WARRI City, Delta State, was the biggest industrial hub (City) in Nigeria in the 70’s – 90’s.
Warri Refinery, NNPC, DSC , Delta glass, Shell, Chevron, Schlumberger, Dunlop, Agip, Saipem, Halliburton were in full operation back then. Escravos & Forcados was at its peak.
The city thrived, Maritime activities thrived. Multinational/Local Banks were present Citibank, FBN, ACB, Savannah Bank.
Business activities thrived. Entertainment / Night life was at its peak, Musicians, Live bands, Comedians held their sway, Majek Fashek, Emma Grey, Oritz Wiliki, Rex Lawson died on his way to Warri in 1971.
The town was full of life and it thrived.
Mc Dermot Road was busy with Maritime activities & contractors.
Joma & Mosheshe were big fish 🐟 distributors across the Niger Delta.
Rubber produced locally, was used to produce plastics and tyres. The town grew in size and had people coming from Ijebu Ode, Benin, Asaba, Imo, Anambra, Calabar to Settle down in Warri for economic activities.
The Airports were super busy, Escravos, Forcados & Warri Airport. The Warri Airports was even relocated to Osubi for expansion.
Warri was revelling in its glory, I almost forgot to mention, Warri Ports was fully operational & served as an economic booster for the city. It served businesses in Warri, Benin, Asaba & Onitsha. The Port created huge employment opportunities for locals & the state. Things started to go downhill from the late 90’s.
The community leaders & youth chairmen began to fight themselves over control/ sharing formula for royalties that came from oil & businesses from settlers. Itsekiri’s, Urhobo’s & Ijaw leaders & youths started fighting each other, the bloody fight started around 1999 and lasted for years till 2003/2004.
The community leaders started imposing local taxes called “Deve” on all companies, industries and local businesses, buildings & projects.
Little by little, the companies got frustrated and started leaving.
This continued throughout the early 2000’s till 2010. The companies kept on leaving, one after the other. The companies layed off their employees. Unemployment rose.
More companies left for PH, Lagos, Akwa Ibom. They layed off more staff. Unemployment increased still.
Today all that is left in Warri, is a shadow of its glorious past.
95% of all the big companies in Warri had either left or closed down.
Most of the young people have left Warri.
The ones left are driving Keke, doing P.O.S, Spa or Boutique, Beer parlour or doing hookup.
There’s peace now, but the damage the greedy community leaders did to Warri, still lingers on and is almost irredeemable at this point.
Victor O Otobo.
Me: then they added kidnapping and militancy, the rest is history. When we spoke they called us names not knowing only a fool hides burning coal in his laps to deprive his neighbour of warmth. Not surprisingly, the less endowed SE is repeating history in the hope that they can annoy a Fulani president. Those who hailed them when they started the madness are now motivational speakers.
Percy Pringle (Paul Bearer) shares a story of how just days before Christmas in 1990, his car was repossessed, and he was on the verge of bankruptcy until a call to Rick Rude changed his fate:
“It was four days before Christmas, in Dallas, Texas. World Class Championship Wrestling had closed down a couple of years before, and The USWA was ready to move back to Tennessee to make room for the new Global Wrestling Federation at The Sportatorium.
I found myself without a job, and on the verge of bankruptcy. My car had been repossessed, and we didn’t have the money for a Christmas tree, much less presents to put under one. It became painfully hard to look into the eyes of my ten-year old and three-year old sons. I knew in my heart that my wrestling career was over, and it was time to make a drastic change.
I called my friend “Ravishing” Rick Rude, who was working for The WWF at the time. I told Rick exactly what was going on in my life, and that I planned on moving back home to Alabama and go back to work in the funeral industry. He was very sympathetic, and asked me not to make any quick decisions. In fact, Rick told me that he would call me back before the end of the day.
When we talked again a couple of hours later, he said “Vince wants you to call him at home.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Now, let me know what he has to say.” Rick concluded. I immediately fell back onto the sofa, dropping Vince McMahon’s telephone number to the floor. After about twenty minutes, I finally realized that it wasn’t a dream, and gathered the strength to dial Mr. McMahon’s private home number.
