Opinion

On Ethnicity And Godfatherism

Published

3 years ago

August 19, 2021

NewTimes

BOOK REVIEW: Ayo Joan Olatoyosi's Thesis, Antithesis And Synthesis Of Life

By
Grace Ego Omoni

Life is based on relationship and there can be no relationship outside human communication. In other words, the bane of any relationship is communication and no action takes place in a vacuum. Human beings make it to happen but the question that one needs to ask is whether the communication is of positive interest to the people involved and that of the society at large. Does the relationship bring harmony, peace, progress and development to man and society or it breeds conflict, violence and dissatisfaction?

The modern day Nigeria is replete with numerous social vices such as destruction of lives and property, banditry, terrorism, inappropriate sexual behaviour, bribery and corruption, indiscipline, lack of trust, violence, loss of integrity, dishonesty, cheating, lack of patriotism, lack of accountability by public officers, injustice, kidnapping, unemployment, lack of unity, and underdevelopment.

These social problems emanate from a lot of issues such as godfatherism and ethnicity. So much injustice has been done to the nation, organizations and to individuals as a result of these two phenomena going on in the black world especially Nigeria. These two social misdemeanors have truncated development, unity, peace, national security, trust and economic progress in this country. There is an escalation of corruption, poor leadership, political dishonesty, lopsided appointments, inconsistent award of contracts, erroneous admissions to higher institutions of learning, greed, colossal waste in the economy, conflicts and underdevelopment.

The prevalence and notoriety of ethnicity and godfatherism are issues of national concern with people giving diverse opinions on how to curb or totally wipe them out from the nation because the phenomena are cogs in the wheel of progress and development to man and society.

The two concepts shall be briefly discussed under these subheadings: meaning, factors, effects on man and national development and measures to stamp out the incidence of these menaces in our Nigerian society.

Godfatherism:
This concept or phenomenon is central in today’s Nigeria’s political leadership and administration and a serious threat to the democratization process. It is a major social and political malaise plaguing and destroying Nigeria by the day.

The concept of godfatherism has as its origin from church history especially among Catholics and Anglicans. In these churches, the doctrine of baptism for members is paramount. At the point of being baptized, the young Christian is given a mature godfather or godmother strong in the faith to nurture and monitor him or her to maturity when he or she is able to take responsibility for his or her actions. The godfather or godmother is expected to be role models in matters of their Christian beliefs and character moulding. From time to time, the godson or goddaughter is monitored and counselled on doctrinal matters while the young Christian reciprocates by giving skeletal services to the godfather. I vividly remember that during my younger days, my godmother would call me to counsel on how to behave as a Catholic child and I in return would fetch water for her when I pay her visits. Some others would wash clothes or go to farmlands to help their godfathers or mothers.

History also has it that the idea of godfatherism started in the U.S when kingpins of the criminal world played major political roles during elections by sponsoring political candidates financially, manipulated results to get these candidates elected and in return, these kingpins were awarded contracts by their political godsons. This indeed is the practice in Nigeria today. The rich, the powerful and business tycoons sponsor politicians during elections by providing money for campaigns, to buy forms from parties, registration, provide them with goons for their security and the intimidation of their opponents, buying of votes and outright rigging during the election period.

They also ensure that those sponsored are positioned as government administrators by whatever means. In return, contracts are awarded arbitrarily to these unqualified elements and appointments are given to unworthy individuals as compensations for the role they played in sponsoring them. These godfathers are the real problems and confusions in this country. They dictate what happens in administration, the economy, the appointments, decisions at the national, state and local government levels, in the passing of bills like the controversial PIB that has just been signed into law by President Buhari and the control of the economy to the detriment of national development, security and solidarity of the people. It is counterproductive to peace, progress and unity and encourages lopsided selection rather than election. It is characterized by abuse of power and appointments are not based on the qualified but rather on the instructions and wishes of the godfathers.

These godfathers assume the positions of warlords and preside over the sharing of the national cake thus technically vandalizing the economy and treasury of the nation with reckless abandon. This is so because they see the political sponsorship during elections as investments which must yield atrocious dividends immediately their candidates assume office and who must use the godfathers’ terms in governance. Any attempt by these political officers to exercise their own will power is vehemently resisted by their godfathers who can resort to violence and threats to gain control.

