Category: Sam Omatseye

When a patient gets the doctor’s nod to go home from a United States hospital, a wheel chair whirs into view and poises at the bedside. The patient plops into the seat, and a nurse hovers behind and wheels him. The chair rolls through the hallway and stops in the car park where the patient stands in full-blooded radiance. He is wheeled out not as a cripple, but as a sort of overthrow of incapacity, a picture of human buoyancy.

He leaves the hospital air wafting with the odour of drugs, human body fluids and sometimes offal, et al. He also leaves behind the visual of cripples, sallow looks, febrile gyrations and apocalyptic cries. He is a survivor from a claustrophobic room, a triumph. He frees himself from the chair of paralysis. He tells himself: this is a sunny day.

Muhammadu Buhari might have felt like that, not when he left the hospital. He was often in the Nigeria House. He might have felt like that not when he left the Nigeria House, or when his aircraft soared out of the British skies. He might have sighed that victorious moment the plane touched down and he walked out onto the tarmac with the crowd of the beloved cheering and smiling.

But that is what we want to feel all the time, after a nauseous fever, tyrannous headache, or even that typhoid that deprives us of even a limp across the room.

Yet, we all want to feel that sense of the overcomer for Buhari. He was away for about 103 days in a calendar year only about midway through August. We want him, in all his septuagenarian halo, to kick and run, and return to work, duelling the Anti-Magu forces, restoring power, stanching Boko Haram, and quelling the campus trauma from ASUU and, above all, reviving an economy that continues to squeak with stresses of the jobless and poor. Yemi Osinbajo has acted well. But acting is asphyxiating, because everyone wants him to be himself and his principal simultaneously.

So, as he returns home, we all look at him and say, yes, he smiles, he walks all right, he jokes and sustains conversation. We saw that with the Nigeria House pilgrims prior to his return. The last of the visitors was revered Pastor Enoch Adeboye, who may have been the John the Baptist preparing his coming.

Testimonies say he has improved well. But in the first place, we have no clear picture of what the ailment was or is. We have no understanding of the nature of his treatment. We have no knowledge of the doctors’ prognosis. We know little about how his age holds up to the nature of the affliction.

This is a time for faith. But a little Thomas Didymus is seen as heresy. If you ask a question, it is because you wish him ill. After all, as his spokesman, Femi Adesina gloats in his after-visit article, Buhari has proved a liar of all who peddled hatred and rumours about his health. some said, he was in a coma, some said he was on wheelchair, some said he was gone, incapable of returning alive.

We cannot rule out ill-will. Even in the recent PDP convention, references to him and his health bore a sinister sneer hidden in the “get well” wishes. But the presidency and its media team contributed to this, even if they deny it. Humans fill voids with their imaginations. They did so when little imagination was eked out. He was in Nigeria House, so we paid the rent. We fed him. On top of it, we paid the medical bill. No one has disclosed even that.

That is because we still run what I term a democratic monarchy, a system where strong men precede the mass, a feudal throwback. Those who paid him visits almost wanted to crumble before him, a sort of Kabiyesi, or Igwe or ranka dede body language suffused the air. In that circumstance, no one can ask good questions. The visitors, without exception, were an hallelujah throng.

Yet, even if the president does not disclose the full details, I think he should. If he doesn’t, he needs to have a conversation with himself. Does he feel strong enough to undertake the task, or does he feel he can do it only a little. If he can, he should go ahead. If he can do it only partially, that makes him a half-ceremonial leader.

Or does he feel a sense of self-sacrifice, meaning he wants to work for Nigeria at the expense of his health? That will be an ultimate sacrifice. That is also possible. But it is his call. He probably feels strongly about legacy. He wants to be remembered not as a president who fell sick at our financial expense, but who worked power into illumination, bound up the corrupt, set the economy to a high tempo and made health so well that that Nigerian leaders don’t need the Nigeria House to get well.

History and mythology inform us of many such examples, like Iphigenia in the Greek mythology, who is sacrificed by his father Agamemnon, for the national ship to sail to Troy. As Theocritus writes, “By trying, the Greeks got into Troy.”

He will make that call. Not us. As we know, so many who have stakes in Buhari’s health are not just those who wish him to change the country, but themselves. Those who flew out with files for him to sign, who want security of their jobs, who pine for continuous relevance. Buhari is merely platform, a prop. But there are those for whom Buhari is aphrodisiac, who love him whether or not he does well. Charly Boy, whose protest may be inspired by vanity or hate or even love of country, had a taste of the fanatic in a market attack and impunity. The entertainer fled, abandoning his BMW.

As he addresses us today, what will it be? A hard-charging returnee, or a sober, retreating, cautious and retiring fellow? Above all, though, I wish him many sunny days ahead.

