The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Between Hobson and sigidi

    Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former military head of state and two-term elected president, is again a riveting cross-cultural symbol between the English Hobson, and the Yoruba sigidi (mud sculpture).

    Hobson was the English Cambridge stable owner (1544-1631), whose personal choice was every rider’s compulsory choice — hence the quip, “Hobson’s choice”.  If you went to Hobson’s stable, you got the stallion he handed you or nothing.

    Well, with the Yoruba, the hubristic sigidi was all fine until he jerked awake one morning and started dreaming of tumbling in the pond for an open bath.  Pray, who does not know that the sigidi heads for his doom — doesn’t mud melt in water? — with zest?

    In 1999, after MKO Abiola’s 1998 martyrdom, Obasanjo was the fleeing military’s and some northern power brokers’ Hobson choice.  The Yoruba wanted compensation for MKO’s loss, ko?   We’ll give them our own Yoruba man, not the Yoruba’s choice!

    And so, it came to pass; and Obasanjo became president, willy-nilly awarded himself a second term, and even dreamt a third term — o sigidi!  At the Abraham Adesanya 10th anniversary memorial in Lagos in May 2, Obasanjo, with his own mouth, spoke of how Baba Adesanya and the then ascendant Afenifere thrice rejected him.

    Despite the collapse of the third term, and the rotten moral progeny of the so-called Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) — first in Africa! — Obasanjo has somewhat packaged himself as some sane voice on the polity, despite the rot that always oozes from his camp, whenever he tries to play the pope.

    Now, these are interesting times.  The puppet of yore now declares himself the new puppeteer.  The one others made king — for their own selfish end — now proclaims himself kingmaker — on his own selfish term!  If you doubt, just rewind the ugly spat between Obasanjo and Olu Falae, both of them studies in mutual opportunism gone awry, over the breakdown of the talks between Obasanjo’s  Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) and Falae’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), for the so-called third force.

    Well, Obasanjo just chose the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for his latest racket, and its christening was redolent with Obasanjo-esque tumbling adjectives, exalting his own emptiness, thumbing down others’ fullness.  Even in the Obasanjo-esque Hobson world, every other thinking must vanish before Baba Iyabo’s!

    But that’s where Obasanjo’s Hobson veers into the hubristic sigidi.  The sigidi is all solid and beautiful until it starts flirting with a bath of water.  Chinua Achebe would call it not only wrestling with your personal chi, but also infuriating it with so much bile.  The result of such misadventure is predictable.

    Hardball just wanders what community value Obasanjo would point to, when the chips are down, to qualify him as a kingmaker, decreeing a new political direction: the Ota township roads that got a boost during his presidency, Lagos that became less of a “jungle” during his eight-year presidency, Lagos-Ibadan expressway that he fixed, or even Abeokuta that got transformed, by the Ibikunle Amosun governorship, not during the Obasanjo era.

    But of course!  OOPL is there.  That is enough trophy for all — remember the selfish Tortoise that changed his name to “All of you” to corner all the gravy in Chinua

    Achebe’s Thing Fall Apart?  Sigidi!

     

  • Wake up

    It is inexcusable that five months into 2018, Nigeria’s budget for the year has not been passed by the National Assembly. It is six months after President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2018 budget to the federal legislature.  When Buhari presented the budget to the lawmakers on November 7, 2017, he urged them to pass it without delay so that the country could return to the January – December budget cycle, which had been disrupted for several years because of delayed approval. It is noteworthy that this year’s delay is the longest since the country returned to democratic rule in 1999.

    An interesting May 9 report said: “Last week, the House of Representatives  promised that the budget would be laid yesterday and passed before the end of the week. But the Order Paper of the House carried no such item. Reporters were also not told why it was not listed.”

    The report also said: “Briefing reporters last Thursday, House Committee on Media and Publicity Chairman Abdulrasak Namdas said: “By the Grace of God, we will lay the budget on Tuesday (yesterday) and then try to pass it that same week. We are laying it on Tuesday and I can assure you that within that same week, we’re going to pass it. We tried to do that, but, you know, the budget is a voluminous document. Actually, we’ve been working hard so that we can beat the deadline, and hopefully this time around, I can assure you that by next week (this week), everything about the budget will be concluded and passed.” The Senate also gave assurance on the passage of the budget this week. On Monday after meeting with President Buhari, Senate President Bukola Saraki said the budget might be laid this week and passed next week.”

    What will the lawmakers say next? It is particularly worrying that the National Assembly’s delay in passing the 2018 budget may ultimately affect the planning and running of the 2019 elections.

