Category: Olakunle Abimbola

Olakunle Abimbola

 

Between the fictive Macbeth of William Shakespeare, and Edo Governor, Godwin Obaseki, there appears a rather interesting link, in legit and otherwise aspirations.

Macbeth, as Thane of Glamis, was a model Scottish subject-soldier.  He quelled the fierce rebellion against his King, Duncan; and replaced the treacherous Thane of Cawdor, as royal reward for rare duty and bravery.

But his tragedy started when three witches, aided by a fourth: his own wife, the evil Lady Macbeth, goaded him to commit regicide, and supplant Duncan.

From that point, Macbeth zoomed to own doom: riled by insane suspicions, plagued by mass desertion-cum-defection, and consumed by extreme paranoia.  Appears an eerie Macbeth frame, for Obaseki’s current bind, doesn’t it?

Not even the witches’ pithy fib, of the dual “impossibility” of a moving forest, and a man not born of woman humbling the embattled usurper, could save Macbeth.

In the final anti-Macbeth push, Birnam wood indeed “moved” to Dunsinane hill  (a visual illusion of troops, carrying boughs, moving into combat positions).  Of course, Macduff, that eventually slew Macbeth, was strictly “not born of woman”.  He was delivered by caesarian surgery!

Well, this is no review of Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth.  But it’s just amazing how much Obaseki, as governor, shares with this fictive tragic figure, in a play first performed in 1606.

Still, before the Obaseki-Macbeth parallel, how about first x-raying the present harsh political furnace chastening Adams Oshiomhole, Obaseki’s estranged godfather, now sworn to unhorsing a worthless godson, with all grassroots savvy at his disposal?

To start with, the Obaseki plague wouldn’t have arisen, had Oshiomhole not dealt two trusted allies a sleight of hand, on the former governor’s succession question.

Dr. Pius Odubu, loyal deputy for eight years, was shunted aside.  So was Osagie Ize-Iyamu, director-general of Oshiomhole’s second-term run: the one to reinforce the growing sickly culture that deputies (to governors or presidents) are never good enough; the other to underscore the equally execrable culture of use-and-dump.

Obaseki, sole beneficiary of this cynical theory of political expendables, has become, for Oshiomhole, political migraine: spectacular, head-splitting and life-threatening.

Odubu rode out the storm, staying true to his Edo APC.  But Ize-Iyamu stormed out to PDP, though he was there, in those foundation-building years, from Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), to All Progressives Congress (APC).

Sure, both Odubu and Ize-Iyamu are back in APC to unhorse Obaseki, the ultimate “ingrate”, now the PDP candidate.  But that has consigned Oshiomhole to the ultimate political crucible, searing and grilling: going on the stump to swallow all the harsh things he said about Ize-Iyamu, and all the sweet things he said about Obaseki — tough luck!

But even from this grim purgatory, political redemption appears to beckon.

A chastened Oshiomhole cuts the picture of an ashen King David, after seizing Bathsheba, dispatching Uriah, her loyal soldier-husband, to the hottest part of battle to be slain, and earning the fiery ire of Jehovah.

Still, for his Obaseki bad judgment, an apology-mouthing Oshiomhole, either on his knees begging Onogies, or bantering with the hoi-polloi on the hustings, comes across as the ultimate grassroots politician; that takes to doting people in the streets as fish take to purring water in the pond!  Besides, he cuts the quintessential loyal party man, even with a sweeping personal setback.

That somewhat cushions his hard crash, from boisterous chairman of a national ruling party, to an ordinary card-carrying member — a crash the Obaseki camp had throatily mocked, and hoped would cripple, if not outright smash, his street value.

Well, it hasn’t — and the Obaseki camp, framing own campaign as rabid Oshiomhole demonization, is ample proof.  Yet, it is Ize-Iyamu, not Oshiomhole, on the ballot!

But if you still doubt the Oshiomhole grassroots rebound, just catch the panicky screech from Salihu Lukman.  He yelps Oshiomhole might be “plotting” his way back as national chairman, just because he bosses the Edo local campaign!  He may yet endure a long night of “severe pains” — to parody Ekiti loudmouth, Ayo Fayose!

Lukman may be the so-called director-general of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF).  But really, he is the unfazed face and growling voice of the intra-APC, anti-Oshimhole coven of political witches.

Political witches!  That takes the discourse back to the Macbeth-Obaseki parallel.

The Edo electorate would decide who wins on September 19.  But no matter the result, it’s almost safe to vouchsafe political witches may — nay, will — destroy Obaseki, just as the three witches destroyed Macbeth.

Much of Obaseki’s second term gambit appears propelled by bubbly promises of political witchery, than reasoned products of political rigour.

For starters, Obaseki’s subversion of the Edo legislature is the grievous democratic equivalent of Macbeth’s regicide.  No one does that and lives happily ever after!

First, a wilful stonewall of 17 legislators, out of 24, split the Edo APC’s hard-earned electoral sweep.  Then, by gifting the rival PDP those legislative “captives”, a defecting Obaseki added heinous institutional sabotage to despicable personal opportunism.   Something, sooner or later, had to give!

Any wonder then, that the legislative majority called the governor’s bluff; and rattled his camp enough to goad them into wilful destroyers of the hallowed chamber, while posing as comical fixers, all in a dumb move to block legitimate majority access?

Outside Edo, Obaseki’s patron “witches”, like Macbeth’s three witches at the Scottish heath, thunder fire and brimstone. But what, when the chips are down, would they plead?  That seven is greater than 24, in the legislative chamber?  Or in court, that a governor, in a fit of gubernatorial outlawry, can pocket the legislature, more so in a presidential democracy, with its rigid separation of powers?  Tough chore!

Indeed, from that early legislative cripple (though he little realized it), Obaseki hugged his political free-fall, probably to plumb in utter democratic ruin.

But that gambit, though a survivalist ploy, beams Obaseki’s horrible public persona: that savage desperation to go for broke; that penchant to viciously kick, bully and destroy; that fierce loyalty to no one but himself; that ever-ready Samson complex to crash everything on everyone, including himself, if he won’t have his way!

Obaseki, the private citizen, may sure have admirable traits.  In office, his confederates hail him as a brilliant policy wonk, hence their support for his second term.

But the fair and abiding image, of Obaseki’s tenure so far, is the governor as graceless brute.  This polity deserves much better.

By Olakunle Abimbola

Pre-Goodluck Jonathan, Niger Delta depredation was a serious issue, amplified by justified militancy, with over-flowing national guilt.

During the Jonathan Presidency, with the natives themselves scaling new heights in stratospheric greed — their “Niger Delta president” be damned! — it became a joke.