All along we were waiting for that part of the story, even if we did not know it. The Jonathan-era larceny has given us a plate nearly full. Billions of Naira, and even dollars, entertained us with characters who carted them away. Or allegedly.

An ex-soldier started the tale. Many followed: political impresarios, media moguls, business men, priests, princes and kings, professionals, known con men. Showmen and maestros. Bureaucrats who burrowed deep. The prude and prudent. The hustler who shuttled between government and banks. The bankers and the damned. The lawyers and the lawless. Even a vixen who preened like one who never tasted pepper in her life. The story was full, it seemed. Everyone and every part of society had come to judgment. If the war on corruption was to gain traction, then all of us must plead guilty.

Not the common man, until No 89. That was the address of infamy. Where Jonathan once lived, and abandoned. He tenanted not humans, but things. Choice TVs, bags of clothes, refrigerators etc. for close to a year, it seems, no Jonathan came close.

So, one by one, the items left. Neighbours might have seen the men take them away. They might have thought the former president was moving house, after being moved out of Aso Rock. Eventually, he knew of it. About a year and a half afterwards.

Odd though was the almost lack of universal sympathy for the man who lost gems. After we have had the stories of the Dasukis, the Diezanis, et al. It was time for the common man. So, to Jonathan’s tent, sorry, palace they came.  It was time to steal from the thief. That is, “thief thief thief” in pidgin English.

This is a cynical view. No investigation has brought up Jonathan’s name. PMB had sworn that he had nothing to fear. But many Nigerians would not hear that. If the money was stolen on his watch, he was the fountain head. The fish, as they say, stink from the head down.

The people may not back stealing in principle, except as revenge against a “thief.” They might have thought, why is he keeping six television sets when the common man has to join a crowd of oglers on roadsides to see Messi La Liga or the smoky romances of Zee World.

The culprits were promptly arrested and fired. The justice was instant. The crime was grievous. But they did not steal a billion. They sold them for cheap. It might have helped to pay rents, school fees, sponsor naming ceremonies. So, it might have been big deal to the thieves.

Well, so how was it that it took just days to convict these guys? Former governors, CEOs, ministers, senators enjoy the luxurious rigmarole of the law, playing with procedures and postponements. “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office,” noted Aesop.

Corruption has come full cycle. The poor can no longer claim that the Jonathan era – impunity was a class matter.  The pauper has acted like the prince. It does not exonerate them that they stole for thousands while the upper class heaved billions. “The number one rule of thieves is that nothing is too small to steal,” remarked the great Jimmy Breslin.

When the guards stayed at #89, they saw things, too. They did not see the owner, but property. It represented oppression. Jonathan had a lot that he did not need. They had nothing by comparison. They protected the property, but who cared for them. The big house, its rooms, its fancy stuff symbolised tyranny and alienation.

Yet, when they sold the properties at Tipper Garage market, Abuja, everyone knew but no one reported. The seller and buyer enjoyed the deals. When they bought the bowler hat, they had become President Jonathan walking on Eagles Square; or in babanriga, they became Jonathan on the hustings in Kano dancing azonto; or when they had the Ankara they were Jonathan, head bowed, in a Yoruba palace receiving blessing from monarchs for blessings they had received themselves from him.

They saw it as stolen property. They followed the words of French anarchist Pierre Proudhon declared that “property is theft.”

Again, it warns our smug leaders that the poor are looking to get back at their leaders. It may not be a revolution, but something more cynical. The rash of kidnapping, robberies, even the so-called separatist tension in the country are ways to channelling lower-class frustrations. Jonathan’s men acted and had their comeuppance.

But the common man makes the guards into heroes.  The people’s mind has never criminalised those who steal from the rich. When Oliver Cromwell overthrew Charles 1, he sold orbs and sceptre in England. When they were replaced at the royal restoration, a crook named Thomas Blood attempted to steal the crown jewels. Yet, he received royal pardon. It did not matter that his epitaph partly read, “And let’s rejoice that his time has come to die.”

Like the royal pardon, our people hail the thieves of #89. And it should worry us.

When we are lucky not to fall in the forbidden group, we don’t count ourselves lucky. When we are not Osu in Igboland, we see ourselves as privileged. When we are not black or Hispanic or any minority in the United States, we swagger on hilltops. When we are educated Hausa-Fulani, we feel entitled. Our footwork soft-pedals, carriage regal, voice like petals.

The victims or rebels think the privileged groups hold them in contempt. Those who know understand that fear is the volcanic force. Zealots have fears in their eyes. Dictators kill as a way to postpone their own suicide. Boko haram is in terror of learning.

