Popular Televangelist and founder of Synagogue, ‘Church of All Nations’, Temitope Bamidele Balogun Joshua is dead. He died yesterday after conducting a church service in Lagos, Nigeria.
T. B. Joshua, was a Nigerian charismatic Pastor, televangelist and philanthropist, the leader and founder of The Synagogue, Church of All Nations, a Christian megachurch that runs the Emmanuel evangelism television station from Lagos.
He was said to have predicted his death which he put at 58 and at exactly one week to his birthday, June 12, he gave up the ghost.
The Synagogue, ‘Church of all Nation’ has officially made statement on thee demise of their General Overseer and Founder, Prophet TB Joshua, who breathed his last on Saturday, 5th June, 2021.
Below is the statement confirming his death as released by the Church. The statement reads thus;
ROPHET TB JOSHUA – JUNE 12th 1963 to JUNE 5th 2021
“Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.” – Amos 3:7 On Saturday 5th June 2021, Prophet TB Joshua spoke during the Emmanuel TV Partners Meeting: “Time for everything – time to come here for prayer and time to return home after the service.”
God has taken His servant home – as it should be by divine will. His last moments on earth were spent in the service of God. This is what he was born for, lived for, and died for.
As he says, “The greatest way to use life is to spend it on something that will outlive it”. He leaves a legacy of service and sacrifice to God’s Kingdom that is living for generations yet unborn.
The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations, and Emmanuel TV Family appreciate your love, prayers, and concern at this time and request a time of privacy for the family.
Here are Prophet TB Joshua’s last words: “Watch and pray.”
One life for Christ is all we have; one life for Christ is so dear.
The National Examinations Council (NECO) has shifted the date for the 2021 National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) into Nigerian Federal Unity Colleges. The examination which was initially scheduled to hold on Saturday May 29, 2021, will now be written on Saturday June 5, 2021.
A statement made available by the NECO’s Head of Information and Public Relations Division, Azeez Sani on Wednesday in Abuja, noted that the new date was approved by the Federal Ministry of Education.
According to the Council, the examination “was rescheduled to give states with low registration of candidates the opportunity to register their candidates for the examination. “All candidates, parents, guardians and relevant stakeholders are therefore enjoined to take note of the new date for the examination.
“The registration of candidates will continue till the new date of the examination. Candidates, parents and guardians are advised to download the new Examination Time Table from the Council’s website.”
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, National Leader, All Progressives Congress (APC)
The former governor of Lagos State and the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has added his voice to the crisis between herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria warning against using “careless words” that will further fuel rather than quench the raging crisis.
Tinubu said this in a statement he signed and issued to newsmen on Saturday in Lagos where he warned that careless talk would do both herders and farmers grave injustice and that such words would not shield herdsmen from what he termed “relentless reality.”
The statement read; “The herder-farmer dispute has taken on acute and violent dimensions. It has cost too many innocent lives while destroying the property and livelihoods of many others. It has also aggravated ethnic sentiment and political tension. Despite the efforts of some of those in positions of high responsibility and public trust, the crisis has not significantly abated. Sadly, others who should know better have incited matters by tossing about hate-tainted statements that fall dangerously short of the leadership these people claim to provide. We all must get hold of our better selves to treat this matter with the sobriety it requires.
“Because of the violence that has ensued and the fretful consequences of such violence if left unabated, we must move in unison but decisively to end the spiral of death and destruction. Only when the violence and the illogic of it are halted can logic and reason prevail. Until the violence is rolled back, we cannot resolve the deep problems that underlie this conflict. We will neither be able to uplift the farmer from his impoverished toil nor move the herder toward the historic transformation which he must make.
Yet, as vital as security is to the resolution of this matter, we must realize security measures alone will not suffice. Enhanced security may be the necessary first step, but it cannot be the only step. Nor do we resolve this by hitching ourselves to emotional, one-dimensional answers. More to the point, those who cast this as exclusively a matter of ethnic confrontation are mistaken. This is no time for reckless chauvinism of any kind, on either side of this dispute. This matter is not ethnic in factual origin or actual causation although in the minds and hearts of too many it has become ethnic in recrimination and impulsive action.
There have been sporadic disputes in the past but this one is more severe. The reasons for the greater violence of this current dispute are myriad. Economic hardship and its resultant dislocation, proliferation of weapons, generalized increase in criminality, and weakening of social institutions all play a role. Desertification, increased severity and length of the dry season, diminution of water resources, impairment of land fertility and population growth also contribute in no small measure. Thus, any durable solution must get at most, if not all, of these issues.