“Where have you been all these years?” I remember Vince asking me, and after some small talk he told me that he would certainly like to meet with me after the holidays. The conversation still didn’t solve my Christmas problems, but I did have a sleepless night thinking that I may finally make it to “The Fed”.
Early the next morning, my phone rang, and it was Mr. McMahon’s right hand man, Pat Patterson. Pat wanted to know if I could catch an early afternoon flight to New York, because Vince wanted to see me sooner than expected. Of course, my answer was positive, and he provided the flight information I needed. Things were happening so quickly, I could hardly digest them.
Darkness was falling over the New York skyline as my American Airlines jet made it’s way into John F. Kennedy Airport. As I walked down the jet way, I spotted a well-dressed gentleman holding a card with my name written across it. I identified myself; he took my bag and told me to follow him to my limousine. “Limousine! Hell, I don’t even own a car.” I thought to myself.
I actually felt like I was one of the Beverly Hillbillies as the limo driver took me through New York City and into Connecticut. Finally, we arrived at a majestic five-star hotel in Stamford, where I was whisked away to my penthouse suite. I wasn’t in the room five-minutes before my phone rang, and it was Pat Patterson. “Percy, Vince want to see you at 10 o’clock in the morning.” Pat told me, “I’ll pick you up at 9:45. In the meantime, you can eat, drink, and do anything you want to do. Just sign your name, it’s all courtesy of Titan Sports.”
To say that I was nervous is an understatement. I was scared to death, as I entered Vince McMahon’s office the next morning. Which, by the way, was my wedding anniversary, December 22, 1990.
We talked about everything under the sun. It didn’t take long for Vince to make me feel right at home. As he looked over my resume, he began to laugh. I didn’t have a clue what was going on. “You have a degree in Mortuary Science?” Mr. McMahon questioned me, “This is just too much.” Little did I know that they were looking for a manger for The Undertaker, and Vince wasn’t aware that I had a background in Funeral Service, as well as being a wrestling manager. It was a match made in heaven, and when I left Titan Towers, I had a WWF contract in hand.
We made it through the holidays; the WWF contract was a suitable anniversary gift for Dianna and myself. I went on the road in January 1991, as The WWF character known as Paul Bearer, managing The Undertaker.”
Bruno Leopoldo Francesco Sammartino was an Italian-American professional wrestler.
He is best known for his time with the World Wide Wrestling Federation.
There, he held the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship (WWWF Heavyweight Championship during his second reign) for more than 11 years (4,040 days) across two reigns, the first of which is the longest single reign in the promotion’s history at 2,803 days.
He is overall a two-time world champion in professional wrestling.
He is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time.
Dubbed “The Italian Strongman” and “The Strongest Man in the World” early in his career, Sammartino later earned the title “The Living Legend”.
Known for his powerful bearhug finishing move, Sammartino became a vocal critic of the drug use and raunchier storylines that became prevalent in the professional wrestling industry after his retirement but he reconciled with WWE in 2013 and headlined their Hall of Fame ceremony that year.
Terry Funk commented that Sammartino “was bigger than wrestling itself”.
Sammartino underwent heart surgery in 2011.
He died on April 18, 2018, at the age of 82 from multiple organ failure due to heart problems following a two-month hospitalization.
WWE honored his life with a ten-bell salute before a house show in Cape Town later that day, and again on the April 23 episode of Raw in St. Louis.
Mayor Bill Peduto remembered him as “one of the greatest ambassadors the city of Pittsburgh ever had.”
Dozens have been killed in armed clashes in the Sudanese capital Khartoum following months of tension between the military and the powerful paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Behind the tensions is a disagreement over the integration of the paramilitary group into the armed forces – a key condition of a transition agreement that’s never been signed but has been adhered to by both sides since 2021.
General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, better known as Hemedti, is the leader of the RSF. He is a key mover in the fast-escalating civil war, as he has been in other key moments in Sudan’s recent history.
Hemedti’s Rapid Support Forces is led by Darfurian Arabs known as Janjaweed. The term refers to the armed groups of Arabs from Darfur and Kordofan in western Sudan. Drawn from the far west of the country’s periphery, they have – in a mere decade – become the dominant power in Khartoum. And Hemedti has become the face of Sudan’s violent, political marketplace.
