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Retired CP explains how he made billions with Facebook friends while still in service
During the ceremony in Awka, Adeoye, who joined the Nigeria Police as a constable even though he had a university degree, told his audience at the Alex Ekwueme Square how an investment company he founded with some Facebook friends, is now worth about N20 billion.
Adeoye had said that with his retirement, he would go full-time into business and would not bother himself going into security consultancy as many retired security operatives usually do.
Following the controversy that has trailed his pronouncement on the investment outfit, tongues started wagging as to how the retired CP had time to engage himself in such a multi-million naira venture. On Friday, Adeoye was a guest on Arise News TV to explain everything about the business.
He said: “The people of Anambra State knew that I did my work diligently. It has never happened in the history of Anambra State that a retiring CP should be conferred with two chieftaincy titles by two communities and a street named after me.
I am Nwane Di na mba 1 of Omasi Kingdom and I am Dike Ochiagha 1 of Ogbunka Kingdom. I received these titles within a space of one week. The street named after me is by the Governor’s Lodge in Awka. Africa Trust Magazine declared me Man of the Year and went down memory lane to capture what we did in terms of security. So I did not abuse my office. I served for 35 years without attracting any query.”
Asked to clarify the operations of the controversial outfit he has been managing and the ownership structure of the organization, Adeoye said:
“The name of this organization is Alfa Trust Investment Club. Our loan arm is registered as Artic Cooperative Multipurpose Society Limited, which is registered with the Lagos State Government. We carry on investment under the business name of Artic Ventures and Business Services and that is the name that is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). We would have liked to register our full name as it is, but CAC did not approve that.
“Basically when we started in 2018, all the 177 founding members were my Facebook friends and they were drawn from an investment forum where I had lectured for free for years. The members requested that this thing we are doing as a hubby assist somebody and that we can pull resources together to do some legal investment. I was mandated to set the process in motion to ensure that everyone who would participate would willingly do so. The 177 members were then migrated to the Investment outfit. Subsequently, on a yearly, basis, we admit members.
These my friends invited their family members and friends to join. That is how we grow. We don’t solicit for membership. For five years of our existence, we have paid dividends every year without fail. Our purpose is to invest, not to do business.
So we don’t have an office, we don’t have overhead costs, we don’t have employees, we don’t pay salaries, we don’t have a generator, we don’t have official cars, The only thing the officials of the club spend is their data which is seen as their contributions to the growth of the club. The only thing we spend money on is organizing our physical meetings and this is paid for by membership dues, which is N5000 per member, per annum.
“For anybody to be a member, he must be a Nigerian, irrespective of where he resides in the world. The person must have visible means of livelihood which is verified. Usually, we demand to see a workplace identity card and we go further to verify it we do background checks and we insist that any member we admit must not have any criminal record.
“Those who have pending matters with EFCC are excluded. The majority of our members are Nigerian professionals all over the world. Once admitted, the person indicates the number of shares he or she wants to buy, subject to a minimum of 50,000 units”.
On whether the outfit has audited accounts, Adeoye said the organization is only an outline investment entity.
“We have a registered business address, which belongs to one of the members of the Board of Trustees. But we don’t run costs on it because everything we do is online. When members pull funds together, we use it to buy shares from the Nigeria Stock Exchange and we invest in landed properties in Estates promoted by renowned developers all over the country, and that is what has yielded the money we have today.
“We bought hundreds of plots at N750,000 per plot in 2019 and today each plot is worth N12 million. It is determined by the market price. We subscribed for 600 plots and in Ibeju Lekki we subscribed for five plots.
We are not a public quoted company; we are an investment company. We are not answerable to anybody, except to our members, the BOT and the management for our record, unless you bring a court order for us to account to you. Everything we do is published for our members to read. At the AGM, our accounts are approved. We have never invited external auditors to audit our books and every member is satisfied with our books.
It was some greedy members who said they wanted the accounts to be rendered and we said no problem, but that the procedure must be followed.”
He added: “My job never suffered from my attention. I keep awake every night to get information from my command and I respond accordingly, and the evidence is there.”
On the allegation that he is operating a Ponzi scheme, Adeoye stated: “Our outfit is not a Ponzi scheme, Ponzi scheme, means collecting money from new members to pay old ones. We don’t do that. Any money paid by new members is used to pay for the lands we have bought. Running a loan scheme is a feature of every cooperative society.
The loans, which can be up to N1 million are payable in nine months and we have had zero default in the last five years. We also have a land auction system where members who buy at a cheap rate sell when they appreciate.
“Last year, this generated N15 million for us. We also have our internal active stock exchange. Whatever business we do has tax liability imputed.
In terms of membership, we are 1400 strong and those expelled for criminal misconduct are 33. In terms of the size of the business, our assets are in the neighbourhood of around N20 billion. If you divide it by the number of members, it averages N15 million.
So I do not know where this idea of one person being a billionaire came from. I am not the largest shareholder in the club. The largest shareholder works with the Atomic Agency in Vienna and he is a member of BOT.