    The Commissioner for Voter Education, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Solomon Soyebi, has expressed concern about the situation as it affects its functions: “Time is running out. We expect the budget to have come out at least a year to the elections. We have less than a year and we should not be talking about the budget now, but implementation…So, it gives us concern because we don’t want funds to hamper the elections in 2019… If we had had more funds, most of the problems associated with this Continuous Voter Registration would not have occurred at all.”

    The National Assembly should wake up.

     

     

  • Wike and the executioner’s fret

    Don’t know if the Ikwere have a similar saying, but Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike’s media war, against ACP Akin Fakorede, commander of F-SARS, Rivers State, appears akin to the Yoruba saying: beware of stealing the only cockerel of the wretched.  If you did, you’d sentence yourself to a miserable life of perpetual bad-mouthing.

    O, there is even an apter but grimmer one, having to do with the executioner that, with morbid relish, lops off his victims’ heads — all in a day’s work.  But try as much as zip a dagger, no matter how blunt, around our cold executioner?  He goes ga-ga with panic and fretting and sweating!

    Well, this is no Thursday morning lecture in comparative culture — Ikwere and Yoruba, as case studies.  It is rather putting in perspective the anti-Fakorede advert hysteria the Wike Rivers government has pushed out these past two weeks — or more.

    The Wike government accuses ACP Fokorede of sundry infractions, its own scorched earth blitz to get the dreaded(?) policeman transferred from the state, if not outright sacked.

    The merits or demerits of the Rivers government’s case against the policeman; and the officer’s defence, are not really of concern to Hardball.  The authorities should look into the matter and be fair to all concerned.

    Still, in the present Rivers anti-Fokorede hysteria, there is deja vu so hilarious, if it were not so tragic.  So, a ruthless hunter could easily turn pitiable hunted, weeping and screeching and screaming and bawling and whimpering so pitiably?  Ha!

    Once upon a time, there was another police officer named Mbu Joseph Mbu, in that same Rivers State.  A certain Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi was the governor.  But Commissioner of Police (CP) Mbu was presidential viceroy, in police uniform, by the grace of His Excellency, President Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR, commander-in-chief of the armed forces.  But the powerhouse wasn’t complete without his Empress, and real power behind, in front, by the side, above and below the throne, Her Majestic Excellency, Patience Faka Jonathan, Okrika Original and Supreme Daughter of the Soil, and even more Supreme First Lady of the Federal Republic.

    With such formidable Federal Might, Mbu could do and undo — she had the Royal Faka charter!  Back then, this same Wike, now screaming and screeching, had Mbu, Amaechi’s tormentor-in-chief, at his beck and call.  The sitting governor was no more than a gubernatorial irritant, which the all-mighty Mbu could easily have crushed, but for some irascible constitutional nonsense that stood in the way.

    But now, less than three years later, it’s similar hysteria coming from the same Rivers Government House!  Wike, perpetrator of yore, now yells and bawls and whimpers as victim — Karma be praised!  Indeed, what goes around comes around.

    For the sake of sane federalism, let the police authorities dispassionately look into the matter.  But Hardball has absolutely no sympathy for Wike.  It is simply sweet Karma at work.

    The Rivers past drama of Amaechi and Mbu, and the current Wike hysteria over

    Fakorede, teach a sound lesson: impunity consumes its perpetrator — and Wike is sweet and living proof.

    Talk of the executioner fretting at the nearest whiz of a sword!

  • Prison is no picnic

    it is not clear what treatment Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, aka Evans, expected in prison. But it is clear that what he is getting is not what he imagined. He is facing trial for alleged high-profile kidnapping and may not understand that life in prison is no picnic.

    Evans was at the Lagos State High Court in Igbosere on May 7.   He reportedly complained to the judge: “Since I have been in the maximum prison, they have been maltreating me; no visit, they don’t feed me well, I have eye problem and I cannot see far.”

    At a point, Evans reportedly broke down in tears.  He cried: “What have I done to you people? They have been beating me; no good food; I have been locked up in one place since August 30 last year.  Why are they taking my case personally? Let me face my trial alive. Why do you people want to kill me?”

    News of his arrest on June 10, 2017, at his classy home at Magodo, Lagos, had elements of a thriller. The police described him as “the most brilliant, richest and craftiest kidnapper in the country’s history.” Evans, a native of Umudun, Nnewi, Anambra State, was arrested about three weeks after the announcement of N30m bounty by the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, for information that could lead to his arrest. He had been on the wanted list of the police in three states, Edo, Anambra and Lagos, for over four years; and police interest in him had been renewed by his alleged involvement in the abduction of Innocent Duru, the owner of a multi-national pharmaceutical company in Ilupeju, Lagos.