Post-Jonathan, it is descending into a farce.  The tragedy, however, remains: the poor, long-suffering Niger Delta mass, raped with murderous unison, by both natives and aliens.

That sad impression comes from the thick scandal of alleged sleaze, oozing out of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), like some thick, black, noxious smoke; and the sick apologia for native robbers, who Mujahid Dokubo-Asari beatified as mere “pick-pockets”!

Did someone, somewhere, echo that Wole Soyinka play, Beatification of the Area Boy?

Now, who will save the Niger Delta from own home-grown, unapologetic plunderers?

Make no mistake: everything about that putrefying stench, from NDDC, is a racket.

The alleged sleaze itself, probable mismanagement of a whopping N81 billion, by an interim management committee (IMC), has got to be a classic in soulless racketeering, that turns a core development agency into a chronic, grinding under-development coven.

Irony of ironies: the dismissive Asari wants to dub it all a witch hunt, even if that coven teems with native economic witches!

Now, if a management could blow such eye-popping dough in the interim, what much havoc would it do, were it to enjoy a longer tenure?  The grand irony was that it was emplaced to checkmate previous long-term rodents!  Talk of a cure worse than the ailment!

But in all of the outrage, what do two generations of the Niger Delta elite, symbolized by Pa Edwin Clark and Dokubo-Asari, have to offer?

From Clark, celebrated Jonathan-era presidential godfather, is deathly quiet — a never golden racket of silence, perhaps?

And El Hajdi Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, dashing general of the Niger Delta People’s Salvation Force?  An apologia, wrapped in arrogant sophistry, that makes you puke with irritation and cry with shame!

In one breath, he beatifies Niger Delta native robbers as mere “pick pockets”.  In another, he demonizes non-native hustlers as the real robber barons that folks should worry about.

But nowhere, in this beatification-demonization divide, do you feel this mouthy troubadour cry for his ravished native land!

With Clark tongued-tied (though quick to point fingers and jump, with both feet, into controversies elsewhere); and Asari snaring self in self-deceit and communal delusion, who will make the case for the Niger Delta poor, given such criminal elite insouciance?

Still on racketeering and the NDDC stench: Godswill Akpabio, the former uncommon governor, turned uncommon senator and latterly uncommon minister, is now enmeshed in uncommon scandal, buzzing accusations and counter-accusations, with spicy salacious tales to boot!

The salacious tit-for-tat, between Akpabio and Joy Nunieh, estranged former NDDC interim managing director, projects Akpabio as a deformed reformer, that somewhat entered equity with rather filthy hands, to borrow that popular legal-speak.  Incidentally, both Akpabio and Nunieh are trained lawyers.

But the same exchange also casts Nunieh as a suspect dissenter.  Had she not been bounced off NDDC, as interim boss, would she have come out blazing as she did?

Again, the tragic tale of a reform-minded duo getting mutually deformed — at least in the mind of the outraged public!

Still, while Nunieh leaves a whiff of sexist titillations, her successor, Kemebradikumo Pondei, by his shocking COVID-19 palliative self-settlement tales, echoes that selfish tortoise, in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.  Just to corner all of the gravy at a party in the skies, it re-christened itself “All of You”!

Little wonder: when Prof. Pondei fainted under a barrage of searing House questions, almost everyone concluded it was a contemptible Oscar show.  But his faint could well have been real, given Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila’s admission that the chamber was a bit stuffy.

Whatever the truth, Pondei epitomizes that eternal helplessness, nay hopelessness, of the Niger Delta poor.  Whereas the Achebe fictional tortoise got flung down to earth by its irate benefactors, Pondei and co appear untouchable, to their ravished people.

This is rather scary because Prof. Pondei’s shocking revelations portrayed an NDDC culture of systemic rape.  Yet, his interim management, backed by the embattled Akpabio, flashes a forensic audit of the commission’s past, with cynical drama.

Sounds like a pack of salivating cats shielding doomed rats, doesn’t it?  Hardly a trust-building affair!

All the flurry of accusations and counter-accusations, involving the National Assembly itself, leaves untenable Akpabio’s position, as Niger Delta Minister.  It’s, therefore, left to President Muhammadu Buhari to do the needful.

But even Akpabio could be a victim of a racket of emotions, not necessarily in empathy with the Niger Delta poor, but by fellow elites settling personal, regional or partisan scores  — the uncommon senator, turned uncommon minister, reeks with uncommon enemies, across the partisan aisle!

His old PDP scorn him as a treacherous deserter, so think little of roasting him.  So, in classic partisan demagoguery, hated Akpabio could be PDP’s perfect “proof” that APC is no cleaner, despite its trumpeted anti-sleaze war!  Cynicism begets cynicism!

His new APC — at least some elements therein — dub him a dangerous opportunist, come to chisel their party of change, in ruinous PDP’s image of greed.  So, head or tail, Akpabio stays roasted.

Within the Niger Delta, Akpabio appears to, not a few, as manipulating the president’s anti-corruption fervour to seize the NDDC, and allegedly feather his own nest, under the cynical ploy of fighting “corruption”.

How else, they argue, do you explain Akpabio persuading the president to freeze the NDDC board, already confirmed by the Senate, for an interim management that has done nothing but sour everywhere with its stinking can of worms?

Still, all of these are raucous elite noise, though arising from an age-old rape of the voiceless.  It’s vital, therefore, that this elite bedlam does not block out the real issue.

The real issue?  Justice for the Niger Delta poor and voiceless, which umpteenth brazen sleaze has always buried alive, as living dead.

That is why Asari’s hollow pick-pocket theory and Clark’s loud quiet are a monumental betrayal of their own people.  Every true son — and daughter — of that troubled region ought to be outraged by the latest NDDC scandal.

Which is why President Buhari must get to the root of these swirling allegations and conk the guilty.

Before then, however, he should realize, without prejudice to the much vaunted forensic audit, that Minister Akpabio, and all cited in the NDDC scandal, are damaged goods.

By Olakunle Abimbola

For the second time in three weeks, Humpty-Dumpty looks an irresistible parallel for Aketi’s pre-election Ondo, as in Fayemi’s mid-term  Ekiti (See “Ekiti’s roiling progressives”, July 5).

Is the Aketi Ondo order then primed for a great fall, like Humpty Dumpty in the nursery rime?

Don’t bet on that, for politics is no game for the faint-hearted.  But the theatre of the absurd, now on the Ondo front, is humbling enough.

Imagine Sunday Abegunde aka Abena, who did the political equivalent of the poetic Solomon Grundy, that rifled through life in seven short days!

Abena bolted from the Rotimi Akeredolu government as estranged secretary to the state government (SSG), parachuted himself to a radio, and started speaking in tongues, about a “lost” election that nevertheless produced a governor, of which he himself, munching an SSG bounty-turned-sour-grape, was complicit!