I have been a scholar of Sudan for decades. During 2005-06, I was seconded to the African Union mediation team for Darfur and from 2009-11 served as senior adviser to the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan, in the lead-up to the independence of South Sudan. My most recent book, co-authored with Justin Lynch, examines Sudan’s unfinished democracy.
Sudanese army has become akin to a vanity project. It is the proud owner of extravagant real estate in Khartoum, with impressive tanks, artillery and aircraft. But it has few battle-hardened infantry units. Other forces have stepped into this security arena, including the operational units of the National Intelligence and Security Services, and paramilitaries such as special police units — and the RSF.
Reaping the whirlwind
But there’s also a twist to the story. Every ruler in Sudan, with one notable exception, has hailed from the the heartlands of Khartoum and the neighboring towns on the Nile. The exception is the Khalifa Abdullahi “al-Ta’aishi” who was a Darfurian Arab. His armies provided the majority of the force that conquered Khartoum in 1885. The riverian elites remember the Khalifa’s rule (1885-98) as a tyranny. They are terrified it may return.
Hemedti is the face of that nightmare, the first non-establishment ruler in Sudan for 120 years. Despite the grievances against Hemedti’s paramilitaries, he is still recognised as a Darfurian and an outsider to the Sudanese establishment.
When the Sudanese regime sowed the wind of the Janjaweed in Darfur in 2003, they least expected to reap the whirlwind in their own capital city. In fact the seeds had been sown much earlier. Previous governments adopted the war strategy in southern Sudan and southern Kordofan of setting local people against one another. This was preferred to sending units of the regular army -— manned by the sons of the riverain establishment — into peril.
Hemedti is that whirlwind. But his ascendancy is also, indirectly, the revenge of the historically marginalised. The tragedy of the Sudanese marginalised is that the man who is posing as their champion is the ruthless leader of a band of vagabonds, who has been supremely skillful in playing the transnational military marketplace.
A version of this article was first published by the World Peace Foundation.
MY BELLE O, MY HEAD O!!! Do you still remember this Yoruba Actor called JAGUA?
Chief James Afolabi Afolayan MON, MFR popularly known as Jagua was born 4th July 1946 in Iludun-Oro kwara state Nigeria.
He managed on his own to finish secondary education but his journey into entertainment started when he was just 8years old in his paternal hometown Iludun-Oro where he formed the Iludun-Oro Jolly Mambo. It was a singing group.
The young Afolabi then go about adding spice to social gatherings by singing.. Yes he was a singer and a great dancer too.
He did this for some years until he met the doyen of Nigeria theatre, the iconic Hubert Ogunde.
James Afolabi learnt that Chief Ogunde and his group will be performing in Esie so he made plans to be there,saved up some money from selling bush meat so he could make it to the show.
On getting there he was intrigued by Chief Ogunde’s musical rendition and decided he was going to move to Lagos to have chief train him in music.
James Afolabi whose family was mainly into buying and selling expressed his desire to go fully into music to his family and they never objected despite the fact that such professions was seen as mainly for the “never do well” in those days.
Few days after a family member brought young Afolabi to Lagos and they headed to Chief Ogunde’s office and joined a very long queue of people wanting to join the group.
Eventually it was Afolabi Afolayan’s turn to audition and though baba Ogunde thought he was very young, he also saw that he was very determined.He then handed daddy to his first wife saying ” Gba omo e ni” ( take him, he is your child)
Afolabi said he never knew baba Ogungbe was also into acting. He said he admired his stage presence.
Afolabi said for him as a young person it was divine whenever baba graced the stage.
Afolabi Afolayan considers Baba Ogunde as a father and his first wife who took him in a mother.
He was with Chief Ogunde and family for 2years (1960-1962).
Afolabi Afolayan also trained under Akinsola Ogungbe before he teamed up with his friend Ishola Ogunsola aka Isho Pepper to form the Afolayan Ogunsola Theatre group in 1964.
Afolabi was the main singer and instrumentalist in the group while Ishola composed more of the stage performances.
The performances was rendered in Yoruba language. Besides other productions, I remember they did “Iyawo alalubosa”together…back then, it was quite popular.
Besides music, ‘Folabi( like his friends and family calls him)was known to be the fun guy at every gathering.