The second largest shareholder is a medical doctor based in the UK and he is a BOT member also. If anything is going wrong, it is these people who have big investments that will raise the alarm.
The person raising the alarm holds the minimum number of shares 50,000 shares. It is ridiculous that 96% of our members are with us.” (Saturday Vanguard)
By Tony Edike
A life stitched together with music, courage, generosity and the enduring lesson that love is worth more than wealth
Dolly Parton came from a place where there was not much money, but there was music, faith, family and love.
She left that place and became one of the most recognisable women in the world.
Yet, somehow, she never truly left it behind.
Dolly Parton, the country music legend, songwriter, actor, entrepreneur and philanthropist, died on 25 August 2026 at the age of 80 after a brief battle with cancer. Her death brought an outpouring of grief from admirers, fellow artists and generations of people whose lives had been touched by her music and generosity.
But perhaps the best way to understand Dolly was not through the rhinestones, the fame, the awards or the fortune.
Perhaps it was through a coat.
A simple coat made by her mother.
In “Coat of Many Colors,” Dolly transformed a childhood memory into one of the most enduring lessons in popular music. Her mother, unable to afford an expensive coat, stitched together scraps of fabric to make one for her daughter. At school, the little girl was mocked because of what she wore.
Dolly Parton wearing her Coat of Many Colours
But Dolly did not remember that coat as a symbol of shame.
She remembered it as a symbol of love.
Her mother had made it for her.
And that distinction says almost everything about Dolly Parton.
The world saw rags.
Dolly saw love.
The world saw poverty.
Dolly saw the richness of having a mother who cared enough to make something with her own hands.
The world saw something to laugh at.
Dolly found a story worth singing.
That was her extraordinary gift: the ability to take the ordinary, the painful and the humble and turn it into something beautiful.
The lesson in the coat
There is a lesson in that song that reaches far beyond country music.
It tells us not to measure people by what they wear, what they own, where they come from or how much money they have.
It teaches us that humiliation does not have to become defeat.
Dolly Parton
It teaches us that our beginnings do not have to determine our destination.
And, perhaps most importantly, it teaches us to recognise the value of the people who loved us when we had nothing to offer them.
Dolly never appeared ashamed of her humble beginnings. Instead, she carried them with her.
She remembered the mountains of Tennessee. She remembered her family. She remembered poverty. She remembered her mother’s hands.
And she turned those memories into songs that travelled around the world.
That is why her success was never simply about becoming famous.
It was about becoming something bigger than fame.
From the mountains to the world
Born into a large, poor family in rural Tennessee, Dolly Parton rose from circumstances that could easily have limited her ambitions. Instead, she became a prolific songwriter whose catalogue stretched into the thousands, a country music pioneer whose songs crossed genre and national boundaries, an actor whose performances became part of popular culture, and a formidable businesswoman.
Songs such as “Jolene,” “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You” became cultural landmarks.
But numbers alone cannot explain Dolly Parton’s impact.
She did something more difficult.
She made people feel understood.
She could sing about heartbreak without bitterness, ambition without arrogance and poverty without shame.
She could make millions laugh while reminding them of the struggles that millions quietly endure.
And beneath the wigs, sequins, humour and larger-than-life personality was a woman who understood the dignity of ordinary people.
She gave her success away
Dolly Parton’s generosity was not an accessory to her fame. It was part of her identity.
Dolly …gave her success away
Through the Dollywood Foundation and its Imagination Library, she helped put books into the hands of children around the world. The programme has distributed more than 300 million books, reflecting her lifelong belief in the transforming power of reading and education.
She also supported healthcare, education, disaster relief and medical research, including a $1 million donation toward COVID-19 vaccine research.
In that sense, the little girl in the coat of many colors never disappeared.
She simply grew up and acquired the means to make sure that other children had opportunities she had once lacked.
Dolly knew what it meant to have little.
And when she had much, she remembered.
That may be one of the greatest measures of a person’s character.
A legacy beyond music
Dolly Parton’s death leaves a remarkable space in American culture and in the wider world.
She was a country star, but she belonged to more than country music.
She was an actor, but her influence reached beyond film.
She was a businesswoman, but her greatest enterprise may have been the lives she changed.
She was a philanthropist, but she never seemed to regard generosity as a performance.
She was Dolly.
Funny. Glamorous. Sharp. Warm. Ambitious. Unapologetically herself.
And, beneath it all, deeply connected to the people and places that made her.
Her passing is therefore not simply the death of a celebrity.
It is the end of a remarkable human story.
A story that began in poverty and travelled through music to the whole world.
A story about a woman who refused to be defined by what she did not have.
A story about someone who understood that success is most meaningful when it becomes an opportunity to lift others.
The coat remains
In the end, perhaps Dolly Parton’s most important message was never complicated.
Love your people.
Remember where you came from.
Do not be ashamed of humble beginnings.
Do not measure human worth by possessions.
