Long before the authentic director general of the office of economic hardship pitched its corruption-enabled palace in Nigeria, some animals in human clothing have brazenly feasted on the largesse of the office, majorly public facilities provided to ease the much-beleaguered lives of the populace. Vandalising public infrastructure to fulfil the greed of scavengers and evil traders didn’t start with the choking pangs of Nigeria’s economic woes.Stripping Lagos bridges of their railings to make low-quality spoons started in the 90s, but the authorities failed to take tough actions against the criminals beautifully described as scavengers and vandals. The headquarters of economic pain were suspected to be housed in Latin America then, though the military had helped usher in the harbingers of the impending crisis that has become full-blown today before they fled with their khaki in 1999.So, it is, therefore, debatable to ascribe the modern-day vandalism and theft of public facilities to the undeniable painful economic injections the citizens of this country received all over their bodies daily.I watched Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, as he fought back tears on seeing the vandalised FESTAC—Alakija Bridge in Lagos during his emergency visit to the location last week. Several pillars of the bridge had been stripped of their concrete coverings while several rods used to reinforce over a dozen pillars had been carted away. If this is not a quintessential sabotage against a nation, I don’t know of any criminal action which qualifies as one.Like many other acts of vandalism across the country, this also will soon pass away while the state government spends billions of naira to fix the damage caused by this barefaced looting organised by criminals, facilitated by thieving traders and aided by conspiratorial residents who watched while such heinous acts were perpetrated. Before you blow your tops thinking that I’m trying to robe everybody in, remember that I have lived in the Lagos area for over 40 years.In January 2025, the Federal Capital Development Administration realised that all the manholes on FCT highways had suddenly developed wings even when not powered to fly. Within 20 days, a task force set up by the FCTA to recover the manholes stormed the Kabusa ‘Pantaker’ scrap market in Abuja and arrested about 50 suspects linked to the theft and sale of manhole covers to scrap dealers. The team also raided scrap hubs in Garki, Mabushi and Wuse.By February, over 125 stolen manholes were recovered by the team while no fewer than 50 suspects, including some greedy traders, were arrested. Some hubs where these scraps were found were deservedly dismantled. This is not the story. Since this commendable operation over a year ago, have you heard that any of these saboteurs have been sent to jail?You might have heard that in the past two years, trains have continued to derail on the Warri—Itakpe rail road (no fewer than four times), all in the Agbor area of Delta State. Some lives have been lost, including three in June 2026, while 20 passengers were injured. Almost all the incidents were caused by the theft of rail tracks on the route.Reports from our rail system are pretty distressing. On several occasions, Nigerians have been inundated with reports of some criminals who were arrested carting away trailer loads of rail tracks in Delta, Kano and other states. To date, none of these saboteurs has faced the official consequences of their evil actions.I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Stripping Lagos bridges of their railings to make low-quality spoons started in the 90s, but the authorities failed to take tough actions against the criminals beautifully described as scavengers and vandals. The headquarters of economic pain were suspected to be housed in Latin America then, though the military had helped usher in the harbingers of the impending crisis that has become full-blown today before they fled with their khaki in 1999.So, it is, therefore, debatable to ascribe the modern-day vandalism and theft of public facilities to the undeniable painful economic injections the citizens of this country received all over their bodies daily.I watched Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, as he fought back tears on seeing the vandalised FESTAC—Alakija Bridge in Lagos during his emergency visit to the location last week. Several pillars of the bridge had been stripped of their concrete coverings while several rods used to reinforce over a dozen pillars had been carted away. If this is not a quintessential sabotage against a nation, I don’t know of any criminal action which qualifies as one.Like many other acts of vandalism across the country, this also will soon pass away while the state government spends billions of naira to fix the damage caused by this barefaced looting organised by criminals, facilitated by thieving traders and aided by conspiratorial residents who watched while such heinous acts were perpetrated. Before you blow your tops thinking that I’m trying to robe everybody in, remember that I have lived in the Lagos area for over 40 years.In January 2025, the Federal Capital Development Administration realised that all the manholes on FCT highways had suddenly developed wings even when not powered to fly. Within 20 days, a task force set up by the FCTA to recover the manholes stormed the Kabusa ‘Pantaker’ scrap market in Abuja and arrested about 50 suspects linked to the theft and sale of manhole covers to scrap dealers. The team also raided scrap hubs in Garki, Mabushi and Wuse.By February, over 125 stolen manholes were recovered by the team while no fewer than 50 suspects, including some greedy traders, were arrested. Some hubs where these scraps were found were deservedly dismantled. This is not the story. Since this commendable