In the political arena, we are witnessing such palpitation. Our new version of anxiety helps us track how taboos begin. They are ethnic entrepreneur Nnamdi Kanu and his hysterical Biafra goons, Yerima Shettima and his incarnation of privileged preening, and the question of restructuring and how everyone knows where it is but no one pays a visit.

We act as though they are not here. The big elephant strides and crushes, but we look the other way. For instance, the law frowns at the hectoring of Yerima Shettima and his threat to oust Igbos from the north. Governors and the top cop swiped back and called for arrests. The perpetrators don’t hide. The law sees but does not pursue them.

We fear the lawless among us. We condemn in flowery rhetoric, flaunt the inviolability of the rule of law, and yet the perpetrators swank and huff about. The reason no one wants to touch a Shettima or his youth buddies is simple. They belong to a privileged class, from the vortex of power. So, we have a group of haters. Paradoxically, their taboo status bears a warped justification. Kanu and company say they want to leave. The Shettima boys open the door. Kanu’s kinsmen back a cowardly retreat and call them subverts. Who wants to eat a cake and have it?

The distorted logic of a Shettima finds traction in the self-contradiction of the Igbo separatists. Against the law of gravity and motion, they want to leave, and they want to stay. No courage to state in a clear-head sentence the logic of their position. It’s like the quote from Charlotte Bronte in her famous novel, Jane Eyre. She said, “I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.” If ethnic entrepreneur Kanu sees his group as a sort of caste, he and his group should congratulate Shettima.

IPOB and its cohorts have lionised Shettima by their lack of coherence. Kanu is an opportunist who has flattered the secret hopes of the Igbos who want a better deal. Kanu is not the deal maker they want. But it is the one they have got. The Igbo seek a symphony but a croaky voice steps up, violates the rhythms and lyrics, but they dance anyway. I recently called Biafra a corpse. Its supporters, bright-eyed and ecstatic, are still copulating with the bloodless beauty in a midnight dance ringed by sparks of fire.

The same Kanu who does not understand the meaning of confederation? In a recent article where I pointed this out, a barrage of ignorant vitriol responded that he was being pragmatic. You don’t play pragmatism by compromising the basic principle of your struggle. Ghandhi, De Gaulle, Mandela, Lincoln, Nyerere, Churchill didn’t. Biafra flies in the face of confederation. Since my criticism, the former London vagrant and now peacock, has backed away from his assertion of confederation.

So, Kanu and IPOB also belong to the group of untouchables, especially in the east. The governors joined the crowd that called for his release when under detention. Now, they are his targets. A Frankenstein monster. His Biafra Radio has taken on Imo State governor with a raft of allegations   that are unprintable. Rochas Okorocha must have been gratified that some groups countered the ethnic entrepreneur’s rally under his nose.

But the untouchable Kanu has defied the court. He is doing virtually everything the judge forbade him. He is stirring the pot. No one knows what to do from the presidency to the police to the Igbo elite. Some of the Igbo elite are trying to play harlot, be Nigerian or what the zealot calls a zoo, or be Biafran and belong there. He is openly calling for Anambrans to pooh-pooh the upcoming governor poll. He wants a referendum that he will lose in Niger Delta. That makes him an imperialist who is fighting against imperialism. He knows a Biafra of only Igboland will be a landlocked, kwashiorkor-festered, fishless and meatless deadlock with only the Bight, shall I say bite, of Biafra for succour and water. Remember the civil war?

The other untouchable is the question of restructuring. The Senate, under Bukola “Eleyinmi” Saraki ran away like a rat that sighted a cat. They fled from voting in favour of devolution of power to states and the issue of lands. Alpha governor Akinwunmi Ambode recently called for return of Lagos assets. Federalism thrives when its parts are free. The centre chokes its parts. The Senate’s failure reflects the fear of our true federalism. No one wants to touch it, but stalks us, fuelling opportunisms like Kanu and idiocy of Shettima and his youth group.

APC set up a committee under a governor who mocked it. The fish is under the cat’s care. Northern Governor’s Forum also has set up its committee.  Will the committees fit Charles Kettering’s view that Fred Allen who defined it as “a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done.” Or shall we applaud Ross Perot’s: “if you see a snake, just kill it – don’t appoint a committee.”

What we are witnessing is the impunity of the untouchables and a nation still at peace with living a lie. Pakistani playwright Ayad Akhtar’s play, Disgraced, shows how truth has to come up for air when a people lie against themselves. The Pulitzer Prize winning play shows how a man who wants to deny his ethnic truth eventually faces the truth in a dinner. We have to deal with the truth around us. We cannot deny the phony cries of the untouchables. They are phony because as a people we are also phony. We are a bastard nation breeding bastard sons, like IPOB and Arewa Youth Consultative Forum. There is a pain but the wrong men are wailing.