So the politicians must serve them and carry out their selfish interests, sow terror in the nation, perpetrate corruption in all its ramifications, engage in violence with all manner of impunity, loot public fund with no one to investigate their wicked activities, wield so much power in the society without anybody challenging them. In other words, these godfathers act through their surrogates, I mean the political godsons who are under pressure to obey them whether the actions are wrong or right.

Any attempt to question or resist their demands after assuming office as leaders often lead to a serious tussle to the detriment of the nation. They turn the entire environment into war zones, violence and insecurity. These political godsons become handicapped and are forced to operate against the interests and expectations of the people they are ruling.

Factors that promote godfatherism include limited party finances, lack of proper education, lack of faith in the electoral process, poverty, greed and the activities of the social media which give subjective and false presentations about incompetent candidates in the dissemination of information to the gullible society. Again the dependency and powerlessness of potential public political officers due to their commitment to their godfathers is also a factor.

The phenomenon of godfatherism is not only seen in the political sector. It is found in different organizations and institutions. Promotions and appointments in educational, health and secular institutions are part of this evil perpetrated without shame. For instance, the appointments of heads of schools, faculties, departments and units are often based on godfatherism.

Just a few months ago a potential candidate who came first in an interview to head a higher institution was denied the opportunity by giving the position to one who was third during the interview. It happens in different parastatals and this issue of godfatherism has led to lobbying, dangerous rivalry, disharmony in organizations, dissatisfaction, frustration, infighting, antagonism, sectionalism, violence, enmity, underdevelopment, and low productivity. In fact the effects of godfatherism cannot be overemphasized.

It breeds disloyalty, delinquent behaviour, lack of effective governance, inefficiency and abandonment of project. The basic welfare of the people suffers and there are delays in national development since money for projects is diverted by these godfathers without accountability.

Ethnicity:
The concept of ethnicity is derived from the base word”ethnic” which implies tribe as it was formerly known. Ethnicity or tribalism is another phenomenon acting as a serious impediment to national development in present day Nigeria. Nigeria is a multi lingual cultural entity from time immemorial but brought together by the amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates during the colonial reign of Sir Frederick Lugard in 1914. Since then, instead of fostering unity, it has metamorphosed into myriads of hydra-headed monsters plaguing the country because each ethnic group is struggling to gain relevance and be part of the sharing of the “national cake.” Nigeria today has about 301 languages and about 1000 dialects with their distinct cultures, ideologies and challenges.

Out of these ethnic groups, three are said to be major while 298 groups are termed minor. The black man cherishes his existence and is never willing to allow his ego to be trampled upon. Ethnicity is a social phenomenon associated with interaction among members and distinguished by the communal character of their boundaries based on culture, language, values and belief system. It is behavioural in form with common objectives such as myths, beliefs, common descent, socio- political organization, religion and homeland.

Ethnicity is a belief in the superiority of one’s own cultural group and corresponding hatred or misunderstanding of other social groups according to Irukwe. Ethnicity exists in a heterogeneous society according to Nnadozie. It is a major source of societal and political conflicts in Nigeria. The inability of leaders to choose credible leaders and national outlook or acceptability is as a result of ethnicity.

Instead what we see or have are disconnected, self-centred, greedy mediocrities in governance, corrupt in all areas of life, breeding poverty and discontentment because they were planted there with this ethnicity mentality. No Nigeria will win an election without the support of his ethnic group. This is why politicians in public offices lead to give priority attention to their ethnic groups to the disadvantage of the nation’s interest.

The negative effects of ethnicity are obvious and disheartening. Oboh asserts that ethnicity practice is not so obvious in the Western World but well pronounced in Africa, Nigeria inclusive. Ethnic politics has always been the major source of tension in this country resulting in periodic outbreak of violence. It is characterized by cultural prejudices and social discrimination. The menace of Boko Haram sect and the Fulani herdsmen activities in the north and now spreading to the south is as a result of their obnoxious mentality that they have been “anointed to be rulers” of this country called Nigeria made up of diverse ethnic groups and people.

