Beauty Queen “Beauty Tukura” indeed looks good in just about anything. But when it comes to posing for a photoshoot, the reality star proves time and again that you can be comfortable, fun, or even tell a beautiful story without uttering words.
Following the expiration of a 72-hour ultimatum given to controversial singer, Habeeb Okikiola, aka Portable, by the police, he has been arrested and would be charged to court.
Recall that the police had asked the ‘Zazoo Zehh’ crooner to turn himself in following allegations of assault. The singer would now remain in police custody till Monday.
Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, confirmed the singer’s arrest on Friday, adding that he is now at the State Police Headquarters, Eleweran, Abeokuta.
Earlier on Tuesday on Tuesday, the artiste was seen in two videos verbally assaulting and rough handling some police officers at his bar in Sango Ota, Ogun State. However, he claimed that “for no reason”, an alleged Internet fraudster had brought the police officers to his bar to arrest him and his staff members.
According to Oyeyemi, Portable was invited following a petition by a young studio owner who claimed that Portable together with his aides beat him to stupor and locked his studio.
He added that all the summons that were sent to the singer, he did not honour any of them.
The controversy surrounding the rumoured resignation of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, was brought to an end on Frida after the Presidency confirmed Sylva’s resignation.
Special Assistant to the President on Digital Communications, Bashir Ahmad, disclosed this via his verified Twitter handle, adding that Sylva resigned to pursue his gubernatorial ambition.
“Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, and former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva, has resigned his appointment to contest in the next Bayelsa governorship election,” Ahmad tweeted.
On Friday that there was controversy over the resignation of Sylva, as senior officials of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources refused to confirm whether their boss had resigned.
The report stated that though the officials admitted that the rule of the All Progressives Congress required the minister to have resigned in about 30 days before the April 14, 2023, governorship primaries, they refused to confirm his resignation.
“I have not seen his resignation letter and cannot confirm to you if he has resigned. But you know the rule of the party is that one must have resigned for at least 30 days before the primaries.
So if he has sent his resignation letter to the President, I cannot confirm, but the fact remains that he is for the office of the governor of Bayelsa State,” an impeccable source at the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, who requested not to be named due to lack of authorisation, had stated.
Sylva had served as Governor of Bayelsa in the past, for one full term between 2008 and 2012. At the time, he was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The PDP, which is now an opposition party, was at the time of Sylva’s reign as governor, the party running the Federal Government.
It was recently reported that some APC members in Bayelsa State had called on the national leadership of the party to disqualify Sylva from contesting the governorship primaries of the party over his refusal to resign his position as a minister.
The report stated that party members from 43 Wards in Ekeremor, Ogbia, Sagbama, Kolokuma/Opokuma, and Southern Ijaw Local Government Areas of the state, in a petition to the party national leadership, pointed out that as at the time the minister was screened, he had not resigned.
Former Big Brother Naija season six ‘Shine ya eyes’ housemates, Adeoluwa Okusaga and Anita Singh as Nini, are engaged.
The duo lovers started their relationship in Big Brother’s house.
In photos and videos shared on Friday, Saga proposed to Nini in a room decorated with rose flowers and an inscription on the wall reading, “Will you be mine forever? ”
The Chairman of the Lagos State Parks and Garages Association, Musiliu Akinsaya, popularly known as Mc Oluomo, has intervened in the conflict involving commercial drivers and highway tax collectors who target commercial drivers, popularly known as agberos in the state.
He has also banned collections of illegal taxes levied by agberos in some part of the state, FIJ reports.
Recall commercial bus driver had taken to the streets of the state to protest extortion by the agberos on Thursday.
Mc Oluomo told us Thursday afternoon when we held a meeting with him at the state council that no driver from Oshodi to Tollgate must be compelled to pay illegal agbero taxes anymore.
“We are only to buy two tickets in a day, after which we will not pay anything aside from loading fees.
“The normal ticket sold and approved by the Lagos State Park Management is just N800.
He said those extra taxes imposed at Iyana Ipaja and Agbado Ijaiye were no longer valid. We can either buy our daily tickets in Oshodi or Tollgate, and either will be recognised.
Afterwards, we will buy the council ticket and booking for security, which is about N500,” a driver disclosed to FIJ.
He added that MC Oluomo has said the drivers would no longer pay for tickets on Saturdays and Sundays.
“For weekend jobs, Mc Oluomo has mandated that no driver should be made to buy tickets on Saturdays and Sundays,” he said.
“The union should only compel us to buy tickets from Monday to Friday. We should be given the chance to take something home to our families.”