He just loves making people laugh and as time goes on he realizes he seem to be more interested in the comedy aspect of acting and went for it.
He met very young Elyzar Taylor a Sierraleonian who was still a student at the time.
It was Elyzar who gave him the stage name Jagua and advised him to act in pidgin English as that will cut across every tribe and make them more widely accessible.
Jagua also called Elyzar Grace on stage. That was how Jagua play Group was born.
They had their first major television show in 1968 with RKTV Kaduna.
Jagua and Grace got married in 1970. Grace was juggling marriage and the group while still in school.
With God by their side and love from friends and fans who we see as family, the Jagua brand became widely accepted.
Jagua comedy was in all the NTA stations, was in almost every Nigerian home.
It is devoid of vulgar languages…you don’t have to send your children to bed because you want to watch Jagua…it is actually a family programme and many children look up to it.
Jagua comedy entertained and educated most of us via TV screens and live stage performances.
They were also involved in charity causes.
They entertained the less privileged for free, raised money to champion charitable causes, entertained our troops abroad (ECOMOG).
In the very early years of Nollywood, Jagua and his group made some home videos which was released in VHS cassettes but most of his works are with the NTA.
Jagua was recognised by the Nigerian government for his works hence his national honours.
As a father, he was a great father and friend.
The laughter never stops on stage. He was the best. He died Oct 5th 2000.
23years on, we still hear his signature tune “my belle ooo my head o”
Born 80 years ago today in 1943 “the greatest wrestler on God’s green earth” Handsome Harley Race! He was legitimately one of the toughest men to ever wrestle professionally.
Race made his ring debut in 1960 and did not retire until 1990. Early in his career he wrestled in the AWA with Larry Hennig (Mr Perfect’s father) and together they won the AWA tag titles.
He won his first NWA world title in 1973 from Dory Funk Jr in Kansas City. He would go on to hold the belt eight times. It was a belt and a role he relished.
In 1978 he cleanly body slammed Andre the Giant, the WWF would have you believe it did not happen until Hulk did it at Wrestlemania III.
In May of 1986 he entered the WWF shocking the wrestling world as he had been a staunch opponent of the “cartoon” direction they had taken. He won the King of the Ring tournament and was called “the King” until he was injured. Bobby Heenan gave the title to Haku.
Race left the WWF in early 1989, he had been injured in a match against Hulk when he went through a table and got a hernia as a result. He wrestled briefly in WCW, he then managed Lex Luger to his first world title and then Vader to the title as well.
The last official match of his career was subbing for an injured Vader in November of 93 and his opponent was again Ric Flair who he had battled for the NWA world title many times.
He ran a wrestling school in Missouri right up until his death in August of 2019 from lung cancer.
The first wrestling magazine I ever purchased in 1984 had a photo of Harley Race on the cover and I was totally taken in by this tough guy with the perm and the tattoos. I still have that magazine today.
In November 1996, Dia convinced Graeme Souness, then Southampton manager, that he was the cousin of FIFA World Player of the Year and Ballon d’Or winner George Weah, which led to him signing a one-month contract with Southampton, days later Dia played only one match in his short spell at the club.
He came on as a substitute in a league game, but was then himself substituted. He was subsequently released, 14 days into his contract
After Souness received a phone call purporting to be from Liberian international and then-FIFA World Player of the Year, George Weah. “Weah” told Souness that Dia was his cousin, had played for Paris Saint-Germain, and had played 13 times for his country. None of this was true, and the phone call to Souness was made by a fellow university student of Dia’s, suggesting that he should give Dia a chance with Southampton.[4] Souness was convinced, and Dia was signed on a one-month contract.
However, it did not take Southampton’s players long to notice they had brought in a dud.
“I only really trained with him once, on the Friday before the fateful day.” Matt Le Tissier recalled. “He joined in the five-a-side on the Friday morning, and was introduced to us as a trialist. I remember at the time thinking: ‘He’s not very good. He’s probably not going to make it.’”
Yet Dia did. With Southampton depleted by injuries, he was put on the bench for the match against Leeds on 23 November. When Le Tissier came off injured after 32 minutes, Dia replaced him.
In total Dia lasted 53 minutes, replaced with five to go by Monkou.
