Owa-Onire: A Ghost Town and One Man Left Behind
*“Everyone ran. Lekan stayed. Now he’s the only name left to answer when the wind calls Owa-Onire.”*
When the security team of 100 men from the drone unit, MOPOL, and the Anti-Kidnapping Squad rolled into Owa-Onire today, they found nothing but silence. No markets, no voices, no children. Just empty compounds, a locked mosque, a quiet church, and one man standing in the middle of it all.
The operation is part of the Inspector General of Police’s push to screen the Kwara South forest belts. Ifelodun, Isin, Oke-Ero, Ekiti LGAs — troops are moving through all of them. But Owa-Onire stopped them cold. A town wiped clean.
The only person left is Lekan, a prince of the town. He calls himself “the landlord” now, and the title fits. The big mansion, the abandoned houses, the mosque, the church — all of it belongs to the crickets and to him.
He didn’t stay out of courage. He stayed because “Bororo’s War” took everyone else. It didn’t start with one attack. Bandits came and came again. Kidnappings became routine. Then they took the monarch himself and held him in the forest for months until a ransom was paid. After that, the people couldn’t take it anymore. They locked their doors and left. Some went to Okeonigbin. Most just disappeared into somewhere safer.
Owa-Onire isn’t alone. At least 28 communities in Ifelodun LGA are deserted. The same fate has swallowed Oro-Ago, Omugo, Ahun, Oke-Oyan, Owa-Kajola, Owa-Onire, and Oba in Isin LGA. Residents say over 23 villages have been overrun by suspected bandits. Ancestral homes stand empty. Farms rot. Towns become names on a map with no one to say them.
Lekan eats from his farm. That’s how he survives. There’s nowhere to buy food here, nowhere to buy anything. He’s alone with his land and the memory of a town that used to be alive.
The team leader handed him ₦10,000. Lekan took it quietly. He said he’d go to Okeonigbin to buy foodstuffs — the nearest place that still has a market.
He also told them people came into the community last night. He doesn’t know who they were or what they took. He just knows he heard them, and in the morning, nothing had changed. He was still alone.
Visibly disturbed by what they saw, the senior officers from Abuja and Lagos said no Nigerian community should be reduced to this. They described Owa-Onire’s abandonment as a failure that demands immediate action, and pledged to push for sustained security presence and concrete measures that will allow displaced residents to return home without fear.
— Elder Oyin Zubair.
A patient's wife asked: 'Why does my husband's BP spike here in America when it was always normal back home in Nigeria?' In 12 years of practice I've seen this exact pattern. The biology is fascinating. (Thread) 1/
Requoting my 2024 thread as systemic xenophobia resurfaces in South Africa. We must historicise the anti-apartheid fight & provide a constant reminder.
Nigeria & Africa fueled the emancipation.
SA's modern sovereignty remains indebted to a Pan-African balance sheet written in blood & treasury.
On a Tuesday morning in Abuja, a 34-year-old engineer named Kelechi Eze kissed his wife goodbye, dropped his daughter at school, and drove to work.
He never made it.
By 9am, he was in the back of an unmarked Toyota Hilux.
No warrant. No explanation.
Just two men in plain clothes who said four words:
“Come with us now.”
Nigeria accounts for ~90% of MTN's operating profits despite being 33% of its total subscribers.
It's obvious that MTN is fleecing Nigerians to subsidize the rest of their Africa operations. This is where the govt has to step in, but they won't.
🚨 Official: Zadok Yohanna joins Brighton from AIK Stockholm on a contract until June 2031, winning the race against 4 clubs. 🇳🇬
£21.5m fee invested on talented winger by #BHAFC. 🔵⚪️
@adgirlMM Have them run the bill through Claude, or one of the LLMs and ask it what the right price for these services should be. Then reduce that amount and tell the hospital that is what he is willing to pay.
Its not foolproof, but my bet is that they will take it
A co-worker of mine recently had a heart issue and ended up needing to go to the hospital in an ambulance. He was admitted and required to stay in the hospital overnight.
That ambulance and overnight stay cost over $100K.
Even with insurance, his out-of-pocket cost was still thousands of dollars. He's gainfully employed and has a decent insurance plan.
How does the average American who can't afford healthcare and who has an emergency situation ever recover from the financial burden of trying to save their own life?
The "fraud" in healthcare isn't from immigrants. It's the insurance companies who are commoditizing healthcare to the point of unattainability or financial ruin for the average American.
Layi reminds me of the HR Director in ExxonMobil that year. He finished with 2.2 but omo, the man brain dey spark fire. He is super intelligent.
The day UNIUYO invited him to speak at their event, na so so clap and standing ovation dem give am.
ExxonMobil takes 2.2 just so you know.
Go to https://t.co/XqZ2Ofz9Sc , check for available vacancies and apply for a job in Exxonmobil anywhere in the world.
Worked for 7years in ExxonMobil Nigeria and my life changed forever!