To be sure, he would eat crow, hit by the stark reality that his wild emotions had flung him inside a ditch; and he repudiated, with equal excitability, his earlier claim of an election loss, with a glorious collective win, though for the ultra-”ungrateful” Aketi.

But how can an ex-SSG boast such infantile, if not outright irrational, temper?  Is the Aketi order, united or divided, all whims and caprices?

Well, Abena isn’t quite replicating the Olusegun Mimiko feat of exiting as SSG to sack the late Olusegun Agagu, after a prolonged post-election litigation.

He swears fealty to one of the APC aspirants.  But wherever is Abena’s next destination, he would appear a sad study in self-demarketing.

Or the case of Deputy Governor Agboola Ajayi, a gangling poster boy of unfazed opportunism, if ever there was one?

Herr Ajayi stormed out to the rival PDP, clutching tight the Deputy Governor office he won as APC candidate; even daring the legislature to impeach him, if they had the numbers!

Then, after the governor tested positive for COVID-19, he issued a 21-day ultimatum for a power hand-over, the morality (and compassion) of it all be damned!

What schadenfreude — that English German import for malicious joy, nay jeer, at someone else’s misfortune!

But for the governor’s timely COVID-19 bill of health (a political deus-ex-machina, as they do in Greek classical drama?), Ondo would by now have been battling a constitutional crisis of rotten moral provenance, among other needless distractions.

Or how else do you push the defecting Ajayi power-grab, with all its rotten moral baggage, relying on the letters of the Constitution?  Yet, that Constitution’s same spirit Ajayi’s galloping opportunism has viciously raped, cantering across the partisan isle, aloft with a stolen good, yet demanding a wild cheer?

To be fair to Ajayi, however, it’s the tale of opportunism gives, opportunism takes — the most serious singular plague ravaging this polity.

Ajayi departed PDP because an opportunistic Mimiko, then an embattled, plotting and entrapped governor seeking post-power relevance, junked his Labour Party (LP), landed in PDP, and hijacked the party’s structure from the “natives”, like Ajayi.

Now, can you blame the return of the native to his darling PDP, if he could just stroll across the partisan aisle and corral the deputy governorship — when what fetched him that diadem was no commitment to any party principle, but his electoral box office appeal?  Opportunism gives, opportunism takes!

Now Aketi growls Ajayi’s nomination was a mistake — is it now?  When did the scale fall off the governor’s eyes?  That brings the discourse to the governor himself.

With all due respect, Governor Akeredolu, though a legal silk, has exhibited little power gumption, talk less of wisdom, these last three years.

Ripples is not quite close to the Aketi gubernatorial court, so this view is at best speculative.  Yet, the governor appears, from afar, a possible victim of what you may call the Rehoboam syndrome.

Remember the Bible that records King Rehoboam as victim of “useless young men”, whose misadvice condemned Solomon’s son, David’s grandson, to kissing 10, out of 12 tribes, in his father’s kingdom, bye-bye?

On FB, Ripples once stumbled on a discourse, with some neophyte, canonizing Aketi as foremost among the South West “new breed leaders”.

Ripples weighed in and told the guy — one Delta-born University of Ibadan graduate who claimed he had lived in Ibadan all his life — that he lacked the dynamics of Yoruba politics to make such a claim; and should stop shooting breeze, thus distracting the governor.

But in jumped another — the original serenade of the post — insisting the Delta guy was right on the money; and that Aketi was the best thing to happen to humanity, since Adam left Eden!

The exchange turned rather nasty, as the Aketi advocate became aggressive and abusive, just to prove his point.  Later, Ripples would find out he was one of the governor’s most visible factotums.

He could well be earnest, of course; speaking out of genuine conviction.  Even then, could such honest zest have negatively impacted Aketi?

How come, just after three years, Aketi appears lacking in tact to midwife the crucial political elite consensus, for the smooth-sailing of his power encore?  Or is the ultra-cantankerous Ondo politics to blame?

Even then, if you can’t hold together your immediate locality, how can you pass the muster for an extended terrain?  So long for flowery FB claims!

The relationship between the governor and Prof. Robert Ajayi Boroffice, Ondo’s sole sitting senator, is rather interesting.

Just suffice to say the three-time senator is not unlike the once rejected pillar that morphs into the major cornerstone, from the intrigues that surrounded the 2019 elections, which saw Ondo losing two senators to the rival PDP.

Yet, from the “reconciliatory” sound bites, the senator is talking tough, demanding the governor’s apology, and insisting on nominating Aketi’s running mate, among four other tough conditions, to back the governor.

That range of demand has even drawn a sharp rebuke from inside the Unity Forum,  the intra-Ondo APC pressure group, determined to give embattled Aketi a good run for his money!   Yet, the senator was virtually fighting for his political life, in the run-up to the 2019 election, for lack of gubernatorial support!

The point here is not a saint-versus-sinner scenario.  Hardly is anyone either in politics, that ruthless determination of who gets what.  The governor and the senator have own good and bad points.

It is rather to remind the governor — and indeed, other office holders — that power, though most visible, is the most useless, in political relationships.

Yeah, power (especially gubernatorial power) does great transactions, in sweet political pork.  But even that becomes useless the moment power fades or stops — or whoever does sweetheart deals without cash?

If he survives this roaring crucible, Aketi should learn more to leverage tact and influence, instead of projecting raw power.

Indeed, influence is the gold standard of sustainable politicking.  That marked respect for peers in power, builds a post-power paradise, made only possible by influence.

Still, the Ondo APC should know that it’s cheaper and better for a sitting governor to get a second term, except if he is a total disaster.  That is, of course, without prejudice to aspirants’ democratic rights to contest the governorship ticket.

By Olakunle Abimbola

Want a sure, straight and quick-fire path to Golgotha?

Follow the trail of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairs, past and present: Nuhu Ribadu, Farida Waziri, Ibrahim Lamorde and now, Ibrahim Magu.

All appear fated to willy-nilly nailing to the cross, like the Christ Jesus in place of Barabas.  Yet, their office was conceived to help drain Nigeria of sleaze.

Even then, with the holy venality of the Olusegun Obasanjo era that easily consumed Ribadu at the earliest juncture of the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Presidency; and President Goodluck Jonathan’s sheer travesty at fighting corruption, creating a regime of notoriously voracious “yam eaters”, that in turn threw up indifferent EFCC chairs, Magu’s path would appear the goriest so far.

Though a poster boy of an administration that makes anti-corruption its most fundamental plank, flaunting the near-ascetic President Buhari at its head, and a near-saintly Pastor-Lawyer, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as No. 2, the institutional support for Magu would appear very suspect.