operation over a year ago, have you heard that any of these saboteurs have been sent to jail?You might have heard that in the past two years, trains have continued to derail on the Warri—Itakpe rail road (no fewer than four times), all in the Agbor area of Delta State. Some lives have been lost, including three in June 2026, while 20 passengers were injured. Almost all the incidents were caused by the theft of rail tracks on the route.Reports from our rail system are pretty distressing. On several occasions, Nigerians have been inundated with reports of some criminals who were arrested carting away trailer loads of rail tracks in Delta, Kano and other states. To date, none of these saboteurs has faced the official consequences of their evil actions.I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. So, it is, therefore, debatable to ascribe the modern-day vandalism and theft of public facilities to the undeniable painful economic injections the citizens of this country received all over their bodies daily.I watched Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, as he fought back tears on seeing the vandalised FESTAC—Alakija Bridge in Lagos during his emergency visit to the location last week. Several pillars of the bridge had been stripped of their concrete coverings while several rods used to reinforce over a dozen pillars had been carted away. If this is not a quintessential sabotage against a nation, I don’t know of any criminal action which qualifies as one.Like many other acts of vandalism across the country, this also will soon pass away while the state government spends billions of naira to fix the damage caused by this barefaced looting organised by criminals, facilitated by thieving traders and aided by conspiratorial residents who watched while such heinous acts were perpetrated. Before you blow your tops thinking that I’m trying to robe everybody in, remember that I have lived in the Lagos area for over 40 years.In January 2025, the Federal Capital Development Administration realised that all the manholes on FCT highways had suddenly developed wings even when not powered to fly. Within 20 days, a task force set up by the FCTA to recover the manholes stormed the Kabusa ‘Pantaker’ scrap market in Abuja and arrested about 50 suspects linked to the theft and sale of manhole covers to scrap dealers. The team also raided scrap hubs in Garki, Mabushi and Wuse.By February, over 125 stolen manholes were recovered by the team while no fewer than 50 suspects, including some greedy traders, were arrested. Some hubs where these scraps were found were deservedly dismantled. This is not the story. Since this commendable operation over a year ago, have you heard that any of these saboteurs have been sent to jail?You might have heard that in the past two years, trains have continued to derail on the Warri—Itakpe rail road (no fewer than four times), all in the Agbor area of Delta State. Some lives have been lost, including three in June 2026, while 20 passengers were injured. Almost all the incidents were caused by the theft of rail tracks on the route.Reports from our rail system are pretty distressing. On several occasions, Nigerians have been inundated with reports of some criminals who were arrested carting away trailer loads of rail tracks in Delta, Kano and other states. To date, none of these saboteurs has faced the official consequences of their evil actions.I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. I watched Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, as he fought back tears on seeing the vandalised FESTAC—Alakija Bridge in Lagos during his emergency visit to the location last week. Several pillars of the bridge had been stripped of their concrete coverings while several rods used to reinforce over a dozen pillars had been carted away. If this is not a quintessential sabotage against a nation, I don’t know of any criminal action which qualifies as one.Like many other acts of vandalism across the country, this also will soon pass away while the state government spends billions of naira to fix the damage caused by this barefaced looting organised by criminals, facilitated by thieving traders and aided by conspiratorial residents who watched while such heinous acts were perpetrated. Before you blow your tops thinking that I’m trying to robe everybody in, remember that I have lived in the Lagos area for over 40 years.In January 2025, the Federal Capital Development Administration realised that all the manholes on FCT highways had suddenly developed wings even when not powered to fly. Within 20 days, a task force set up by the FCTA to recover the manholes stormed the Kabusa ‘Pantaker’ scrap market in Abuja and arrested about 50 suspects linked to the theft and sale of manhole covers to scrap dealers. The team also raided scrap hubs in Garki, Mabushi and Wuse.By February, over 125 stolen manholes were recovered by the team while no fewer than 50 suspects, including some greedy traders, were arrested. Some hubs where these scraps were found were deservedly dismantled. This is not the story. Since this commendable operation over a year ago, have you heard that any of these saboteurs have been sent to jail?You might have heard that in the past two years, trains have continued to derail on the Warri—Itakpe rail road (no fewer than four times), all in the Agbor area of Delta State. Some lives have been lost, including three in June 2026, while 20 passengers were injured. Almost all the incidents were caused by the theft of rail tracks on the route.Reports from our rail system are pretty distressing. On several occasions, Nigerians have been inundated with reports of some criminals who were arrested carting away trailer loads of rail tracks in Delta, Kano and other states. To date, none of these saboteurs has faced the official consequences