At the last instalment of this column, I promised that more awards were on the way. So many things would have made that promise a mere promise – armsgate, crashing oil price and the naira’s fate, Lassa and the other fevers as well as insecurity – but “Editorial Notebook” will always be as good as its word.
Some readers have complained that their favourites were left out of the awards. Others have requested that the scope be expanded to include all manner of headings, some of them highly inspiring, others plainly puerile and pedestrian.
The story is told of a flamboyant traditional ruler, who is fond of decking the rich and powerful with titles. Desperate to honour a prominent citizen, he tells his chiefs to suggest a title for the would-be recipient. “Kabiyesi (Your Majesty),” says a chief, “there are no more titles (Oye ti tan)”. The king smiles. “You got it; brilliant; that is the title for our man; Chief Oyetan.”
So, here, dear reader, are the other awards – as promised:
There was no sign that what has now turned out to be one of the most convoluted electoral jigsaws of our time was on the way as the November 21 Kogi State governorship election progressed. The All Progressives Congress (APC) was heading for victory. Suddenly, a natural complication supervened. Abubakar Audu, the APC candidate, died. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the election inconclusive and ordered that a supplementary election be held in some polling stations, even as the result could never have altered the fact that the APC’s lead was unassailable.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – the one that threatened to trouble Nigeria for 60 years before its evil plot was dismantled by an uncommon popular will – said since Audu had died, the trophy was naturally its own. Many legal giants and ardent subscribers to the fine tenets of democracy said Abiodun Faleke, Audu’s running mate, should naturally step into his shoes.
While the debate was on, John Odigie-Oyegun (A fellow asked me the other day: ‘Is this the Oyegun of the NADECO days?’), a chief and chairman of the APC, suddenly muscled his way into the debate and announced a new candidate for the party. Then, a flood of diatribes hit Oyegun. He was harangued like a Lagos pickpocket, tongue lashed for, according to his traducers, lacking in courage and principle, being remote-controlled and a poodle.
A timid chairman, shoved so roughly like a leaf at the mercy of the waves, would have thrown in the towel – in defence of his integrity. Not so Oyegun. He even found time to pontificate about party supremacy and such inanities.
For his courage, Oyegun is Party Chairman of the Year.
Yahaya Bello, who claims to be Faleke’s friend, had left the party in anger after failing to get its ticket. He was said to have worked against the APC during the election, which the party lost in his ward, and was ruminating on his future when he hit the jackpot. Oyegun handed him the ticket for the supplementary election. He jumped for joy and went into the exercise without a running mate – against the Electoral Act. INEC, expectedly, pronounced him winner of the election.
Yahaya is on the way to becoming our first “supplementary governor”, the one who grabbed a ticket long after the election had been won and got pronounced winner. He is, no doubt, the Candidate of the Year.
His feat became the subject of academic postulations and legal permutations in newsrooms, restrooms and staffrooms. Of all the commentators, Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon stood out. He said of Audu’s passing and Yahaya’s victory: “The tragic passing of Prince Abubakar Audu has polarised the nation into political jingoism. Death is a bugaboo and life terminus. May his soul rest in unblemished peace.
“The quagmire and triviality has further obfuscated the scantiness and paraplegic crinkum crankum of our constitution. Our knowledge centura is enveloped in Einstein cubbyhole. The optate of Mr Bello is Godwin’s law and this has adjudicated the social disequilibrium and political phantasmagoria among the indignant of Kogites. It is my emblem pleasure to congratulate the governor-elect. This is saucier to our youths’ agitation for power. I am manically bewildered, overgasted and flabberwhelmed at the causal rejectal dismal of Mr Bello. This should be buried in a Bermuda triangle instantaneously. The modus operandi of the young man is gargantuan and sui-generis.”
Step forward, Hon Obahiagbon, Chief of Staff to the Comrade – Governor of Edo, Adams Oshiomhole. The prize for Informed Commentator of the Year is yours.