If that cannot be completely confirmed by his “eternal” acting chairman status, with the refusal of the Senate to confirm his chairmanship, his rather shabby treatment, since his latest odyssey started on July 6, reinforces just that.

A rather dramatic DSS (or is it conventional Police?) “arrest”, later denied and dubbed “invitation” (even if apparently forced — a sure contradiction in terms), nevertheless climaxed in an after-probe detention for nights on end.

The embattled Magu is facing an administrative probe, but bail appears no option.  Yet, even indicted persons, in conventional courts, push legal and democratic rights to bail.  Lexis and concepts never come more confused!

When the elephant falls, say the Yoruba, all sort of knives teem to validate their sharpness.  At the trip of Magu, mud-spattering and wild allegations assume a doomsday proportion, that you just wonder what’s the motive by it all.

A top columnist, with glam and dash, claimed Magu invaded, commando-style, the Minna residence of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, former military head of state.  Abubakar has since denied such, though he admitted an EFCC near-search, due to a mix-up in addresses, at a guest house outside Minna, belonging to the general.

The same columnist also claimed Magu stopped Gen. Theophilus Danjuma from paying for a private jet, allegedly forcing his cheque to bounce, thus making an irate Danjuma to storm Aso Villa, to protest to the president.

But on that claim, mum is it from the Danjuma camp, even if the general did visit the president lately but came out sounding more conciliatory, less combative, as Danjuma and his Christian Elders lobby are lately wont to.

Another blogger has gone rather ga-ga with wild allegations, entrapping Magu, Vice President Osinbajo, and Kiki, the VP’s daughter.

While the VP has notified the IGP on criminal prosecution after thorough investigation, over alleged slush money from Magu, Miss Osinbajo’s landlord has pooh-poohed the blogger’s claim that she owned the building housing her Abuja business address.  Dr. Ayuba Musa, the landlord, has affirmed Miss Osibajo was his tenant, as she earlier claimed.

Even the official “charges” would appear, at a closer look, as just card-stacking.

Okay, the allegation of a N5billion discrepancy, in recovered stolen funds, is grave enough.  Magu’s EFCC is alleged to have declared N539 billion, instead of N504 billion, which Magu’s traducers, with their media confederates, have triumphantly dubbed “re-looting the loot”.  That deserves probing, fair and square.

But the other allegations would appear manic mud-splashing, in a ruthless intra-administration turf war, for vicious supremacy: Magu’s alleged insubordination to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Justice minister, hoarding information on the extradition of Diezani Alison-Madueke, the Jonathan era’s alleged queen of sleaze and alleged late investigation of Process and Industrial Development (P&ID), which led to a Butcher arbitration in London almost butchering Nigeria in punitive costs.

Other allegations include the existence of “Magu boys”, delay in acting on two seized vessels, leading to a wanton loss of crude, reporting some judges to their presiding officers without going through the AGF, sales of seized assets to alleged cronies, and alleged leaking of some investigated cases to the media, thus allegedly prejudicing the cases, in form of media trials.

Incidentally, Magu and Abubakar Malami, SAN, the Justice minister, who appears Magu’s traducer-in-chief on this one, approximate the two contrasting forces, tearing the Buhari Presidency apart, in what appears a destructive tension.

The ascendancy of the Malami side would probably sink Magu — and if he is guilty as charged, why not?

But that will also pronounce a harsh indictment, if not severe verdict, on Buhari’s anti-graft war, of which Magu is an unfazed poster boy.  So, all the present excitement might well be a harsh self-plebiscite, which could easily end as unforced error.  But we wait with bated breath!

Still, the moderating, nay redeeming, force would appear Justice Ayo Salami, former President of the Court of Appeal, a victim of Jonathan-era executive-judicial politics, because the court he presided over did retrieve stolen mandates.

In a fit of self-mockery, Bode George, the Lagos politician, has decreed Justice Salami’s integrity suspect.  But with all their havoc as ruling party, how would George and his PDP know integrity, even if they saw one — PDP that has joined the nail-Magu orchestra with a frenzy?

Still, while Justice Salami lost his office but regained his honour, the judiciary he left behind sunk into untrammeled rot, hitherto believed impossible; climaxing in the Code of Conduct (CCT) conviction of a sitting CJN, Justice Walter Onnoghnen.

With his lost battle against CJN Aloysius Katsina-Alu’s judicial order, and fulsome demonization from charlatan politicians out for the jurist’s blood at all cost, he would at least appreciate Magu’s present goring, by wolves baying for his blood.

Indeed, Magu’s appears a one-man bravura against graft, with sans institutional support: an eternally acting EFCC chair (denied confirmation by the Senate), had his well-earned conviction, in a celebrated corruption case, smashed by a cynical apex court flashing triumphant technicality, and now being thrown under the bus by his direct executive bosses!  What suicide mission!

Yet, in all of the administration, Magu appears such a riveting alter ego of the president himself: heckled, abused, mocked and traduced, for the courage to do good, and save a doomed society from itself, with its suicidal elite!

Still, however the Magu muddle is resolved, the thieving Nigerian elite will get their comeuppance: if not in this PMB anti-graft war, then in an iconoclastic orgy, where every plunderer of the public till will pay, the hard way, for his crime.

When that dawns, no Supreme Court would flex its technical powers to spring convicts; no legislature would filibuster over confirmations of goodly public servants; no turf battles would throw conscientious public servants under the bus.

Before that doomsday, however, may the good Lord open President Muhammadu Buhari’s eyes to see through a turf war, which won by the wrong camp, may well bury his anti-corruption war; and Justice Salami the wisdom of Solomon, to ensure a rare decent public officer gets justice, no matter the flying doomsday allegations.

Olakunle Abimbola

 

 

“The good thing, though, is what the Ekiti progressives could do, if they band together.  The Adeyeye-MOB-Olubunmi Adetunmbi senatorial triad, to the 9th Senate, is reminiscent of West’s Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) 1st eleven, of the 2nd Republic.

But two years hence, when gubernatorial push-and-shove hits upon the land — will this beautiful alliance still stand?” — ‘Ekiti pendulum’,  26 March 2019

 

In Ekiti, a flamboyant “war strategist” baits a dashing guerrilla-in-chief, in a red-hot battle front.

There, Governor Kayode Fayemi wars, no holds barred, with former Senator Babafemi Ojudu, sitting presidential special adviser on political affairs.

But the Fayemi-Ojudu tangle is only the face of a deep Ekiti progressives roiling, that probably cuts right down the ranks; given the tone of a June 28 statement, “Ekiti: time to take a stand”.

