A skilled elderly drummer in Ibadan popularly called Ayangbenle ‘Baba Onilu’ is dead, The Nation has learnt.

Ayangbenle, a special drummer for Osun during the Osun Osogbo festival is a native of Ede town, Osun State.

The drummer’s son confirmed his demise.

He said: “Baba Onilu has passed away overnight. May Almighty Allah grant him Aljanah Fidarus”.

“Baba Onilu last word is “La Ilaaha Ila lahu”.

Ayangbenle used to drum for students of the University of Ibadan during convocations, then he also drummed to entertain corps members in Ibadan.

In April 2022, the drummer went viral when Adisa Olashile, a phone photographer and a corps member serving in Ibadan, Oyo, took random pictures of ‘Baba Onilu’ and the pictures went viral on social media platform – Twitter.

Olashile minted two of the pictures as NFT and they got collected immediately on OpenSea for 0.3 eth each – around one million naira.

Adisa promised to give Baba Onilu 50 per cent of the proceeds and he did. Five hundred thousand naira with an additional 100 thousand obtained from donations was handed over to Baba who received the huge cash in shock and disbelief as he was also presented with a picture frame of his image.

In an interview last year, Ayangbenle said he inherited the drumming skill from his father and did not go to any training center.

He said: “Drumming is the profession of my paternal grandmother’s lineage. I started drumming in Ibadan.”

Credit: The Nation

President Bola Tinubu has nominated Melvin Ayogu to the board of the Central Bank of Nigeria and has sought Senate confirmation for the appointment.

The Special Adviser to Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, made this in a statement on Wednesday.

Tinubu also sought Senate confirmation for Nwakuche Ndidi as controller-general of the Nigerian Correctional Service.

He said the requests, conveyed in letters to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, were read during Tuesday’s plenary.

Tinubu had previously nominated Robert Agbide, Ado Wanga, Murtala Sagaley, Urom Eke, and Olayinka Aliyu to the CBN board in February 2024.

However, on February 29, 2024, the senate confirmed four people as members of the board of the CBN after Eke rejected the offer, citing “conflict of interest”.

Tinubu replaced Eke with Ruby Onwudiwe on March 13, 2024; however, a day after, reports circulated that the president withdrew her nomination over political affiliation with the Labour Party, an opposition of the All Progressives Congress.

The decision reportedly followed pressure mounted on the president by members of the APC, as Onwudiwe publicly supported Peter Obi, who contested on the LP platform against Tinubu, at the 2023 presidential elections.

Members of the Lagos State House of Assembly have arrived the State House, Abuja, to meet with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The legislators who arrived in two coaster buses had been allowed into the President’s office area to wait for the meeting.

Both the reinstated Speaker of the Assembly, Hon Mudashiru Obasa, and the ousted one, Hon Mojisola Miranda, were also sighted in the team.

While Meranda arrived with her colleagues at some minutes past 2pm, Obasa arrived separately at about 2:50pm.

The meeting may not be unconnected with the recent leadership crisis in the State House of Assembly.

It would be recalled that Hon. Obasa was impeached as Speaker by a majority of his colleagues, but he was latter reinstated after the intervention of the political leaders especially the Governor’s Advisory Council, (GAC)

Despite the Speaker’s reinstatement, it was gathered that the bad blood as a result of his impeachment is yet to be over.

The Nation