down. It does hurt though.

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

All these misguided people. It's amazing that because you want Peter Obi to win the Presidency, you think the approach is to denigrate all Yorubas. Or what exactly is the objective of this falsehood? And what will it achieve but emptiness and hatred?

Is this being sponsored?

[Son Of Ayo @TheAjakeManger]

I heard the gray haired fraud got his Nobel Peace Prize because Africa writers boycotted the award. So he went behind everyone to get the award.

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@officialABAT we are very aware that the lives of citizens are not your priority at all. You clearly have better things to do like your predecessor who died in London. We as Nigerians may not be able to judge you right now but mark my words, God Himself will judge you.

[Channels Television @channelstv]

'This didn't look good.' Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily anchors share their perspectives on President Bola Tinubu’s visit to Plateau State, where he met victims of the Jos attack at the airport and did not spend extended time on the ground.

The anchors discuss the optics of the visit, including the president's early departure and absence of hospital stops, raising broader questions about expectations during moments like this.

#SunriseDaily

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@MobilePunch There's only one thing to say and that is 'Shioooo'.

Mtchewww.

[Gboyega Otolorin @gboyegaot]

@PremiumTimesng You would think that it is another person visiting and not the President reading these stupid excuses. So he couldn't take an AirForce chopper? Why couldn't he even sleep in Jos overnight? What was so important to do in Lagos?

Just say citizens are not your priority, full stop.