“He ran around the pitch like Bambi on ice,” Le Tissier said. “It was very, very embarrassing to watch. We were like: ‘What’s this geezer doing? He’s hopeless.’ Graeme named him as a sub and we couldn’t believe it. I got injured after 20 minutes and when I saw him warming up, I’m going: ‘Surely not?’ Graeme put him on and he was fucking hopeless, so he took him off again. It was crazy.”
SO WHAT HAPPENED TO DIA NEXT
Dia then signed for non-league Gateshead in December, and scored on his debut, a 5-0 win over Bath City.
He scored two goals in eight games, but a change of manager did for him and he was transfer-listed in February 1997. He reportedly enrolled at Northumbria University, graduating with a degree in business studies in 2001.
Dia’s duping of Southampton was certainly a good piece of personal business – he made £2,000 during his two-week stint on the south coast, and reportedly earned £400-a-week at Gateshead, becoming their top earner while also getting a four-figure signing on bonus.
One of the best ever players to emerge from Africa.
In 1967, at the age of 20 years he left Mali to play for AS Saint – Etienne in France where he won three consecutive Ligue 1 titles.
In his last two seasons with Saint-Etienne (1971 & 1972), he scored an astonishing 71 league goals with 42 goals in the 1970-71 season alone.
He scored 125 goals in 149 matches for Saint – Etienne.
He was voted the African Footballer of the Year in 1970.
He joined Olympique de Marseille in 1972. He left the following year to play for Valencia in Spain. He spent three years in Spain and in 1976, he signed for Sporting in Portugal.
He scored 242 goals in 414 club matches.
He appeared for the Mali National Team 28 times from 1963-1972 scoring 13 goals.
He retired at the age of 34 after two years with the New England Tea Men FC in the United States of America.
Jos And The Death Of The Field Marshall’ – A Small Tribute! –Odegbami
Egede, Layiwola Olagbemiro, Gabriel Babalola, Peter Anieke, Tony Igwe, Samuel Garba, Amusa Shittu, Tijani Salihu, Joseph Agbogbovia, the Atuegbu Brothers, Sunday Daniel, Bala Ali, Wole Odegbami, Mikel Obi, Sam Ubah, Sam Pam, Patrick Mancha, Ali Jeje, and a whole new set of players in the immediate past and present national teams of Nigeria.
That tap has not run dry. Jos is still breeding an endless stream of players immune from the city’s damaging reputation as the centre of ethnic, tribal, political and religious differences.
That’s what I remember as I recall the life of ‘Field Marshall’. He was a Hausa man whose parents were originally from Kano, but spent all their lives in Jos. His dream, which he often shared with me, was for a way to be found by the governments to return the town to the Jos of old, the Jos were we all grew up in, loved and lived in happily.
His nickname, ‘Field Marshall’ captured him aptly on the football field; how he played like a general commanding his troops from the rear; how he started most attacks with his smooth and elegant runs and passes upfield; how he played with uncommon composure and calmness, a page from the book of the great German Libero, Franz Berkenbauer.
The Field Marshall was a delight to watch on the field, always cool and confident in his clean interceptions. Never wasting a tackle, always calculative, and a great organiser of his team, particularly his defence line. That’s why he was always made the captain of his various teams – Captain of St. Theresa’s Boys’ School, Jos; Captain of Academy Institute of Commerce, Jos; Captain of Mighty Jets FC and Plateau United FC; and, very briefly, Captain of the Green Eagles.
He turned to coaching after his illustrious playing career and became as good a coach as he was a player. His best achievements were his stint as Chief Coach of Nigeria’s women’s national team, the Falcons. His records speak. He is considered the most successful coach in Nigeria’s women’s football history.
That’s why his death, at 79 last week, was mourned by the entire country.
He had been downed by a freak domestic accidence, a broken hip bone. He had called me up a few weeks ago and assured me he was feeling better. Then, the news of his death hit me like a hammer in the head, a humbling reminder again that none of us has any right to be alive whilst others die. Life is a privilege by the Universe for which we should always be thankful whilst we await our own turn at the gates of eternity.
Ismaila Mohammed Mabo, the Field Marshall, was one of the last surviving members of an era of national team footballers that went to represent Nigeria at the 1968 Olympic Games and almost conquered Brazil.
drbiggie 