That statement, by the “Ekiti APC Stakeholders”, is backed by signatures of, well, some Ekiti progressives powers and principalities!

Still, those home with Ekiti progressives’ gather-to-scatter curse now sneer, with a matching icy smile — have we not seen all of these before?

That feeling reinforces the above rather long opening quote, from “Ekiti pendulum”, this column’s 26 March 2019 take, just after the Ekiti progressives’ triumph, at the 2019 general elections.

Now, it’s Fayemi’s second and last gubernatorial midterm; the “two years hence” is here; and the “gubernatorial push-and-shove” is dawning.

But the Ekiti “beautiful alliance”, of an Abuja senatorial dream team, anchored on a solid progressive phalanx at home, is as standing as the egg-like Humpty Dumpty in the nursery rime before his great fall, and eventual scatter, into unrecoverable bits!

Melodramatic?  Maybe!  But look at the stark facts.  Dayo Adeyeye, one of the three senators, is out in the cold, no thanks to a controversial judicial dismissal.  With that had come a whispering campaign, that his fate arose from the alleged ploys of a fiend-posing-as-friend at home.

Then Adeyeye, who in a huff stormed off to the rival PDP, against Kayode Fayemi’s Action Congress (AC) gubernatorial nomination in 2007, but stormed back to assist the same Fayemi do a 2018 governorship encore, with his Ise-Orun votes (which trumped the PDP lead in Ado-Ikere), is back in the intra-APC anti-Fayemi camp.

The other Ekiti APC Stakeholders include former Senators Tony Adeniyi (Ekiti South) and Babafemi Ojudu (Ekiti Central); former House of Representatives members, Oyetunde Ojo (Ekiti Central II) and Bimbo Daramola (Ekiti North I), with other signees, numbering no less than 15.

Even a casual scour of this list births palpable unease.  Tony Adeniyi was one of the active lawyers during the marathon Fayemi mandate reclamation case (2007-2010).

Bimbo Daramola, director-general of Fayemi’s botched 2014 return to power, was the election-eve prisoner of war (POW), during that controversial election.

Now, be wary of apportioning blames in politicians’ squabbles, for they and they alone know what is amiss — a secret they seldom ever share!  Still, why are these once-upon-a-time Fayemi allies massing in opposing camps?

Since 1999, why do the Ekiti progressives appear stung by a gather-to-scatter plague?

The Ekiti APC Stakeholders accused Governor Fayemi of sundry cronyism: allegedly spreading the party’s legitimate pork, to the point of brazen illegitimacy, among his alleged “tokan-tokan” (Yoruba for honest and genuine) inner clique.

They also accused him of strong arm tactics to muscle dissent, via illicit Ekiti APC suspensions, which succeeded in some cases but back-fired in others.

Ojodu said his backfired because his ward executives spurned the move.  However, the document named the likes of Adeniyi, Daramola, Ojo, Bunmi Ogunleye, Ben Oguntuase and Dele Afolabi as either “been suspended or in the process of suspension.”

But the Fayemi side could flaunt a pleasurable smack from a Victor Ogunje piece, published in This Day issue of Sunday, July 5, entitled: “Fayemi: of a rising profile and disturbed rivals”, which suggests the Ekiti storm is nothing but peer envy.  Maybe.

In that piece, Fayemi’s friends carpeted Ojudu as a perennial gadfly that fought everyone from Adeniyi Adebayo to Fayose, Segun Oni and Fayemi — Ekiti governors all, legit or otherwise, since 1999.

Ogunje also branded the Ojudu group as ingrates who, having earlier secured election on the party’s platform, are allegedly now sworn to destroying it, for selfish purposes.  But the key question: what’s the “party” to the contrasting sides?

Still, whatever the merits or de-merits of those suspensions, or the truth or otherwise of the governor’s alleged despotic tendencies, a raft of suspensions can’t be good for the Ekiti progressives — except in 2022, they crave to re-meet their Waterloo of 2003 and 2014, when their fratricidal in-fighting gifted PDP power, unleashing the twin-pestilence of Fayose’s two terms.

That progressive-conservative Ekiti power see-saw wheels the discourse towards Ekiti’s low IGR (a gauge of its local economy) and economic laggard status.

Of all Nigeria’s geo-political blocs, Ekiti nestles in the South West, that delivers a thumping N414 billion in IGR — other corresponding blocs being: South-South (N198 billion, despite its oil wealth), North West (N69 billion), North Central (N54 billion), South East (N49 billion) and North East (N29 billion).

But in that South West, Ekiti’s N2.9 billion IGR cuts the picture of a pauper moon-lighting among royals, given what other South West states post: Lagos (N302 billion), Ogun (N73 billion), Oyo (N19 billion), Osun (N8.8 billion) and Ondo (N8.6 billion).

Indeed, in all of Nigeria, Ekiti bests only two states, in IGR: the terror war-torn Borno (N2.7 billion) and Ebonyi (N2.3 billion).  Even then, you see this pair’s transformative investments in social and physical infrastructure.

Indeed, Ebonyi is a state to watch, for an IGR surge, given Governor David Umahi’s infrastructural thirst, these past five years.  Wish anyone could say that of Ekiti!  This then is the state, where the progressive brain boxes bait self-destruction, yet again!

But this piece will close with frank advice for Governor Fayemi.  The media is awash with his “soaring profile”, on account of national visibility, as chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF).  But in real terms, what does that amount to?

Check out all the past NGF chairmen: Obong Victor Bassey Attah (2004-2006), Lucky Igbinedion (2006-2007), Bukola Saraki (2007-2011), Rotimi Amaechi (2011-2015) and Abdul’aziz Yari (2015-2019) — how relevant are they in today’s polity?

The last three are rather instructive: both Yari, a sitting senator and Amaechi, the hardworking Transport minister, are in government.  But by commission or omission, both denied their home APC elective offices in the 2019 general election.

Bukola Saraki, also former Senate president?  He surrendered his Kwara fort and empire to become an internally displaced politician (IDP), no thanks to the Otoge election-season rout!

All five past NGF chairmen seemed to harbour an Icarius complex.  Remember Icarius, that brat in Greek myth that ignored Daedalus, his father’s caution, flew too close to the sun, and sank without trace?  Is that what Fayemi seeks?

Fayemi and fellow Ekiti progressives had better sit and knock into shape compromises to blot out their gather-to-scatter curse.  Otherwise, they risk history’s dire verdict of condemnable ego trips, when homeland Ekiti needed them to pool their talents.

By Olakunle Abimbola

Oyo governors from 1999, men of means all, preened with upcountry grace.

But Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi (1949-2020; governor from 2011 to 2019), the Oyo Renaissance man, if ever there was one, blazed a different trail.  In him, Oyo native wit, cohered with cosmopolitan poise, with breathtaking grace.