And when life gives you the opportunity to help someone else, do it.
The coat her mother made from scraps could easily have been remembered as an emblem of poverty.
Instead, Dolly turned it into an emblem of love.
She took something the world might have considered worthless and made it priceless.
Perhaps that is what she did with her entire life.
She took humble beginnings and made them beautiful.
She took pain and made music.
She took success and turned it into service.
She took her story and gave it to the world.
Dolly Parton has left the stage, but the music remains.
The books remain.
The kindness remains.
The lessons remain.
And somewhere, in the hearts of millions who heard her sing about a little girl wearing a coat her mother made for her, the colours remain bright.
A coat of many colors.
A life stitched together with love.
A legacy that will not wear out.
May God grant the soul of Dolly Parton eternal peace.
• Edike is Publisher/CEO, The Advocate Newspaper Nigeria
A married father of two has been exposed in Kenya for allegedly posing as a Catholic priest and conducting religious activities in several parishes in Turkana County.
The man, identified as Jones Bogonko Onchonga, reportedly gained access to the Catholic Diocese of Lodwar by allegedly presenting forged church documents to support his claim of being an ordained priest.
According to Kenyan publication Tuko, Onchonga reportedly celebrated Mass and took part in other religious activities at various Catholic worship centres, including St Augustine Cathedral in Kalokol, St Thomas Chapel and St Mary’s Lodaraja.
His alleged impersonation came to light after photographs surfaced showing him celebrating Mass alongside the Bishop of Lodwar, Rt. Rev. John Mbinda, C.S.Sp.
The discovery reportedly prompted concern among members of the Catholic community, leading the Diocese of Lodwar to clarify his status.
In a statement signed by Bishop Mbinda, the Diocese distanced itself from Onchonga and stated that he has no priestly authority or official position within the Catholic Church.
The Diocese also cautioned parishioners and members of the public against allowing him to perform priestly or other religious duties.
Onchonga has been charged with identity theft under Article 382 of Kenya’s Penal Code, an offence that carries a possible prison term of up to three years upon conviction.
He initially pleaded guilty to the impersonation charge when he appeared before Chief Magistrate Evanson Ngigi on August 14.
However, he later changed his plea to not guilty when he appeared before Magistrate Michael Lokitam on August 17.
According to the charge sheet, Onchonga allegedly posed as a duly ordained Catholic priest between July 31 and August 12 in Turkana Central Sub-County.
He is accused of falsely presenting himself to Bishop Mbinda and officials of the Catholic Diocese of Lodwar as a priest authorised to hold church meetings a and administer the sacraments.
He remains in custody after failing to meet the bail terms set by the court. The conditions include a KSh100,000 ($773.10) bond with a surety or KSh50,000 ($386.25) cash bail.
The United States Department of Homeland Security has added 10 Nigerians to its “Worst of the Worst” register, a database highlighting immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over alleged criminal offences.
The latest names were published on the official DHS website and include individuals linked to cases involving fraud, identity theft, drug offences, assault, conspiracy and offences involving children.
The 10 Nigerians listed in the latest update are:
Temitope Bashua — Wire fraud, identity theft and fraud — Allenwood, Pennsylvania
Ojehoro Lewis — Cruelty towards a child — Conroe, Texas
Osemudiamen Kingsley Oziegbe — Wire fraud — Louisville, Kentucky
Daniel Oworen — Dangerous drugs — Conroe, Texas
Raymond H. Ekevwo — Wire fraud — Oxford, Wisconsin
Franklin Dikeocha — Sex offence against a child – fondling — Dallas, Texas
Johnson Ogunlana — Fraud and identity theft — White Deer, Pennsylvania
Chukwuemeka Okorocha — Wire fraud, dangerous drugs, possession of a weapon and aggravated assault involving a non-family gun — Allenwood, Pennsylvania
Tunde Korede — Conspiracy — Allenwood, Pennsylvania
Chukwuemeka Chinye — Larceny from a banking-type institution, fraud, larceny, identity theft and conspiracy — Pollock, Louisiana
DHS said the register was established to draw attention to immigrants it describes as the “worst of worst criminal aliens” arrested by ICE.
“Every day, the patriots of ICE are working to target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country. Just yesterday, ICE arrested murderers, pedophiles, kidnappers, and other violent criminals to make America safe again,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, there will be no safe haven for illegal aliens, including in sanctuary cities which put illegal aliens over their own citizens. We will never apologize for arresting and deporting illegal aliens, because that’s how we protect American lives.”
The department said the latest immigration enforcement actions were part of the Trump administration’s deportation policy.
“Under DHS leadership, the hardworking men and women of DHS and ICE are fulfilling President Trump’s promise and carrying out mass deportations – starting with the worst of the worst – including the illegal aliens you see here,” the department said.
The latest publication comes after DHS released another list in July containing 124 Nigerians arrested by ICE and identified on the same register.
The July list featured Nigerians associated with a range of criminal offences, although the department did not provide specific deportation dates for those individuals
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