They therefore claim to own the land and can operate anywhere, anyhow with their cattle without any challenge. Someone is yet to convince me and many others when and where they sat to agree or constitute that law of ownership. Of course, the silence of those in government who are mainly breeds of the same ethnic groups is a way of asserting their claim of that supposedly superiority. Other ethnic groups are also asserting their superiority by agitating against this exclusive treatment to people who are violently encroaching on their fundamental human rights.

The recent signing into law of the Petroleum Industrial Bill by President Buhari despite the masses condemnation of some of the contents is another serious negative exercise that is not to the benefit of some ethnic groups especially those in the oil producing areas whose lands are being polluted by oil exploitation and exploration. In fact, ethnicity bias and favoritism has violated the principle of impersonality in governance. Instead it has caused resentment among the marginalized groups.

There is evidence of dissatisfaction in the award of contracts to unqualified bidders, selective payments to contractors who have completed their projects, selective appointments to public offices to favour a few ethnic groups, establishment of government projects to selected ethnic groups, treatment of citizens unequally as if they do not have qualified people to assume the positions. Again accountability is compromised in order not to indict a fellow ethnic member who has not shown competency in his area of jurisdiction.

This issue of selective ethnic appointment is condemned by Prof Joseph Richard. He coined the term “Prebendalism” a phenomenon in the political system in Nigeria which is the act of disbursing public offices and state resources to ethnic clients. It is an unconstitutional established pattern of political behavior that justifies the use of political offices for personal benefits of the office holders and their clients.

In like manner, Kessleman talks of “clienteleism, a prebendal political structure where public office holders compromise specific set of elites and ethnic clients to divert public funds for selfish private purposes. The effects are poverty, disharmony, dissatisfaction, unhealthy rivalry, selfish competition, violent conflicts, ethnic hatred, election rigging, faulty economy, social instability and insecurity,, civil, strife and total national undevelopment.

Counselling Implications.
1) The different ethnic groups need intensive educational orientation. A literate society will bring the issues of ethnic infighting to the barest minimum;
2) Sensitization and seminars should be periodically organized for people holding public offices to know that they are for all and not for any selected group;
3) The curriculum content in schools should include issues of ethnicity , god- fatherism and conflict resolutions;
4) Appointments and promotions should be evenly distributed to all ethnic groups whether from the major or minority groups and based on the qualified. In other words, in prebendalism or clientelism should be totally abhorred ;
5)Passing of bills in the National Assembly after public hearing should be based on the opinion of the people and not on political party sentiment or ethnic mentality;
6)Priority should be given to national development that is beneficial to all. Awarding contracts to unqualified persons who are godfathers or ethnic brothers to compensate for help given should be stopped.
7) Courts should be established on human rights issues with a broad but well defined mandate that includes the effective protection of the marginalized ethnic groups! ;
8) Culprits who practise godfatherism and ethnicity syndrome to the detriment of the nation should be sanctioned and removed from public offices;
9) The dissemination of information by the media should be done in sincerity of purpose. Singing the praises of incompetent unqualified candidates during elections should be stopped. Integrity is far better done illgotten riches.

Conclusion.
Ethnicity and god fatherism are two social problems that have similar characteristics and negative effects on man and society. They are cogs in the wheel of national development and are the main causes of violence, poverty, discontentment, deceits. dissatisfaction, agitations, corruption, evil activities, mindless killings, conflicts, sectionalism, lopsided appointments, unhealthy rivalries, destruction of other peoples’ and government property, failed governance, poverty level of the citizens, poor economy and national underdevelopment. Therefore, individuals, organizations, institutions, local, state and the federal governments should as a matter of urgency begin to imbibe the culture of national consciousness, patriotism, honesty and embrace fairness in handling matters of national interest.

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Opinion

Afe Babalola And Dele Farotimi: On Justice, A Just Society And The Nigerian State

Published

4 hours ago

December 22, 2024

NewTimes

Prof. Tunji Olaopa

By Tunji Olaopa

The feud between elder statesman, Chief Afe Babalola and civil rights activist, Mr. Dele Farotimi, is perhaps the most significant discourse that postcolonial Nigerian state has thrown up for the moment, one in a class of those grand defining disputations that surely will gather dust which will take some time to abate. And it is one case that is fraught with all sorts of legal, jurisprudential, moral and political traps and complexities that speak to more than the trivial interventions—leveraged around the David and Goliath motif—that are attending the matter. Those who have been able to go beyond the surface of the case will agree that it goes to the very foundation and founding of the Nigerian society, and the fundamental objective of crafting a good and just society for Nigerians. That the issue revolves around the dispensation of justice immediately alerts us to the deep insinuation about the idea of social justice itself, and how the conception of fairness could be written into the very fabric of the Nigerian society. And yet, the complexity of the case is what makes it a case that is too critical for a public servant like me to dabble in.

