How does one react to this US bombing?

A few days before Christmas, I was about myself. I used the opportunity of that personal reflection to pray that the stories that would be on our cover page during the Christmas and New Year celebrations would not be about violent killing of Nigerians. I desired that so much that I didn’t think about the ethical implications of my prayers on my job as a journalist. I was simply tired of violent killings in my country by bandits, and I wanted no more of it, regardless of how weighty the headline might be.

I didn’t wish to read stories of violent attacks on Nigerians anywhere during the yuletide, in any way. I was praying daily that we should have a festive season devoid of attacks on churches, mosques, communities, or anywhere or anyone in which Nigerians might be killed. My sadness when these terror attacks happen doesn’t always help my mental health. I like it sassy always, I like it when everything goes smoothly, even though I know so very well that I will not always have it my own way.

Regardless of all my wishes, there was a suicide attack on a mosque in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State. Again, people who went out to worship, who only had the intention of fulfilling their religious obligations, were killed and maimed. That left a bad taste in my mouth. It meant that my wish was not granted.

However, there was also the news of what President Donald Trump and his soldiers did on Nigerian soil. It was a fulfilment of his promise – more of carrying out of his threat to visit terrorists troubling Nigerians, especially the Christians. The news crept in on us like a thief in the night, but Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, said it didn’t, that he spoke with the United States’ Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, about the action. Tuggar added that we didn’t just know about the operation, our government was indeed the source of the intelligence the United States worked with in the strikes it carried out on terrorist hideouts. Tuggar said Nigeria presented the intelligence, and that he was on the telephone for 19 minutes with the US Secretary of State.

Importantly, our Foreign Affairs Minister said the airstrikes by the United States had nothing to do with religion but with the aim of protecting Nigerians and innocent lives of Nigerians and non-Nigerians. The strike was a result of the cooperation of the Nigerian and US governments. How does one react to that? It was not unexpected, but it was a shade different from what might have been expected. What many thought was that those things we were expecting to find in Sambisa Forest, in Benue, in Plateau and in Taraba, and so on, were found in Sokoto. It is a surprise, or should we be surprised? Is that it or are we to expect another?

How should one even react to that? However, reactions of Nigerians to the things our Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Tuggar, said about the strike show that there is total lack of trust in him and, by extension, the government he represents. Tuggar must represent us well and ensure that we avoid a unilateral action that might leave us the losers in a game we should be in total control of.

Have you heard from Portable lately?

When was the last time you heard from Habeeb Okikiola, the man known to the whole world as Portable Omo Olalomi? He has been largely quiet and has shed himself of all his media presence, especially his social media activities, which brought him to the knowledge of Nigerians and the world. Portable is known generally as a man that has taken being sassy to new heights; he is not one to be kept in the cooler – a cliché in the Kegites Club to indicate keeping one quiet and in one place.

Portable has been in the cooler and his absence in our faces has kindled curiosity in some equally curious quarters. The original thought came like an innocent question – a kind of ignis fatuus for those who joined in the conversation. “Where is Portable? I have not heard from him in a long time. I hope he is still on his feet?”

That question led to various kinds of reactions, some of which were forms of answers to where Portable might have been all along. A few of the answers to the question brought out the beast in those who do not like Portable as a person, and by extension his craft. There were those who said they didn’t mind listening to and dancing to his music, but would not want to have anything to do with his person. Then there were those who neither like his craft nor his person just as some of the responses revealed those who just don’t care.

This is not to endorse what Portable does. It is also not a rejection of his person. It is just a lookout for an active man who has just suddenly went quiet. It is worthy to ask who might have sent him to the cooler. In the Kegites Club, when the Chief sends a comrad or anyone for that matter into the cooler while in the shrine – where it normally happens, it is either as a form of punishment for a sacrilege committed by the person, or to protect such a person from some form of aggression form some powers. The ‘cooler’ is detention, or like being sent to the prison for an offence. In some other situations, it could also mean an action to save such a person from being fined heavily by, perhaps some visiting chiefs.

So, is Portable in the cooler for offences committed against some people – some chiefs in some unidentified hemispheres? Portable has been in the cooler in the thinking of many. He has not been the usual vivacious and loquacious self and the thinking is that he has been sent to the cooler. It is not impossible that he is in the cooler. He can be in detention because he has stepped on so many toes. Of course, he had been sent to prison which we now call “correctional centre”, a place apt for him going by its name. But he escaped being kept there.

In February this year, he was really very busy on the social media, way busier than he is thought to be at this period. That was the month he was sentenced to three months in prison in Kwara State. He was in trouble with Fuji Music lord, Saheed Osupa, and he had his time in court. The same Portable was in debt and was being pursued all over the place by his creditors. He hasn’t told us if he had paid the debt. He then also ran into murky waters with the police in Ogun State for violating environmental laws, etc. That was when he declared that he was a ‘baboon’. That Portable is what people who asked about him have not been seeing.

Well, those who might not have been seeing him on their preferred social media platforms need to hear this: Portable is still doing his thing nearly every day. He has been dragging some artistes, some of whom he should be courting favours. On the 4th of December, 2025 he said that he was doing better than Davido and Don Jazzy. It was typical Portable, but since those men didn’t give attention to him, the matter didn’t rise above the level where Portable is.

Portable acts in ways that call to question his mental status, but a deeper look into him says otherwise. He spoke as recently as Tuesday this week. And we hope he remains where he is and spares us and himself his trouble.

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