He added that MC Oluomo also donated N1 million to those who were injured during the attack on protesting drivers
He expressed gladness as dreivers resume work today “with minimal agbero disturbances.”
There are no more unbearable taxes. All we have to pay in a day is a little below N2,500 compared to the N20,000 we paid previously,” he added.
The Ogun State Police Command has arrested the controversial singer Habeeb Okikiola, commonly called Portable.
The arrest comes after the expiration of a 72-hour ultimatum given to the the controversial singer by the police to report himself to the command.
The Ogun State Police Command has issued a 72-hour ultimatum for the sensational singer to report himself to the nearest police station or be arrested by Friday. The state Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, in a statement obtained by our correspondent on Wednesday confirmed the invitation.
Oyeyemi said Portable had been informed to submit himself to the police or risk being arrested.
He also confirmed that Portable’s father had pleaded on his son’s behalf and promised to bring him to the station.
Embattled Nigerian singer, Habeeb Okikiola, popularly known as Portable, has boasted that he is smarter than most educated people.
The ‘Zazoo’ crooner, while reflecting on his life, said he has learned more in the streets than in the four walls of a classroom.
Portable made the remarks on his social media handles on Thursday, amidst his rift with the Nigeria Police.
In an Instagram post, the controversial singer wrote, “Zazuu I have learned more in the streets than in any classroom. I’m still smarter than you in the Zoo my future is in God’s hands. Ika of Africa Akoi Grace. Dr Zeh Nation many many inspiration.”
Recall that Portable was handed a 72-hour ultimatum by the Ogun State Police Command to report himself to the nearest police station after he was captured in a viral video resisting arrest by operatives of the force.
However, in a video shared on his Tiktok page, the singer explained that the man who brought the police to arrest him was his ex-worker and was into Internet fraud against his advice.
He claimed he disciplined the ex-staff after he refused to change his ways and sacked him.
He maintained that what transpired between him and the complainant was none of the police’s business, insisting that he has the right to beat his worker.
The 72-hour ultimatum issued to Portable by the Police on Wednesday expires Friday [today].
Popular Nollywood actor, Yul Edochie has reported the death of his 16-year-old son, Kambilichukwu Edochie, to the Lagos State Police Command,
Kambilichukwu died on Wednesday, March 29, 2023, at the Mother and Child Hospital in Lagos where he was rushed to after developing a seizure, while playing football with his mates.
Spokesperson for the police in the state, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, who confirmed the development in a statement on Friday morning, March 31, said the actor reported the death of his son to the command.
The PPRO said the matter will be forwarded to the State Criminal Investigation Department on Friday, March 31, for investigation.
Popular comedian and actor, Ayo Makun, known by his stage name, AY, has opened up on losing 500 million Naira to a nightclub business which did not permit smoking.
He said during a recent interview with media personality, Chude Jideonwo that the nightclub crashed after a huge investment.
According to AY, his wife advised him against the decision but he refused to heed and he later regretted not listening.
He narrated how he would visit the club on Fridays but it will be empty and he did not realise that having a club where people don’t smoke is bad for that type of business.
The comedian said the reason he made it a non-smoking club was because anytime he and his wife go to clubs, she always comes back with her hair smelling of smoke.
The stand-up comedian said he was motivated to do it by the mere fact that he could fill up event centres for comedy shows.
He said:
“I woke up one day and I said to myself, ‘it’s time to open a nightclub’, ‘AY, if you can gather 6,000 people at Eko Hotel, what’s in a club that you can’t just gather 100 to 200 people buying drinks I think God just wanted me to know that ‘this one is not your calling’, ‘you are the one calling yourself’.
“It is good to have the right partner, my wife was strongly against it. I said, ‘No, it is good for networking and PR’. Shout out to all the guys who are doing it and getting it right.
“But I thought then that when I come, I am just going take all of them out of the market. It was a huge investment running to about N500 million.
“We put everything in place, the staff strength was solid, the interior was crazy and I will go there every Friday, I will look at the door and I am not seeing people coming. The opening was grand and massive. I started with a non-smoking club; I didn’t know that all these things go together.
“The wise ones will call me, and I will tell them that sometimes when I take my wife to the club when we get back her hair will be smelling of smoke, and women should have their wigs neat’. Long story short, I saw my ‘period’, it was very bad”.
Rumbling and tightly controlled so that he could thin it out into a lacquered tenor or hollow it for a deeper booming texture.
His name was Dipo Sodipo. His sobriquets were numerous but the Pope seemed to have been his preferred. He was the Czar of the One Man Band, a popular fixture of the Yoruba music scene of the late 80s and 90s.