(Un)fortunately, my intellectual maturation, my political science education and my professional endeavor in institutional reform advocacy have prepared me to intervene in this critical matter. I have always been involved with Nigeria, and with reflective thoughts about how to reconstitute her greatness. Three learning encounters with three world-historic icons configured my passion for wanting to see that Nigeria becomes a state we all can be proud of. The first came from my reading of Plato’s Republic. There is a reason that the entire treatise commenced with the question, what is justice? Justice was a fundamental issue in the decline of the ancient Athenian democracy that allowed Socrates to be judicially murdered. The second learning derived from Wole Soyinka’s dense prison memoir, The Man Died. And like most who have read it, Soyinka was troubled by the idea of justice: “For me, justice is the first condition of humanity.” By the time I would be coming to Thomas More’s Utopia, I was already apprised of the connections between my political science education, my professional endeavor as a public servant, and the key elements of institutional reform as a cogent framework for transforming Nigeria.

From Plato to Soyinka, we have a trajectory of political reflection that takes justice seriously as the basis for organizing a just society. This is part of the intellectual frameworks for my undergraduate and graduate studies at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. In one of those explosive seminar classes that played some fundamental role in my intellectual maturation in the graduate school, I had proposed an argument through a seminar paper titled: “Is a revolution an option to fix Nigeria?” The topic was meant to titillate the collective yearning for revolution that would serve as the ultimate mechanism for social change that would flush off all traces of corruption and degeneration in postcolonial Nigeria. Revolutions seem to possess some allure for the masses because they constitute a framework of justice that the constitutional justice mechanism might not be able to handle.

However, as Wole Soyinka, Thomas More, Martin Luther and even Galileo Galilei would realize, the need for radicalism is balanced by the force of establishment orthodoxy. The Nigerian predicament has, as a fundamental foundation, a lot to do with the connection between governance failure and injustice in terms of the persistent and protracted class strife between the haves and the have-nots, between the rich and the poor, indeed, in the final analysis between the government and the governed. And in the case between Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi, the issues boil down to the administration of justice and the entire edifices and institutions of social justice and the rule of law in Nigeria. And so, in outlining the key issues involved in the matter, we must be careful enough to read between the lines and the noises of analysts who are eager to queue behind their favored protagonists.

First things first. Let us remove the surface debris. Indeed, and in this case, the debris points us in the direction to look for the rot within the matter. First, there is the matter of civil defamation and its legal ramifications. And second, there is the issue of the legal and moral protocols involved in dealing with the pursuit of redress by someone who knows and understands the law. Barrister Farotimi has a legal right to seek redress in court. Chief Babalola has a legal right to defend his reputation in court. In raising the specter of legal prosecution against defamation, I see Chief Babalola as being at the forefront of gatekeeping the legal establishment in terms of what is and is not permissible or possible under the law and its conservative tenets. If you are hurt or an injustice has been done to your person, then the best place to seek redress is not the court of public opinion but the constitutional legal establishment.

Unfortunately for him, Barrister Farotimi’s book, Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System, impugns the entire legal and judicial establishment up to its apex institution, the Nigerian Supreme Court. However, does radicalism preclude moral decency? A book could be written and allegations made without the complement of atrocious language. Or maybe the rot in the judicial system, and the need for a revolution preclude any niceties, especially with those who are allegedly at the forefront of perpetuating and protecting the rot. But then, how to prove what we all consider to be the norm in terms of legal prosecution of judicial corruption remains a hanging question.