“Farmers have a right to farm their land unmolested. Herders have a right to raise their livestock without undue interference. However, when conflict between these groups arises to such an extent, we must set forth clear principles and policies to remove the tension, in order to allow both to proceed toward their stated goals and to live in harmony and according to their respective rights. Just as I cannot go into your house and take your shirt because I do not have one of like colour, no one can destroy the crops of a farmer or seize the cattle of a herder simply because such destruction sates their anger or their selfish, short-term interests. If such a condition were to hold, then all would turn into chaos; all would be in jeopardy of being lost. To destroy the crops or seize the property of the innocent farmer or herder is nothing if not an act of criminality.
Here, I must state two fundamental realities. One has been previously mentioned by me and others as part of the solution. The other reality is hardly discussed. First, the situation of the herder is becoming untenable. Their nomadic ways fall increasingly in conflict with the dictates of modern society. This way of life is centuries old and steeped in tradition. We can never condone or accept violence as a valid response to any hardship. However, we all must recognize and understand the sense of dislocation caused by the sudden passing of such a longstanding social institution.
I mention their dislocation not to excuse violence and other excesses. I raise it to underscore that we must realize the true complexity of this crisis. What is happening has been terrible, but it is not due to any intrinsic evil in either the herder or the farmer. The calamity now being faced is borne of situational exigencies. It is but the tragic outcome when often desperate, alienated people are left too long unattended and when their understanding of the modern socio-economic and environmental forces affecting the very terms of their existence is incomplete. An ethnically fuelled response will be to vociferously defend the nomadic way believing this tack will somehow protect the herder and cast the speaker as an ethnic champion. However, careless words cannot shield the herder from relentless reality. Such talk will only delude him into believing that he can somehow escape the inevitable. We do both herder and farmer grave injustice by allowing the herder to continue as he is – fighting a losing battle against modernity and climate change. In that fight, desperation causes him to flail and fight the farmer, who too is a victim of these impersonal forces.
Second, to help the herder and leave the farmer unattended is unfair and will only trigger a resentment that tracks already heated ethnic fault lines. The times have also been perilous for the hardscrabble farmer. He needs help to survive and to be more productive in ways that increases national food security. Farm productivity and incomes must be enhanced. Soil enrichment, better irrigation and water retention as well as provision of better rural roads, equipment and access to modern machinery are required to lift him above bare subsistence.
Both innocent and law-abiding farmer and herder need to be recompensed for the losses they have suffered. Both need further assistance to break the current cycle of violence and poverty. In short, the continued progressive reform of many of our rural socio-economic relationships is called for.
Based on these strategic observations, I recommend the federal government convene a meeting of state governors, senior security officials, herder and farmer representatives, along with traditional rulers and religious leaders. The purpose of this meeting would be to hammer out a set of working principles to resolve the crisis.
After this meeting, governors of each state should convene follow-up meetings in their states to refine and add flesh to the universal principles by adjusting them to the particular circumstances of their states. In addition to religious and traditional leaders and local farmer and herder representatives, these meetings shall include the state’s best security minds along with experts in agriculture (livestock and farming), land use and water management to draw specific plans for their states.
To accomplish this goal, wise policy must include the following elements: 1. Maintain reasonable and effective law enforcement presence in affected areas. The proposed reform of the Nigerian law enforcement apparatus towards state and community policing can help in this regard. The legislative and administrative measures required to make this a reality should be expedited. In addition to alleviating the present farmer-herder crisis, this reform will also bolster efforts against the banditry, kidnapping and robbery plaguing communities across the country. Governments need to employ new technology and equipment to enhance the information gathering/surveillance and response capabilities of law enforcement.
2. Help the herders’ transition to more sedentary but more profitable methods of cattle-rearing. Unoccupied public land can be fenced into grazing areas or ranches and leased to herders on a very low-cost, nominal basis. The leasing is not intended to penalize herders. Rather, the nominal fee is intended to ensure the herders are invested in the project and incentivized (by reason of their investment) to use the land provided. This aspect will also mitigate any resentment over herders being given land for free. Government, in turn, being a responsible lessor, must help with supplemental feed and water in these areas. This will enable herders to better maintain and care for their livestock thus enhancing their incomes. Herders can augment income by becoming suppliers to the leather goods industry. Additionally, herders can also develop a more symbiotic relationship with farmers by, for example, trading animal compost to the farmer in exchange for animal feed.