of their evil actions.I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Like many other acts of vandalism across the country, this also will soon pass away while the state government spends billions of naira to fix the damage caused by this barefaced looting organised by criminals, facilitated by thieving traders and aided by conspiratorial residents who watched while such heinous acts were perpetrated. Before you blow your tops thinking that I’m trying to robe everybody in, remember that I have lived in the Lagos area for over 40 years.In January 2025, the Federal Capital Development Administration realised that all the manholes on FCT highways had suddenly developed wings even when not powered to fly. Within 20 days, a task force set up by the FCTA to recover the manholes stormed the Kabusa ‘Pantaker’ scrap market in Abuja and arrested about 50 suspects linked to the theft and sale of manhole covers to scrap dealers. The team also raided scrap hubs in Garki, Mabushi and Wuse.By February, over 125 stolen manholes were recovered by the team while no fewer than 50 suspects, including some greedy traders, were arrested. Some hubs where these scraps were found were deservedly dismantled. This is not the story. Since this commendable operation over a year ago, have you heard that any of these saboteurs have been sent to jail?You might have heard that in the past two years, trains have continued to derail on the Warri—Itakpe rail road (no fewer than four times), all in the Agbor area of Delta State. Some lives have been lost, including three in June 2026, while 20 passengers were injured. Almost all the incidents were caused by the theft of rail tracks on the route.Reports from our rail system are pretty distressing. On several occasions, Nigerians have been inundated with reports of some criminals who were arrested carting away trailer loads of rail tracks in Delta, Kano and other states. To date, none of these saboteurs has faced the official consequences of their evil actions.I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. In January 2025, the Federal Capital Development Administration realised that all the manholes on FCT highways had suddenly developed wings even when not powered to fly. Within 20 days, a task force set up by the FCTA to recover the manholes stormed the Kabusa ‘Pantaker’ scrap market in Abuja and arrested about 50 suspects linked to the theft and sale of manhole covers to scrap dealers. The team also raided scrap hubs in Garki, Mabushi and Wuse.By February, over 125 stolen manholes were recovered by the team while no fewer than 50 suspects, including some greedy traders, were arrested. Some hubs where these scraps were found were deservedly dismantled. This is not the story. Since this commendable operation over a year ago, have you heard that any of these saboteurs have been sent to jail?You might have heard that in the past two years, trains have continued to derail on the Warri—Itakpe rail road (no fewer than four times), all in the Agbor area of Delta State. Some lives have been lost, including three in June 2026, while 20 passengers were injured. Almost all the incidents were caused by the theft of rail tracks on the route.Reports from our rail system are pretty distressing. On several occasions, Nigerians have been inundated with reports of some criminals who were arrested carting away trailer loads of rail tracks in Delta, Kano and other states. To date, none of these saboteurs has faced the official consequences of their evil actions.I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. By February, over 125 stolen manholes were recovered by the team while no fewer than 50 suspects, including some greedy traders, were arrested. Some hubs where these scraps were found were deservedly dismantled. This is not the story. Since this commendable operation over a year ago, have you heard that any of these saboteurs have been sent to jail?You might have heard that in the past two years, trains have continued to derail on the Warri—Itakpe rail road (no fewer than four times), all in the Agbor area of Delta State. Some lives have been lost, including three in June 2026, while 20 passengers were injured. Almost all the incidents were caused by the theft of rail tracks on the route.Reports from our rail system are pretty distressing. On several occasions, Nigerians have been inundated with reports of some criminals who were arrested carting away trailer loads of rail tracks in Delta, Kano and other states. To date, none of these saboteurs has faced the official consequences of their evil actions.I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. You might have heard that in the past two years, trains have continued to derail on the Warri—Itakpe rail road (no fewer than four times), all in the Agbor area of Delta State. Some lives have been lost, including three in June 2026, while 20 passengers were injured. Almost all the incidents were caused by the theft of rail tracks on the route.Reports from our rail system are pretty distressing. On several occasions, Nigerians have been inundated with reports of some criminals who were arrested carting away trailer loads of rail tracks in Delta, Kano and other states. To date, none of these saboteurs has faced the official consequences of their evil actions.I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Reports from our rail system are pretty distressing. On several occasions, Nigerians have been inundated with reports of some criminals who were arrested carting away trailer loads of rail tracks in Delta, Kano and other states. To date, none of these saboteurs has faced the official consequences of their evil actions.I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. I hope you are not thinking that some strange ghosts removed the tracks. You may want to ask me how many people have been held responsible or sent to jail for the vandalism of the rail tracks, especially in the community mentioned above.Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Let’s take a trip to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, which currently appears to be breathing a partial sigh of relief in the vandalism of its pipelines across the country owing to the engagements of former warlords who used to torment the crude pipelines to protect the facilities. The strategy appears to be paying off.From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. From recording thousands of cases of vandalism on its pipelines in the past, the firm recorded ‘just 19 cases’ covering about nine kilometres of pipeline sections in 2025. Recall that there were 25 cases of such vandalism in one week between December 30, 2023, and January 5, 2024, by crude thieves. Former NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, had, in March 2024, lamented that there were over 9,000 pipeline attacks on the firm’s facilities within one year. Na UFO dey carry out the attacks?The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. The national oil giant spent a massive N136 billion on security, repairs and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure in 2023. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives committee estimated that Nigeria lost over US$10bn between January and July 2024 from an average loss of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism, and related criminal activities. Even if you are not good at mathematics, the mental arithmetic of US$10bn will tell you what the nation has lost to the activities of vandals and oil thieves in our customary style of aloofness.Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Before the military started chasing bandits around in most parts of Nigeria, the Nigerian Air Force, in July 2016, launched air strikes in the vast creek between Arepo (Ogun State) and Isawo-Ikorodu (Lagos State) for about a week. Operation Awatse, which also extended to Awawa, Elepete, Igando and Igbolomu, was to uproot criminals who had transformed themselves into principalities and landlords of the jungle, siphoning refined petroleum products from NNPCL’s pipelines laid through the creek. They were also alleged to be involved in kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. These criminals actually paid the ultimate price for their greed.Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Then, there was a temporary relief across the forest. Temporary? Yes, the operations have resumed and are flourishing to date despite the presence of collaborating military men deployed in the areas.A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. A week ago, I learnt that the Federal Government had commenced plans to employ guards to tackle some criminals who have started attacking facilities on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. This is a road that is still under construction. After the lunatics would have destroyed parts of the road while some residents feigned ‘e no concern me’, most Nigerians will wonder why President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, have not relocated from Abuja to Lagos to secure the highway. Dey play!You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. You may recall that less than a year after the Second Niger Bridge was opened to public use during the regime of the (now late) Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, some lunatics started vandalising facilities of the all-important new link bridge. As how? This is a bridge meant to serve millions of motorists heading to the South-East, South-South and some parts of the North-Central.At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. At the inception of the Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos, the medians of the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Ojota area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos were well fenced with barbed wire to protect road users and curb frequent deaths of passengers on the highways. Strangely, the fences were yanked off by residents the fences were meant to protect. Today, the highways have been stripped bare of all the fences demarcating the medians, just like all the railings of the bridges in Lagos were carted away in the glorious past.If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. If you are conversant with the OPIC Isheri to Magboro end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you will notice that vandals and scavengers have continued to loot the expansion joints of the bridges each time they are repaired. Motorists are currently feeling the impacts while the criminals laugh all the way to the bank. Sadly, none of these characters has been dealt with either by the residents or the law enforcement agents, even though the vandals live in the same vicinity.Related NewsTaskforce impounds 66 motorcycles on Lagos IslandHow Nigerians can apply for ECOWAS $65,000 startup awardCult clash leaves three dead in OsunWhat about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. What about the electricity towers? On Sunday, I saw a picture of a vandal who had been crushed by the tower he had been looting. I’m sure you may want to know my reaction to that. There were cases of communities thrown into months of indefinite blackout because of the ungodly activities of electricity vandals, electricity towers destroyed, kilometres of cables carted away (including the cables to my community) by human beings brimming with laughter in the sufferings of others.In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. In all of these infractions, none of the vandals and their collaborating traders has ever been brought to book, even when their dens are known. How do you expect the rogues to