No matter how we look at what we are calling the surface debris, we are redirected deeper and deeper into what lies beneath the surface. The ultimate question is that between Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi, what we are asked to contend with is the state of the Nigerian judiciary and the corrupt impediment of social justice, especially for an average Nigerian. What Barrister Dele Farotimi said about the Nigerian judicial system is not new. We are all familiar with the rot within the system. Indeed, this is not the first time an alarm would be raised about what we are all familiar with. Indeed, as far back as 1999, The News magazine carried a most unsalutary headline, “Crooks on the Bench: An Expose on the Rot in the Judiciary.” The magazine headlined the names of 47 judges indicted for judicial corruption. What is new is that Dele Farotimi dared to go so far as to mention specific names, and to confront the big players in the legal establishment. And he did this in a most scurrilous manner targeted at getting maximum traction and attention. It is as if Mr Farotimi, through the public sphere, is throwing the gauntlet to every Nigerian and challenging us on our collective responsibility to clean the Augean stable.

If Barrister Farotimi cannot prove his allegations in court, it would not mean that his charges are false. It might only imply that the system which is supposed to guarantee justice has become too corruptly dense to achieve its mandate. But there is also the chance that since the entire judicial system cannot be tarred so broadly with the same brush, Farotimi’s allegation might receive a dispassionate hearing that might deliver justice as we expect it. This might be a tall expectation. Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament has inevitable consequences on the capacity of the judicial system to facilitate the delivery of justice. And this failure also complicates the capacity of the Nigerian state to deliver on its social contract to Nigerians. This is what makes the Babalola-Farotimi case too complex to be decided either in the constitutional court or the court of public opinion. The burdens of postcolonial disruptions that the Nigerian judiciary system carries are enormous: judicial corruption, miscarriage of judgments, executive lawlessness, delayed trial due to insufficient infrastructure, financial dependence on the executive arm of government.

To outline the fundamental challenges of the judicial system in Nigeria this way is not to give in to cynicism and a deterministic mindset that we might be caught in a vice that is inescapable. It is simply to say that the ongoing uproar between the two dramatis personae demonstrates that the court has been given a chance to reflect on the role that (in)justice plays in the fundamental understanding of the Nigerian postcolonial predicament and the capacity of a democratic system to correct itself. When Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi are given their day in court, we will have no choice but to trust that same judicial system to deliver unbiased judgment no matter our misgivings about how objective and untainted that judgment could be. This is just a way of saying that though our judicial system is not perfect; it is still the best that we have.

The last words on this reflection on the connection between the ongoing feud between Babalola and Farotimi and Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament must be given to Haile Sellasie, former emperor of Ethiopia: “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

Olaopa is the Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission,Abuja, and Professor of Public Administration.
tolaopa2003@gmail.com

Opinion

Fear Of Witchcraft And Politics In Zambia

Published

1 day ago

December 21, 2024

NewTimes

Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State

Dr Leo Igwe

By Leo Igwe

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) is concerned over the reported arrest of two men accused of being ‘witchdoctors’ in Zambia. The arrest underscores the potency of witchcraft fears and the connection between occult anxieties and the country’s politics. These individuals were accused of trying to bewitch the Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema. The police claimed that they had charms. They planned to use the charms to harm the president. The report says the two persons have been charged under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act. The Act criminalizes “possession of charms”, “professing knowledge of witchcraft”, and “cruelty to wild animals”. The police found the two with assorted charms, including a live chameleon.

This development is utterly embarrassing and shows that the Zambian government is slowly losing its focus and bearing.The country has many socio-economic challenges. Suspicion of bewitchment or possession of charms should be the least of its worries at this time. There should be no place for witchcraft and possession of charms in modern politics because there is no evidence for these beliefs and practices. Zambian authorities should not weaponize the Witchcraft Act or use it to justify this incident. Zambian law does not recognize witchcraft. Zambia’s Witchcraft Act criminalizes naming or imputing witchcraft. It prohibits accusing or threatening to accuse any person of being a witch or a wizard. In this case, it is the police who are breaking the law.

Otherwise, how did they know the two individuals were ‘witchdoctors’? Did these persons identify as witch doctors? If not, the police are liable because they named and imputed witchcraft and have to prove that these individuals have witch-doctoring powers. The police claimed to have charged these individuals for possessing “assorted charms”, including a chameleon. Really?

The police in Zambia have questions to answer: What are charms? How did they know that what was in their possession were charms, not pets? Is a chameleon a form of charm? What makes possession of a chameleon possession of a charm? When and how does a chameleon become a charm? The police need to answer these questions and more before one takes them seriously.