Before he was drafted in, former President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan’s campaign was floundering, lacking in strategy and focus. Femi Fani-Kayode (sorry, a slip there; he is now known and addressed as Olukayode in, according to him, recognition of God’s hand in his discharge from money laundering charges) revved the engine and the campaign came alive. President Muhammadu Buhari, the then APC candidate, was said not to have a School Certificate. The military, in an unprecedented foray into partisan politics and its stench, was suborned to declare his documents missing. A fake report on his health was obtained. It was a smear campaign at its most vicious. Goebbels was in town.
Olukayode put the APC on the defensive. Even after it was as clear as crystal that Jonathan had lost the battle, the spokesman went on television to say his man was leading and that any attempt to turn the table would be resisted. Never one to be suppressed, Olukayode, as if stricken by some strange verbal fever, now screams all over the place that he knew nothing of the allegedly diverted $2.1b arms cash.
But, fair is fair. Fani-Kayode (again, my apology; Olukayode) is Spokesman of the Year.
Until recently, it was not really a popular opinion that the Jonathan administration had damaged the economy. There were all manner of scatterbrained programmes that guzzled money like a gaming machine – SURE-P, You Win I win and many others that represented what many called the profligacy of that time. Nigerians grumbled as their stomachs rumbled with hunger. But, the government went into its deep bag of tricks and whipped out another nebulous programme, which it called “rebasing” , and proclaimed our economy the biggest in Africa even as many went to bed hungry and angry. For the power of her imagination and sheer confidence even in the face of cold facts and figures that showed that the economy was in trouble, Dr Ngozi Okonjo – Iweala (some call her wahala (trouble in Yoruba) should have taken the trophy for Minister of the Year. But will that be fair?
When all the other members of the Jonathan cabinet had jumped ship as it was glaring that the election had been lost, only one man stood sentry. He played the last joker, which somehow failed to work. Elder Godsday Orubebe, a black hat perching on his head, grabbed the microphone, screaming and swearing, in a desperate show of defiance to stop the announcement of the presidential election results. The then INEC chief, Attahiru Jega, was unperturbed. The business of the day went on and Orubebe became the subject of beer parlour jokes.
One of such jokes was that no woman would like to marry Jega because “if you shout at him, he won’t just talk”.
Another: “A new word has been added to the political lexicon, Orubebe. The meaning: To attempt to disrupt a peaceful process. Orubebed (past tense). Orubebeing (present continuous tense). Example : An elder is trying to orubebe the parliament’s plan to pass the Electoral Act, which will criminalise threats to a Returning Officer.”
The police never questioned the former Minister of the Niger Delta for what many saw as a criminal offence. For his rare tenacity in the face of defeat, Orubebe is Minister of the Year.
Joseph Mbu (remember him?) was police commissioner in Rivers State in those turbulent days of the Rotimi Amaechi administration. He banned street protests. Those who dared to protest were hit with rubber bullets and tear gas. When eight lawmakers in a 32-man House attempted to impeach the governor, Mbu’s men were there to give them cover. Mbu was later to say gleefully that he tamed the ‘lion of Rivers’. For his notoriety, he was famous – perhaps more than the Inspector-General.
His critics called him a politician in uniform. He insisted that he was a professional doing his job. Mbu offered a big comical relief amid the pains of those troubled days. He is Policeman of the Year.
Raymond Alegho Dokpesi, founder of Africa Independent Television (AIT) / Raypower FM is alleged to have collected N2.1b from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) for unstated reasons. He insists it was for media and publicity. But the authorities are asking: where is the paper on which the contract was signed? But high chief insists that when he brought the proposal to former President Goodluck Jonathan, former Vice President Namadi Sambo (where in the world is he?) was present. Besides, he recently said scornfully that the whole arms cash story was a hoax, which he is eager to prove in court. No doubt, that is the Contract of the Year.
It is perhaps the most expensive item to have come out of any bakery. Despite a N5b input, the stuff remains in the oven. The man behind it all, needless to say, has taken his expertise elsewhere onto a bigger stage. No prize for guessing right – the cassava bread takes the biggest prize in business. It is the Product of the Year.
So long.