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Apart from his scholarly activities at Odo-Otin Grammar School, Okuku, in the 60s, the young Prince Olagunsoye Adedapo Oyinlola was more of a hunter. Usually in the midst of friends on a hunting expedition, he would aim at a bird on a tree and hit the target with just a single shot from his catapult. The confidence in his shooting prowess and his love for military uniform gingered him to join the Nigerian Army in 1969 rather than accept his admission to Ahmadu Bello University as an undergraduate, after successfully completing his West African School Certificate examination in 1968. His eagerness and admiration for this disciplined profession further propelled him to join as a Private, rather than as an officer, as he posessed the requisite qualification. Once pencilled in as a batman for Brigadier General Raji Rasaki due to his usual appearance in well starched and properly ironed khaki uniform, this legal practitioner who became an orphan at the age of nine, through a
Seventy years next Wednesday, February 3, life has been kind to a former National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party and later, Chairman of the National Identity Management Company, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, who spent his productive years serving his fatherland in the Nigerian Army. Yinka Kolawole writes
One of the very few people in this country, who have been fortunate to rule two states at different times, is Olagunsoye Oyinlola, a prince of Okuku, Osun State. He was a Military Administrator of Lagos State from December 1993 to August 1996.
Nine years after leaving Lagos, he was sworn in as the elected governor of Osun State on May 29, 2003 and remained on the seat till November 26, 2010. He later became the National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party and later, Chairman of the National Identity Management Company (NIMC).
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What you didn’t know about new Service Chiefs
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Lucky Irabor, Chief of Defence Staff – How Borno indigene foretold his elevation in 2016
In 2016, Ibrahim Uba Yusuf, an indigene of Borno was so impressed with new Chief of Defence Staff Lucky Irabor that he declared him his man of the year in a local publication in Maiduguri.
Before then, the entire Sambisa Forest had fallen to Gboko Haram but Irabor led the operations that recovered greater part of the forest. Yusuf celebrated Irabor this way: “The year 2016 is remarkable to not only the people of Borno or North East but also the whole of Nigeria because of the fall of camp and hideout of the Boko Haram leader Shekau in Sambisa.
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No fewer than 20 members of courses 34 and 35 may proceed on retirement as the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Tuesday removed service chiefs and appointed a new set of officers to replace them.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, in a statement titled, ‘President Buhari appoints new service chiefs,’ named officers who would head the nation’s armed forces.
According to him, they include Chief of Defence Staff, Major-General Lucky Irabor; Chief of Army Staff, Major-General I. Attahiru; Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral A.Z Gambo, and the Chief of Air Staff, Air-Vice Marshal Isiaka Amao.