Again, did the individuals describe what was in possession as ‘charms’? If they did, does confessing or designating something as a charm make it a charm? And if they did not, the police are liable because they need to prove how those possessions translated into charms.

In addition, the police claimed that the duo wanted to bewitch the president. What does that mean? How did they know? Are the police not contravening a provision under the Witchcraft Act by professing knowledge of witchcraft? Can one harm another person using a chameleon? They claimed that the two persons wanted to use the charms in their possession, including the chameleon to harm the president. How did they know that? What is the evidence for that?

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches calls for an end to this state-sponsored witch hunt. There is no evidence of harm through witchcraft or charms. The Zambian government should desist from witchcraft- related infractions and violations including arbitrary arrest, and detention of innocent citizens. These allegations are baseless and absurd. The arrest was politically motivated. This development demonstrates that Zambian authorities are out of sync with their duty and obligation to uphold the rule of law and protect accused persons.

Zambian authorities need to act in compliance with the 2021 UN resolution, which urged states to take measures to combat abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs and ritual attacks. End witchcraft allegations in Zambia. End witch hunts in Africa now!

Dr Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.

Opinion

Burning Issues: (FCT Minister And Paulosa) (2)

Published

3 days ago

December 19, 2024

NewTimes

Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

The other burning issue, apart from Farotimi and Babalola’s, which I wish to take a look at – and which I am taking a look at now – relates to what is happening in our capital territory. What is this burning issue – which our human rightists and civil society organisations and personages are surprisingly and un-satisfactorily not inclined to focus attention on and examine as they should? I may be wrong, but it surely seems to me that this issue, this burning issue, which is of more importance than Farotimi and Babalola’s – which has been given undue adulation – is deliberately being neglected and depreciated by proclaimers and heroes and heroines of human rights, justice, equity and equality of rights in your country my country our country. Why, why, why and why, why, why? Anyone who has any iota of patriotic sensibility, feeling and judgment well watered and buttressed by a very great influence upon his or her critical judgment will keep on asking the question I am asking.

Mr. Nyesom Wike, as almost everybody who can read and write a little knows, is the current minister of your, my and our Federal Capital Territory. His post or office is akin to that of a governor of a state. As the immediate past governor of Rivers State who was drafted, after his two terms there expired, to continue in the FCT as its new minister-governor or governor-minister under the auspices of a party he is not a true member of, Mr. Wike cannot but be seen as a lucky man. He is in every possible and impossible way. Minister-Governor Wike is a lucky man and a very fortunate one indeed. No former governor of Rivers State (or of any Nigerian state), as far as I know, has achieved what the famed political rouser of rabbles has achieved in one short gubernatorial life-time, and at a relatively young and fertile age. His dual achievement with and in two different political parties at this delicate point of Nigerian politics indicates to our politicians and us all that there is always time for a reminder that there are ready-made high rewards for arch-angels of betrayals. And Mr. Wike may go down in Rivers and Nigerian history as both an arch-angel and an emperor of betrayal of us all if we attempt to indicate what I have defined here as his dual achievement.

We can roughly divide, briefly, Wike’s political development into two periods. During the first, excluding his lower political positions before he became the governor of Rivers State, he quickly adapted his style to that of an emperor who became a rabble-rouser of rabble-rousers whose gubernatorial efficiency moved from stiffness to stiffness. He did not at any time feel that he needed suppleness to govern Rivers State. “Let the heavens fall if they must fall!” We are not there yet in this attempted analysis of the stiff-hearted and stiff-minded one. True? But he is already demonstrating this characteristic in Abuja. False? Judge and give the answer yourself.

Even after he left Rivers State a short while ago as governor, he is still trying to control happenings there to the political discomfiture of his hand-picked successor, his erstwhile “boy” and “son” – with whom he has fallen out. As the minister-governor or governor-minister of the FCT, Wike is occupied with the other taste of the emperor-juggernaut formulator – doing the work of two key political masters in one room and desk of political jugglery. Since his appearance in the FCT, minister-governor or governor-minister Wike has allegedly attempted to recover or transform for Abuja what is not traditionally or socially Abuja’s, for example, the city’s social idiom and landscape and terrain as well as its environs. In doing this he sometimes over-steps his bounds and mark of human/inhuman decency/indecency and psychological understanding of human nature, if you follow well what I am saying; he has so far become at best not really better than a typical pedestrian Nigerian lawyer and officer of political power: in his explorations so far in the Federal Capital Territory we have come to the realization, as T. S. Eliot would say, that “it is so often true that only by going too far can we find out how far we can go.” But one has to be a very negatively obstinate and self-serving emperor and a thorough-bred arch-angel of betrayal of the people and masses to justify such perilous and perfidious expeditions and adventures.