The late Lam(idi) Adesina, Oyo’s first governor in 1999, was a respected teacher and avowed Awoist.

But not even that twin-respectability, coupled with an indifferent governorship, could shield him from election-time Ibadan ancestral wars, that as a rule, eliminate each governor, after a single term.

Rashidi Ladoja, shipping magnate, anti-Abacha struggle NADECO subaltern, but ace gubernatorial serf, never rose above the Lamidi Adedibu serfdom which, with the ruthless Obasanjo-era “federal might”, propelled him to power in 2003.

His, therefore, was a legacy of gubernatorial chaos, triggered by a feeble serf, comically springing self from the tight leash, of his feudal lord — an exercise in futility, with tragicomic results: rogue impeachment, judicial restoration and final humiliating usurpation, via a suspect “election”, by own deputy!

Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala, Ogbomoso ace in the volatile, pre-Ajimobi Oyo  governorship cast, was the very opposite of Ladoja: the mild-mannered, easy-go-merry fellow; and gubernatorial serf that knew his place in the Adedibu feudal court.

He kept faith, even as the Alaafin Molete (dis)order consumed itself, with its federal backers — and promptly got voted out, after a term, by the regnant mood of the time.

In Seyi Makinde, the sitting Oyo governor and Ajimobi’s successor, the grains of pseudo-nativism and pseudo-cosmopolitanism sit in awkward cohabitation, such that you can hardly vouch for the genuineness of either.

Little wonder, then: just over one year into his gubernatorial tour, he appears well trapped and truly lost in the quicksand of politics and policy.

With his “Auxiliary” Oyo motor park romance, it’s hard to say whether Makinde romps into the future; or ricochets, with a vengeance, into the neo-Adedibu political Stone Age!  Yet, those seedy characters were the first Ajimobi clinically took out, to launch his governorship era.

It’s little wonder too: no Oyo governor, since 1999, has measured up to the Ajimobi galaxy — a million stars, in sparkle, class and dash, complete with own dust.

Yes, own dust!  Ask the gubernatorial gladiators that cut-and-thrust for the 2019 Oyo All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket, and not a few would swear to, in Ajimobi, an alleged IBB-like ruthless power-succession trick and streak: that penchant to invite the multitude to a position that either was not vacant, or was already tailor-made for a not-so-secret protege.

Even then, for those who lost out in the sweepstakes, it was opportunism and counter-opportunism gone awry.

The growlers-in-chief, over the alleged Ajimobi wild goose chase, would have been unfazed crowers-in-chief, had that path earned them the coveted diadem!  It’s back to the very basics of high-stake politics: win some; lose some; nothing assured!

Still on politics: in Ajimobi’s umpteenth demonization, Makinde thought he had found a sword of Damocles, which though never comes down, appeared a potent partisan blackmail(?) threat, in four years at least.  Poor guy!  That sword vanished with Ajimobi’s June 25 exit!

Indeed, speaking after Ajimobi’s death, Makinde volunteered, cant or frank: that the Oyo government now rolls on a “blueprint” the late Ajimobi had put in place, in some of its activities.

Earnest or frivolous, that would appear a frank endorsement of Ajimobi as an acute mind and brilliant policy wonk, who left Oyo better than he met it, more than any of his governorship peers since 1999.

At 70, Ajimobi neither died young nor lived especially long.  In a video released after his death, he said he pleaded with God to make him attain 70, since his father died some two months shy of that landmark.

But after attaining 70, and seeing life’s sweet “mudu-mudu” (Yoruba for gravy and lollies) — there, the quintessential Ajimobi the wit, cracked up everyone and got them to double up with laughter — he beseeched God to further extend his life!  Well, he died months later.

Still, eternal youth and tidiness clung to Ajimobi all his life — a handsome face, winsome smile and dapper frame, impeccably dressed in tidy, smart, stylish cuts, native or foreign.  And you never saw a wittier, smoother, more fluent or more urbane orator on the horizon, English or Yoruba!

These may all be personal traits.  But in Ajimobi’s policy thrusts, in his infrastructural interventions, and in his radical clean-up of Ibadan, pre-Ajimobi, one of the dirtiest cities around, you saw the Ajimobi re-birth: clean, tidy, spick-and-span.

Indeed, driving round Ibadan, either via Challenge and its beautiful and well-cultivated flora, or via Iwo road and Bodija, you saw a glorious re-making of Ibadan in the late governor’s clean, tidy and classy image.

In Bodija, a certain short bridge, whenever flooded, for eons, led to untold catastrophe.  But no more! It was one of the simple but effective solutions Ajimobi put in place, very early in his governorship — just like the Mokola flyover, which later snowballed into an infrastructure bloom, in gleaming roads, that enhanced the Ibadan metropolis, and drove up the value of real estate.

But Ajimobi was incomplete without his courage of conviction.  On virtual election eve 2019, he ordered the partial demolition of musician Yinka’s Ayefele’s Music House, a part of which the city planning authorities said infringed on town planning rules.

The flak that came — mostly emotive — could have downed a jet.  Yet, the governor stood his ground, and negotiated a win-win, if painful, settlement.  That move saved Ayefele’s property from any future censure — courage of conviction!

But it also cost the “intensely hated” governor dearly.  Indeed, the Ibadan electoral nemesis, which he had escaped by his Koseleri gubernatorial feat, turned his Koseleri 1 governorship triumph, into a Koseleri 2 senatorial defeat, en route to the Oyo APC governorship candidate losing to the rival PDP.

Many an APC partisan still blames Ajimobi for that gubernatorial loss; while glorying and gloating over his botched senatorial run.  But the man took both in his strides and moved on.

Indeed, on reading “Koseleri 1 & 2” in this column (The Nation, 19 March 2019), Ajimobi put a call through to Ripples.

After good natured chit-chat that lasted some 20 minutes, the former governor asked point blank: do I really have a sharp tongue? — to which Ripples responded in the positive.  That piece had closed with this quip: “The gripping epitaph of the Ajimobi era?  Policy brain and beauty ruined by the tongue!”

That telephone conversation brought memories of earlier wit and joke-suffused

Ajimobi encounters: at Ibadan and Osogbo during The Nation’s now rested South

West integration confabs; at Elder Ayo Afolabi’s 70th anniversary Monday morning bash, at the University of Ibadan International Conference Centre’s main auditorium, where Ajimobi left everyone reeling with laughter, while speaking extempore!

Adieu, Isiaka  Abiola Ajimobi, the Koseleri of our time, self-named “Constituted Authority” and true founder of modern Oyo State.  When comes another?