3. Assist farmers increase productivity by supporting or providing subvention for their acquisition of fertilizer, equipment and machinery and, also, by establishing commodity boards to guarantee minimum prices for important crops. In the medium to long term, resources must be dedicated to establishing better irrigation and water catchment systems to further improve farm productivity and mitigate the dire impact of flood and drought cycles brought about by extreme climatic conditions.
4. Establish a permanent panel in each state as a forum for farmers, herders, security officials and senior state officials to discuss their concerns, mitigate contention and identify trouble and douse it before it erupts.
We are a populous nation of diverse ethnic groups. We are a people of potential richness, yet to escape present poverty. We have resources but not wealth. Often, our words speak of hope and fear in the same breath. While we all hope and strive for the best, many fear that there is not enough of what is needed to go around and that they will be left out. In such a situation, harsh competition and contest are fated to occur. In the unfolding of this social dynamic, one group of actors has been pitted against another over dwindling water and fertile ground. The confrontation has resulted in the needless loss of life and destruction of property. If left to itself, this situation may spread and threaten the progress of the nation. It could call into proximate question the utility of the social compact that holds government and governed in positive bond, one to the other. We have a decision to make. Do we attempt the hard things that decency requires of us to right the situation? Or do we allow ourselves to be slave to short term motives that appeal to base instinct that run afoul of the democratic principles upon which this republic is founded and for which so many have already sacrificed so much? In the question itself, lies the answer”.
Indigenes of Epe Division in Lagos State have been enjoined to allow room for unity among themselves for the development of the area.
Mayowa Ikuforiji, Council Manager, Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government
Wife of the former Speaker at the Lagos State House of Assembly and the Council Manager, Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government, Mrs. Mayowa Ikuforiji made the call during the recent visit of the executive members of Club ’97 of Epe Division to the Council.
The visit according to the leader of the team, Barrister Dapo Alebiosu who stood in for the President, Ishaq Adeshina Okeowo, was in continuation of the Club’s familiarisation tour of Local Governments and Local Council Development Areas in the State.
Ikuforiji with Club members
Alebiosu said, “We have come to identify with you ma being one of our Matrons, to commiserate with you on the unfortunate attack on your Council as a result of the end-sars protest and, to congratulate you on the commissioning of the rebuilt Council Secretariat by His Excellency, Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu”.
Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government Secretariat
Ikuforiji in her response commended the team for the initiative and enjoined members to join hands with the Okeowo led Executives to further place the pressure group in a vantage and rightful position in Lagos State service.
“Let me also say that we must allow unity to reign supreme among us and, such unity must not be limited to Club ’97 alone but among all the Indigenes of Epe Division. Let’s all uphold our slogan that says; United We Stand”, she admonished.
Still wondering on the idea which Lagos State University’s (LASU) current and potential stakeholders, as well as visitors may be consensual about? It’s the spiraling, seemingly insurmountable failure of community support for the university. Such is this challenge unmistakable that you may simply conclude that it doesn’t seem like LASU is anyone’s pride. Ubuquitous LASU Radio blaring benefits to the adjoining communities notwithstanding. So contrastingly sharp against the new LASUITES’ popular lines: “We are LASU/We are proud”. To conclude that this is disorienting is an understatement
How can you convince anyone you treasure what you cannot showcase? It’s practically impossible to showcase LASU to potential or new admirers. The physical address of LASU is incontrovertibly best signposted by Badagry Expressway. What manner of a signpost, even with its supposed international status?
Tunde Akanni, PhD
Not a few of the university staff have been dispossessed of their cars and other forms of transportation means after years of intractable degeneracy that has also contributed to failing health of many. Only last year we lost the most senior plumber for the university, Mr. Idowu, due to the bad road which undermined quick access to health facility when he neede to be rushed to one.
Indeed one death that took many LASUITES a long time to overcome was that of the son of one of our selfless colleagues. The deceased was dashing young lawyer with a most inspiring profile. He was returning home after the day’s hustle. With the road being almost impassable that day for vehicles, our promising boy was compelled to take a ride on “okada”. It turned out to be his last. The bike rider suddenly lost grip of the machine amidst the confusion of other rough riders including trucks…No effort was spared to revive our dear son but we were not anywhere near doing enough. We lost him.
Before our brother’s untimely demise, LASU appeared to have resigned to the fate wrought on it by the bad road. I don’t know of any LASU stakeholder who can recall the last time the main gate of Lagos State’s only university by Badagry Expressway was opened the normal way. One side of it had for long been consigned to disuse for years.