Last week, I saw on Arise Television “The Morning Show” Chief Rita Lori-Ogbebor, the dutiful widow of the late Nigerian supreme patriot and soldier, Colonel Ogbebor (of Benin stock) battling, so to say, to wrest the legacy of her late husband from the tight grip of the adventurous FCT minister-governor who has registered his name and signature in the hearts and consciousness of the people as the depriver of their possessions. The three anchors of “The Morning Show” were in their respective ways splendid in their structures of remarks and questions to Chief (Mrs.) Rita Lori-Ogbebor whom I have had occasions in times past to call patriotically Rita A-K 47 on account of her natural right to fire her beautiful tongue at any person, usually an enemy, of just actions. When she made the case she made to protect the estate of Paulosa Nigeria Limited, her late husband’s aforesaid legacy in the FCT, she was in her natural territory, habitat and element where even at age eighty-four, she never ever loses her stability – although she unusually restrained herself in the Arise Television appearance. Dr. Reuben Abati, Rufai Oseni, and Ayo Mairo-Ese clearly explored seriously but delightfully the mind of the mother-hen of Warri – my other coinage and appellation I gave her in my poetry. Her “The Morning Show” appearance enabled me to see the poignant cry de profundis of the FCT inhabitants whose property and residences in different guises have been demolished. She did not say anything that was out of joint. She spoke and came out as a mother, protector and symbol of the people who have suffered – and are suffering – from the state of affliction and anguish Wike’s demolitions have placed – and are placing – the people.

Ojy Okpe in her delicious and delectable “What is Trending” slot on the same show, showed without exaggeration but with further elaboration what people in and outside Abuja/FCT think of the mighty Wike’s demolitions, a burning issue that the Senate has asked “Let Heaven Fall” minister-governor Wike to halt as the committee the Senate set up on the issue starts its work. Of course, we cannot but assume that Chief Rita Lori-Ogbebor, Mrs. Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as well as Mrs. Ireti Kingigbe, the senator representing the FCT in the Senate and other patriotic senators diligently did what they did on the floor of the Senate when the burning issue was tabled for debate with the gracious understanding and authorization of the Senate President.

I need to state further that the “The Morning Show” anchors did well and extremely so by giving the minister-governor the opportunity to air his anti-Paulosa story. His senior special assistant on public communication and social media, Mr. Olalere Olayinka, stood in for him. After he gave the reasons for the clamp-down, his responses to the questions the anchors put to him followed the usual pattern of denials by artificial men in power – denials that they always use to intimidate and betray the people. In fact, Mr. Olayinka’s ploy to ride easily over our dear Rufai Oseni, a wholesome representative of the deprived, that the chap (or is it guy?) and his boss always employ their colloquial speeches and remarks to dishonor, failed. Yes, the ploy failed woefully. In stanza after stanza of the exchanges between Mr. Olayinka and the Arise anchors, he deteriorated – and his deterioration was hall-marked when he unwittingly revealed that the Paulosa land had been acquired by his minister-governor’s close cohort, an act that was nothing short of gross abuse of power and authority.

Because the Senate is already using its authority, power and privilege to resolve the burning issue, hopefully, in a way that the late Colonel Ogbebor’s legacy and family will not be subjected to any kind of degradation, I will utter no more words for now. I trust, however, that the liberties the Senate is taking – or has taken – are for the sake of order to favour the down-trodden.

As for the minister-governor, the PDP emperor at large, here is an immortal quote from Marcus Aurelius, the magnificent and authentic Roman Emperor and philosopher (A.D. 121-180): “If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.” You lose nothing by giving us a slice of your humanity by your right acts and correct words. Everything changes and passes. Be humane as a human being.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.