Olakunle Abimbola

 

Remember Samuel Ladoke Akintola (SLA), second Premier of the 1st Republic Western Region, from December 1959 to January 1966?

Godwin Obaseki, the Edo governor, appears an SLA-reincarnate. The SLA-Obaseki historical parallels, in this Obaseki-Oshiomhole titanic bust-up, are simply eerie!

SLA accused Awolowo, his predecessor and party leader, of stifling control, almost crippling his Premiership.  Awo countered, slamming SLA with vaulting ambition and ultimate perfidy.

Between Obaseki and Oshiomhole, it is similar trading of mutual allegations, though Obaseki went one beyond SLA, rigging processes to oust his predecessor from his home ward, thus causing the APC national chair a severe heartache.

In 1962, SLA precipitated a crisis in the Western Parliament, foiling a session which could have guillotined him as Premier, replacing him with Alhaji Dauda Adegbenro.

In 2019 Obaseki, in a moonlight, midnight absurdist drama, inaugurated the minority of Edo Assembly-elects, shutting out the majority; for fear of impeachment, from Oshiomhole loyalists.

From 1963, SLA used strong-arm tactics to subdue a progressively restive partisan opponents, which eventually snowballed into the region-wide “wet-ie” near-anarchy.

From 2019, Obaseki has used suspect laws, harsh threats and sundry ploys, to game partisan foes, demolish rivals’ property, with Edo witnessing more political violence.

In 1962, SLA pressed into service, with his federal sponsors, the Coker Commission of Inquiry, to destroy Awo as a person; and the AG as a party, so much so that not a few were hooting the political obituary of both.

In 2019, Obaseki launched his own commission of inquiry that promptly “indicted” his predecessor; and is fishing for court orders to effect his arrest.  As with Awo and AG, not a few are singing nunc dimittis for Oshiomhole, and a possible APC collapse.

In 1962 SLA, holding tight to the Premiership, turned his AG expulsion into a “glorious” desertion, joining forces with the rival NCNC western arm, to run a post-emergency regional government, and muscle the next election with disastrous consequences.

In 2020 Obaseki, holding tight to the governorship, turned his APC disqualification into a “glorious” defection into the rival PDP.  But a key difference: SLA connived with the then “federal might”.  Now, Obaseki is jumping under the federal opposition duvet.

By that, however, the governor echoes the tragic fate of Coriolanus, in the Shakespeare tragic play of that title, who teamed up with bitter enemies, Volscians, to attack his native Rome, found it a mission-impossible, and got smitten, for treachery, by his enraged new friends.  Will Obaseki cut a different path?  Time will tell.

But that is where the Obaseki-Oshiomhole brawl segues into the classics, from contemporary political history: for it bears all the mark of tragic drama, classical or modern; complete with what the Greeks call hamartia — the tragic flaw, which almost always turns fatal for the tragic hero.

Both Governor Obaseki (desperate, at all cost, to retain his governorship); and Adams Oshiomhole (equally determined to regain his Edo political base, aside from his APC national chair) come to the gripping, bruising tragic party with enough hamartia to spare.

A grand irony: Classicist Obaseki (he earned his first degree in Classical Studies at the University of Ibadan), falls pat into the mould of the tragic hero, with a surfeit of hubris, which doomed many a tragic hero: in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex and Antigone; in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and Macbeth; and in Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus.

In all of these tragedies, sheer hubris pushed the tragic heroes to their doom — hubris, that penchant to go for broke, spurred by a tragic flaw that turned fatal.

The SLA-Obaseki parallel might be contemporary political history.  But the setting, in SLA’s 1962 and Obaseki’s 2020, may well have been in Thebes or Corinth or Troy —immortal settings of great Greek tragedies.  But are these ironies lost on the classicist governor-turned-financial whiz?

Oshiomhole, former Edo governor and Obaseki’s godfather-turned-god foe, comes with own rippling hubris too; and could well fit into the classical mould, if his estranged godson somehow pulls the Edo political rug from under his feet.

But no thanks to bitter propaganda exchanges, a picture, that immediately went viral, showed Oshiomhole as humble tailor of yore, receiving a plaque, as second best tailor in a guild contest, circa 1986!

A lowly tailor could cut Oshiomhole in the mould of Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman — that pathos-filled, no less shattering fall of a low man, in modern tragedies!

But classical or modern, Oshiomhole boasts a grand irony all his own: the one that proclaimed himself the slayer of Edo godfathers, after he politically guillotined the likes of Tony “The Fixer” Anenih (of no especially sweet political memory!), risks being slain by a godson-successor he himself installed!  It doesn’t get more grimly ironic!

Even more roiling: Philip Shuaibu, Oshiomhole’s once-upon-a-time comrade-protege from their Labour Union days, probably “planted” with Obaseki to “correct” moments like this, has spectacularly jumped ship, and become unfazed tormentor-in-chief! Poor Oshiomhole!   He is finding out, the bitter way: one man’s slippery treachery, is another man’s solid loyalty!

Still, beyond tragedies and tragic heroes, the crux of this titanic battle on the Edo front is political mentorship gone awry; and its dire implication for the democratic polity, which soul is the political party.  So, those that demonize “godfathers” miss the point.

The Awolowo-SLA tussle from 1962, and the SLA rebellion which peaked from 1963, destroyed the Action Group of Nigeria (AG).  But the AG’s destruction also ship-wrecked the 1st Republic (1960 – 1966).

AG midwifed the most tremendous social transformation in Nigerian history, when it ran the Western Region, between 1952 and 1959. Imagine what the country could have gained, had AG survived and matured till now?

But the 1st Republic did not buckle because of AG’s collapse.  It did, among other reasons, because democracy is a sham without vibrant political parties.  So, party supremacy is a key success factor, for any democratic polity.

That is the solemn crux of the matter, despite the hysteria across the partisan aisle.  Which is why every party must crush the current conceit of governors, who figure that once elected, they tower above their parties.  That’s condemnable conceit!

It destroyed the AG in 1962.  It destroyed the PDP in 2013.  It is probably destroying the APC.  That is why SLA, Obaseki and likes would always incur history’s blight.

But really, the loser, yet again, is the democratic polity, which needs a vibrant political party system, oiled by disciplined members.

But back to the dramatis personae in this gripping drama.  Even if Oshiomhole loses, in the immediate sweepstakes, his hubris would be inflexibility — to solidify the party, he would claim; to game internal dissent, his foes would counter.  Both, however, are no high dishonour.

But Obaseki?  With nary any principle or grace, and a surfeit of petulance and strong arm tactics, he has proved the governor as a constitutional monster.