Dipo Shodipo
The shrinking of bands at the time could have been an economical response to the austerity that did not exclude the music scene, but a one man band demands a level of ambidexterity Pope handled effortlessly. To hold a note on a microphone and hoist a piano chord simultaneously is truly the stuff of genius.
Dipo Sodipo at work
Witness the one man band: usually, a pre-programmed percussive rhythm runs amok on his keyboard. Then he gives chase with his vocals, punctuating with simple piano riffs. Ever so often, he allows flourishes of complicated piano chords—but this technical verbiage hardly accounts for how well rendered his music is.
Before Wizkid and Lax rendered the femme fatale Caro, Dipo Sodipo had updated the fair skinned lady who may or may not have been the subject of Rex Lawson’s soulful tune, ‘Yellow Sisi’.
Every one remembers the first time they heard Dipo Sodipo. Mine was circa 2004. Travelling at top speed in my cousin’s car on Road 1, OAU Campus, Ile-Ife, windows down with the consequent rush of wind competing with his booming baritone. The song was “Mowo Kuro Leran”, a slightly up-tempo ditty about living in the moment.
The music felt unmistakably atmospheric and claustrophobic at the same time. The programmed rhythm running haywire as always. Pope had died at this time. The circumstances of his passing is hydra headed as is customary of early deaths. Was it a kidney ailment? Did he live precariously on the edge? Did he give himself to alcohol and other potent poisons?
As with unsung legends, Dipo Sodipo still draws blanks on the internet. There is hardly a biography extending beyond a paragraph. The quick summary of his public life is that he was a keyboardist and vocalist. He was known to be a renegade highlife musician. I wonder if you can really categorize his music as highlife. Rather, it feels like a fusion of folk songs, blues, soul, highlife, juju music and a recourse to gospel ever so often.
The philosophy imbued in his practice is that of the Yoruba everyman whose worldview is to attempt to be good whilst definitely doing no harm. Throw in a good time—and you will understand why Dipo Sodipo was a keggite, that youthful social group invested in mirth making and palmwine drinking.
He was said to have formed another group called Basillica which unlike Keggites made a cocktail of beer and palmwine. Perhaps his nickname Pope is predicated on the Basillica.
Dipo Sodipo was physically present in Ibadan in the 80s where he studied music and became the Head of Department at the Polytechnic. He was also the lead singer of K12 Voices, before he broke out as a one man act.
He would belt out memorable medleys like the soulful “Iya ni wura”, the lively “Jekowo Wole Mi” and the cautionary “Bola Bade”. Running through his songs, besides his light sermonising, is a social commentary that aligns both with the Yoruba worldview and urgent contemporary realities.
Might I add that Dipo Sodipo’s cult fame was smack in the middle of one of Nigeria’s most devastating streaks of military rule? A time when even the vivacious party-loving essence of the Yoruba was threatened by widespread insecurity and a struggling economy—Pope was a fixture of Abeokuta parties.
Being an Egba man himself, he was loved both at home and abroad. By abroad, I am referring to the sleepy university town of Ado-Ekiti where a certain medical doctor, wading through a painful separation, found succour in the soulful songs of Dipo Sodipo some thirty years ago. By abroad, I am referring to the busy city of London, from where I write, a YouTube playlist of his songs playing in the background.
Decades after his passing, Dipo Sodipo’s music remains relevant to his growing array of fans
Imperial Media’s latest movie, Atunwa (Reincarnation), had its grand premiere at Viva Cinemas in Ikeja, Lagos. The event was graced by Nollywood veterans and other movie casts, including Tina Mba, Jide Kosoko, Tony Akposheri, Yemi my Lover, Alvin Abayomi, Okey Uzoeshi, Gbugbemi Ejeye, and Oluwadollars.
The film’s director and producer, Adetokunbo Shittu, explained that Atunwa tackles the many strange happenings in our society from the traditional African/Yoruba angle. The movie shows a family in disarray and exposes the cause of the action of Kemi Oye. This provides a fresh perspective to appraising many events often treated with levity. Shittu added that the story of Atunwa grew from the understanding that life as it is needs to be taken with more holistic seriousness, as was the norm in the glorious ages of African civilization.
Shittu also spoke about his choice of cast, saying that the nature of the script and the projected audiences informed his decision. The script required the actors to be conversant with the Yoruba language and have the necessary mental, physical, and vocal qualities. He and his casting team decided to select actors from different cultural backgrounds but with proficiency in Yoruba and English languages to strike a balance that would appeal to the generality of the Nigerian and international audience.
Atunwa began its cinema run on March 24th and is currently showing in cinemas nationwide. The movie promises to be a thrilling experience for movie lovers who appreciate the African/Yoruba perspective on life’s strange happenings.