Rob Gronkowski says he lived off $50,000 as an NFL rookie because he understood the NFL meant "Not For Long"
"My agent gave me a $50,000 advance for what's going to come in the marketing world for myself. I just had to pay him back within the first $50,000 I made"
"I was able to purchase my first car, which was a 2008 Escalade, and then to be able to pay rent once I got to New England. And then from there on out, I really didn't need any other money"
"I was getting free meals at the facility. I just kind of needed gas money. You go out, the drinks are free or you pay for one, you get 10 free when you're when you're on the Patriots up in the Boston area"
"So I wasn't really spending much money at all, especially when it got to the season. I mean, you're inside that building and everything's handed to you on a daily basis from breakfast all the way to dinner"
"I just lived off my marketing dollars. I was living a low-level life. I had a condo with a roommate that was on the team as well. We're paying $1,500 a month in rent while in the NFL"
"I was very frugal and that's how I got away with it. Not having any lavish purchases, the first couple years in the league and just banking away what I was making because I truly understood that the NFL stands for not for long"
There is a graveyard in American tech right now and nobody is walking through it. Companies down 70, 80, 90% from the highs. Still profitable. Still growing. Still the leader in their category. Just unloved. The Trade Desk at 9x earnings. PayPal at 12x with $6 billion in free cash flow. Adobe at 17x and people are talking about it like it’s Kodak. Etsy at 8x EBITDA running a marketplace that two billion people have heard of. Roku trading below its own balance sheet liquidation value if you squint. Match Group, Zoom, Pinterest — each of these would have been a hedge fund’s top pick at this multiple in 2017. Now they’re orphans. Everyone is buying the Mag 7 because the Mag 7 is the trade. The Mag 7 IS already the trade. The trade is over. The next trade is in the rubble pile. You don’t get rich buying what worked. You get rich buying what stopped working for reasons that turn out to be temporary. Every name on that list was a market darling 36 months ago. The fundamentals didn’t fall 80%. The narrative did. Narratives come back. Earnings compound. I’m not buying NVDA at 45x. I’m buying the names CNBC won’t say out loud anymore
Practising medicine in the tropics can be frustrating.
The resource limitations.
The long hours.
The constant improvisation.
But every now and then, you find pockets of joy that make it all worthwhile.
Many years ago, on a rainy evening in Akure, a 4-day-old baby was brought into our SCBU with severe neonatal jaundice.
He had been delivered elsewhere and referred to us.
By the time he arrived, the jaundice had already reached his abdomen.
This wasn't a "start phototherapy and watch" situation.
This was an all-hands-on-deck situation.
We were short-staffed.
It was mostly the consultant, the senior medical officer, the matron, and me.
As the junior doctor, I was naturally the legs of the team.
Blood work.
Monitoring.
Counselling.
Reassurance.
We sent blood for grouping and crossmatch before the bilirubin result even came back because clinically, this baby was already telling us that things were about to go south.
Then, the result came back.
21.3 mg/dL.
I remember being genuinely afraid when he started convulsing. We aborted and did an exchange blood transfusion.
I sat with his mother and explained the possible consequences of severe neonatal jaundice.
Brain injury.
Hearing loss.
Developmental delay.
Or worse.
But we moved fast.
And the baby fought with us.
Over the years, his mother would occasionally send updates.
Milestones.
Little victories.
Then I left Facebook, and we lost touch for about 5 years.
Last week, I made a post and saw this comment...
"My baby is doing well, and he sends his love."
She remembered. After all these years.
Some days in medicine, the losses are so loud you forget that some children actually grow up.
Some babies actually make it.
And sometimes, many years later, a mother finds you again just to say: he's still here. 🤍
Some mothers don't remember.
Some remember but never reach out they just carry it quietly in their hearts.
Some never fail to remind you how grateful they are.
Baby A's mum is one of them, and she wouldn't know how much I really needed to read from her that day.
People saying “why did England team fly Virgin and not BA”, hope yall know they are both private companies. Neither of them is the official England carrier. Infact, The uk doesn’t have a single official airplane carrier.
This one shook me to my core 💔
Nigeria has many ways of failing its people… and this is one of the cruelest.
Meet Gospel Uabari Kinanee. In 2007, he was just 14 years old. He left home to play football with friends and never came back.
For months, his family turned Rivers State upside down. Hospitals, police stations, morgues — they checked everywhere. No Gospel.
The search broke them. His parents sold their land, their property, everything they had to find their son. The pain and stress was too much. Eventually, both of them died from heartbreak 💔
The world assumed Gospel was dead too. Years passed. 18 long years.
Then in 2025, out of nowhere, his older brother got a call: “We found your brother. He’s in a correctional facility in Rivers State.”
For 18 years, Gospel had been locked up. A 14-year-old boy who went out to play.
When they asked for his case file, there was nothing. No charges. No court record. No reason for his arrest. Just a child… forgotten behind bars.
The worst part? Gospel lost himself in there. His mind couldn’t carry the weight. He doesn’t recognize his brother. He can’t explain how he ended up in prison. The boy who left home to play ball is now a man who can’t remember his own story 😢
How does a child disappear into the system for 18 years without a case?
How many more “Gospels” are wasting away in prison right now for nothing?
This is not just his story. This is a wake-up call for all of us.
Nigeria, how do we fix this? How many innocent lives are we still losing to silence and broken systems? Talk to me
#JusticeForGospel
PSG's 12th man in action. The real star of the show
- Yellow to Mosquera on a set play he didn't even waste time on. No warning either
- Hincapie generates a high turnover near PSG's box (00:43). Foul against Arsenal
- Trossard, foul against for existing (00:50)
- Madueke penalty
- But most importantly every 50/50 blown for PSG. Not allowing Arsenal to build any momentum/rhythm and taking away their main advantage over PSG -> physicality
It felt like after Arsenal started playing more conservatively, the referee took it as a personal insult. Like he's an aesthetic football connoisseur. Then made it his purpuse to punish Arsenal for their "ugly" football