By betraying both his party and benefactor, he only reinforces the fatal flaw of an earlier Obaseki, that in 1897, betrayed Oba Ovonramwen, and the Bini people, to the invading British; and undermined Eweka II, Ovonramwen’s successor, from 1914. That is no consistent flaw to lug!

Even if he wins this one, he risks a Coriolanus, “slaughtered” in strange political territory.  Still, time will tell!

Olakunle Abimbola

Book: Not An Afterthought: Private Sector Pragmatism to Government Idealism & the N-Power Success Story — A Memoir

Author: Afolabi Sokpehi Imoukhuede

Pages: 370

Reviewer:
Olakunle Abimbola

Afolabi Sokpehi Imoukhuede, the author of this work, dubs it a memoir: a detailed report card on his four-year stint, as President Muhammadu Buhari’s senior special assistant on job creation, and chief driver of N-Power, from 2015 to 2019.

That programme, between 2015 and 2019, created more than 500, 000 jobs, in graduate and non-graduate volunteers.  That is five times the size of the federal bureaucracy — all in less than four years!

N-Power is the job-creation arm of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), which itself falls under the strategic ambit of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

By 31 December 2019, wrote the author, “the stipend-only investment for N-Power alone” had gulped N346 billion — a massive amount no federal government before had spent on direct citizen investment.

Yet each volunteer, trainable youths Nigeria-wide that the author dubbed “(s)heroes of N-Power”, earned stipends between N10, 000 (for non-graduates) and N30, 000 (graduate volunteers).

Though many Nigerians would sneer at this stipend, the volunteers, as the book revealed with proof, made hay: improved their personal lots, while training as possible future entrepreneurs.

Meanwhile, they were drafted, as crucial manpower, to critical areas of national need: teachers, primary healthcare workers, skilled artisans for construction work and agricultural extension workers.

N-Power has a life-span of two years, after which the volunteers either secure permanent jobs or branch out on their own, as employers of labour — and there were even reported cases of volunteers leaving early, many to set up own shops.

But beside the N-Power main story, the author throws in, as exciting bonuses, a legacy of stimulating family history; laced with personal odyssey, at three critical junctures of his life, when all could have gone wrong.

Daddy died at 68 in 1989, when Afolabi was only in JS 3, leaving him to the care of his mum, everyone called Sisi: Mrs Olubunmi Olayinka Imoukhuede (née Olusoga), who also passed away on May 1, this year.

For alleged sharp examination practices, WAEC withheld almost the entire result of Afolabi’s 1992 SS 3 school certificate set, at the Federal Government College, Warri; thus forcing him to re-write his papers, though he was no party to any foul play.

He scaled that re-sit with enough quality grades to earn admission into the University of Lagos to read Medicine — a burning wish of his late father, which the dutiful son obeyed to honour his fond memory, though he had doubts whether he really wanted to be a medical doctor.

Still, he wasn’t sure Joseph Enaifoghe Imoukhuede, OBE, his father, would have particularly applauded his SS-3 terminal results, given the elder Imoukhuede’s 1937 brilliant exploits at King’s College, Lagos (founded in 1909), the most prestigious public secondary school of his era.

Yet in 1997, he abandoned it all (no thanks to endless ASUU strikes), for an uncharted future in America.  There, he earned a degree in Accounting from Rutgers University, secured work at KPMG, trained and honed his skill as Human Capital Strategist (HCS) — a badge of honour he clearly proudly treasures, much more than an MBBS.

That HCS certification, and his burning entrepreneurial passion, have clearly propelled him, in his N-Power assignment, which the likes of Dr. Waheed Olagunju, then acting MD of the Bank of Industry, a key collaborator in the programme, declared the biggest and most audacious job-creating programme anywhere in Africa.

So, when in 2005 he returned, after eight years in America, it was return of the native (to borrow the title of Thomas Hardy’s famous novel).  Still, as FGC Warri and MediLag experiences show, the system had badly bruised this particular native, as his father before him, with the old Imoukhuede tricked  into prisons in Biafra, during the Civil War (1967-1970) — a nasty experience Afolabi believed shortened his father’s life.

Yet like the troubadour totally devoted to the wish of his lady, he returned to help Mother Nigeria drive one of her most ambitious, perhaps Nigeria’s very first national equal-opportunity programme, to “SkillUp” her youths — SkillUp being Imoukhuede’s private-sector, industry-pushed skill development Academy, before public service duty called.

He gushed: “I finally decided in late 2005, that I would go along with my instincts and leave a developed country for my developing country.”

Nigeria would appear the clear winner here, even if the author, had he stayed back at KPMG, could now have been earning six to seven figures in US dollars.

Indeed SkillUp, and its TVET — Technical and Vocational Education Training — philosophy, which was Imoukhuede’s MCS Consultancy’s answer to the dry-up of training jobs, in the post-bank consolidation years from 2004, has aided to conceive N-Power, as presently structured.

That would explain the book’s subtitle: Private Sector Pragmatism to Government Idealism.  It’s a collaborative pubic-private sector philosophy that should be embraced in other spheres of national life.

Still, beyond Afolabi Imoukhuede and exacting but exciting odyssey, the book comes with rich historical parallels; and stimulating vignettes that underscore networking.

In 1956, Joseph Imoukhuede, the first non-Yoruba permanent secretary in the old Western Region Civil Service, was named Agent-General of that region in London, UK.  He had the mandate to administer huge sums of money in scholarships, awarded to students of that region overseas.

In 2015, Afolabi Imoukhuede got the N-Power job to administer an equally humongous budget to train and re-tool Nigerian youths for the modern economy, in the worst of economic times.

The author — and admirably so — has not shied from enthusing: across two generations, spanning the 20th and 21st centuries, the Imoukhuedes, father and son, have discharged their duty to their country, with honesty and integrity, not smudging the spotless family banner.  Not that can be said of many, in contemporary Nigeria.

Yet all through this book, the recurring theme has been team-work, processed along the P-I-E-R philosophy:  Passion, Integrity, Empathy and Reliability/Resilience.

N-Power was no one-man show: from the superintendending Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, to Imoukhuede’s then immediate boss, Mrs Mariam Uwais (who the author always hailed: “Her Excellency”, but who almost always retorted: “Which Excellency?”), to the lowest of the team members; and even the 40-odd agencies, local and international, that worked together to make N-Power a reality.

What’s the weakness of this book?  Maybe it’s an unending story masterfully told, by a basic man of numbers with nevertheless the lexis and style to say what he wants to say, in uncluttered prose!  And maybe the audacious declaration of N-Power an unqualified success, when the jury is still out.

Aside from a few mix-up in historical dates, and even fewer typos, the book will add value to any library, anywhere in the world, as an authority on Nigeria’s quest to turn her huge youth population, to tremendous human capital.