The hope of a new lease of life for the university was anxiously anticipated as VC Fagbohun was about to assume his office. We got flickers of assurance as the Ambode-led government promptly supported the new VC in his burning desire to rev up development in LASU. The International Bar Association-renowned environmental law expert seemed to have prioritized the environment. Promptly, the state government embarked on the paving of the intra-campus roads. All the roads were paved. The newly paved roads duly enhanced the greening of the environment. Thus followed all related physical developments especially routine cleaning including unprecedented horticultural practice.
Ambode reasonably built on the initiatives of Governor Fashola. For the duration of the Fagbohun tenure therefore, LASU got unprecedented physical development. The height of it all manifested in Fagbohun finishing strong. Fagbohun upped the stake foever. He led LASU to the seemingly unattainable height of the nation’s second best university. But even the joy Fagbohun ushered in, to echo Ola Rotimi, seems to have a slender body. There’s an urgent need not only to preserve the glory of the present but to save the future. Will Sanwo-Olu save LASU? Will he find supporters in the relevant local government authorities? There are no clear signals, unfortunately. This is the gap the new VC has to fill immediately.
In despair, a colleague in LASU couldn’t hold back her hopelessness. She spoke out on Facebook wondering if traffic related laws promulgated by the Sanwo-Olu government were applicable in Alimosho and the adjoining areas. Simply put: the only road to LASU is a dead end. It looks so hopeless. You begin to wonder if shortly after LASU’s recent attainment of national leader, its fate will act out the submission of poet Kalu Uka, that “the happiest moment is the saddest encounter”.
The access road from Egbeda through the increasingly impossible Igando both in Alimosho Local Government presents unmistakable, killer spectacle, hard to come by in no other southwest state of Nigeria. Sure! The traffic wardens on roads leading to Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife are always at alert. Their counterparts for University of Ibadan are never found wanting always freeing the roads for traffic in spite of the proximity of the historic Bodijaa Market.
In case you’re tempted to dismiss the incomparability of OAU and UI with LASU on the basis of vehicular traffic, be it known too that the stated road to LASU is the only one left after the Badagry expressway has been abandoned by everyone. The situation has since become worse now that Seme Border has been reopened. All vehicles destined for the city and beyond from the border now travel via Igando
Between Egbeda and Igando, there is no known formally established market to warrant impenetrable road. Let’s traverse that route together here: Coming from Iyana-Ipaja to Egbeda, there’s a layby for commercial buses to make for free flow of traffic. They don’t use it and it seemed to have become an agreed normal between law enforcers and commercial motorists. More threateningly, you are on your way to LASU from the nation’s premier and largest international airport via Dopemu to the same Egbeda on your way to LASU, right at Egbeda, comercial motorists routinely throw caution to the wind. They make u-turn from the two sides of the dual carriage road by GTBank making mess of that junction. Yet, less than 50 metres away by Ilaka Junction, they turn the road into some garage leaving other road users, pedestrians and cyclists, at their hard to come by mercy.
As you survive Egbeda and head on to Idimu, the bus drivers constantly disrupt your free drive as they disregard the provided layby points to pick passengers arbitrarily. You can’t avoid sudden intermittent stops, which cause accidents often. The most annoying point perhaps is the Idimu Junction right in front of an LCDA secretariat. Bus drivers converge right at the gate of the secretariat to pick passengers even as a properly constructed layby is only one-minute drive beyond it. You wonder, what the CDA officials benefit form this anomie.
The apogee of the traffic congestion these days is at Igando, where, ironically, there is a distinctly visible bus terminus. Bus drivers shy away from the terminus and instead constrict the road to the barest minimum leaving long stretch of traffic on the road, all day. So, you can’t have any such ambition of hurrying to LASU or returning either. The roads have been mended by the Sanwo-Olu administration in its short period of inception but the gains are being thwarted. Going to and returning from LASU is hellish, I can confirm. But LASU’s patronage is yet to be optimized going by Gov Sanwo-Olu’s projection of the collaboration with Cornell University in the United States. The governor volunteered this dream already. Are the local government bosses in the concerned neighbourhood ready to support the Governor’s ambition? To what extent? I believe LASU can midwife solutionist cooperation taking advantage of the current endearing Olympian height. It will be too soon to lower our guard after the second best excellence attainment. Welcome, new VC.
Tunde Akanni, PhD, media scholar and development consultant is based at the LASU School of Communication.
Dashmino 