retrace their steps when they are confident that there won’t be any dire consequences for the criminal actions?In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. In a few countries that I have visited outside Africa, I have not heard the residents of the countries taking up arms against public infrastructure and justifying it with the excuse of economic pains. Most of the residents pay taxes through their noses to construct those facilities and they appreciate the value. They equally know the weight of such criminal enterprise when such is committed. Where will you sell such products? Who to? The authorities are also intentional that wrongdoings attract stiff punishments that will deter potential offenders. Nna, not here o!The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. The absence of laws and laws that are not enforced are essentially the same. For far too long, vandals have held the nation by the jugular while the innocent and the nation’s resources continue to cringe and suffer under their criminal weight.It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. It is heartwarming to hear that some suspects were arrested in connection with the looting of the Lagos bridge, but Lagosians must not be told the same old stories. Let the masterminds, whose culpability is established, be made to face very tough punishment, the least being a 20-year jail term. The collaborating middlemen and traders must equally face the same consequences of their actions, including the forfeiture of all their ill-gotten wealth and assets to the government.If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. If you are one of those who have been fooled by some stories that the residents of the affected areas (as listed earlier) are innocent, then you are as unpatriotic as the vandals. In this instance, the residents around the Lagos bridge are far from being innocent. They are part of the racket who must be made to account for their silence of evil.By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. By extension, the traditional ruler and the divisional police officer in the area and other areas where vandals have continually held sway must be held to account. Their laxity must not be excused. We know how to treat threats with kid gloves until such threats transform into monsters.Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Vandalism of public assets in Nigeria has become a monster that must be tackled in the most vicious way. The looting of the Amuwo pillars is mindboggling; it must not be allowed to go the way of other untreated vandalism before it. The time to start is now!The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. The unknown Tunde BakareThe Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. The Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (formerly The Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has always said his life “is an open book” that could be displayed across the sky. True. This pastor does not hide anything about himself. He sometimes uses any disagreement between him and his lovely wife, Pastor Layide Bakare, to illustrate his sermons and the lessons that should be learnt from such disagreement. He is that blunt!On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. On Sunday, August 2, 2026, we learnt Bakare has hidden some things about himself from millions of people across the globe. Two very important and credible personalities helped to unearth Bakare’s hidden side at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, and as an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Bakare’s lecturer at UNILAG, Prof Akin Oyebode, and former Managing Director of Shell Petroleum, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, told the audience who Bakare was before God transformed him to a cleric and advocate in His vineyard at the presentation of the pastor’s latest book, ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance Vol I – III’ held at The Citadel, CGCC, Lagos.Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Oyebode, a legal icon, still wonders how Bakare “was converted” by God, judging by his young student’s combative approach as a student.The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. The former Ondo State (now Ekiti State) University vice chancellor said, “I’m still wondering how Bakare became a pastor. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Bakare, pastor? Bakare, becoming a pastor! Only God could have done this Himself. Bakare was a real troublemaker as a student, especially in the classroom; a real troublemaker and very thorough too.”Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Nobody knew the pastor had consistently caused all manner of troubles (against misrule and tardiness) since his days as an undergraduate.Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Sunmonu, a close friend of Bakare for over 60 years, said he took notice of the then junior student (of his) back at the Lisabi Grammar School, Abeokuta, for carrying “one big book” around in school almost all the time.“I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. “I noticed this young man then, always carrying just one big book around. I later found out it was a dictionary, which he read consistently. In secondary school, Bakare loved big grammar, very big grammar,” the corporate guru said.Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, equally gave a background to Bakare’s pull to activism, which he ascribed to his family lineage in Iporo Sodeke, Abeokuta. He said in that family, they were taught how not to take ‘nonsense’ from anyone and how to mount a stout defence in their argument to justify their actions. We now know better.Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you. Kindly do me a favour. Do not tell the pastor I told you this o! God bless you.