    Evans told the story of how he “decided to start kidnapping rich men for ransom.” In 10 years, he acquired a reputation as a high-profile kidnapper. He made a lot of money from his captives. He always demanded huge ransoms, usually in foreign currencies. He lived large.

    Then he fell. A report said: “Evans and his gang met their waterloo with the kidnap of billionaire pharmacist Innocent Duru, who they wanted to kill after collecting a ransom. The victim was with the kidnappers at 21 Prophet Asaye Close, New Igando, Lagos, for over five months. He eventually escaped and gave the police the information which led to the busting of the gang.”

    It is interesting that prison officials reportedly maintained that Evans was being given the same treatment as other inmates. He should stop weeping and face the reality of his trial.

     

     

  • Guess the guest lecturer on ideology? Mimiko

    At the May 2 symposium in Lagos to mark the 10th anniversary of the passage of Afenifere Leader, Senator Abraham Aderibigbe Adesanya (AAA), a young contributor, at the question-and-answer session, wondered if ideology was still relevant in Nigerian politics.

    He had been impressed by how speaker after speaker regaled the gathering with the principle and steadfastness and doughty ideology of AAA’s politics; and how he wouldn’t bat an eyelid to die for his principles.

    Yet the young man was scandalised with the way politicians moved seamlessly from party to party, ideology be damned, making him to wonder if ideology still existed in Nigerian politics.

    When broadcast ace Yori Folarin moderator of the symposium, gave Dr. Olusegun Mimiko,former Ondo State governor the floor, Mimiko declared “irresistible”, his urge to speak on the matter.

    And he fired off, on a brilliant lecture really, on why ideology would always be an integral part of Nigerian — and for that matter, any — politics, since politics was the frame on which any form of governance was hanged.  True.

    He also declared that the problem with Nigeria had always been the conservatives on the upswing, leaving the progressives in the lurch; and, in the process, plunging the masses into poverty and underdevelopment — hear, hear, hear!

    Then he zeroed in, on what he called “financialism”,  the latest form of political conservatism —  as the inimitable Kwame Nkrumah (God bless his soul), would dub neocolonialism the latest stage of imperialism? — which explained, he added, why near-zero investment was going into schools, hospitals and even the real productive sectors of the economy.

    Why should you, he posed that leading question quite triumphantly, when you could sit by your computer, punch the buttons and gross billions, just like that! — applause, applause, thunderous applause, for the brilliant lecturer!

    But apart from the rogue pastor in the Yoruba quip that warns his congregants to “do what I say and not what I do”, where does Mimiko himself stand in the ideological matrix?

    Between 1999 and 2014, Mimiko had traversed the entire ideological spectrum: Alliance for Democracy (AD, progressive: 1999-2003); Peoples Democratic Party (PDP, conservative: 2003-2007, even becoming secretary to the Ondo government and a minister under President Obasanjo to the bargain); Labour Party (LP, progressive conservative, conservative progressive, and which other hybrid?: 2007-2014, replete with the Ondo governorship); and back to PDP, neo-conservative?: 2015)!

    Now what do you think — our brilliant lecturer himself as excellent and majestic profile in ideology-neuter politics?

    Fela, on the other side, must be very excited this morning, on Mimiko and the gold ideology lecture.

    “Tisa,” he is humming, his Abami Eda eye glinting with eager mischief, “no teach me nonsense!” 

    What!  Even AAA himself is rocking!

  • Ajekun Iya to Ajeku Iya

    For Dino Melaye, master of the din from the Eighth Senate and peculiar senator from Kogi West, Ajekun Iya appears morphing into Ajeku Iya — and it isn’t pretty!

    In writing, that could be a careless typo, removing an “n” which should have gone with the phrase.  But in the highly evocative Yoruba language, which complex intonations echo with even more complex meanings, that is a big deal.

    When the high drama started as “Ajekun Iya“, it was the flashing and mercurial and commanding Dino, that bristled and prowled all over the place, the hunter-in-chief and king of the senatorial jungle, roaring to hunt down any sorry soul, that as much as raised a wimp against his self-declared hegemony — Ajekun Iya!

    But now, seeing the sorry sight Dino cut when he was stretchered to the Chief Magistrate’s Court, Abuja, lying in a heap of sorry beef, shopping for free sympathy, you’re constrained to think maybe, just maybe, the fiery hunter had become the sorry hunted — Ajeku Iya!

    Non-Yoruba speakers may not fully get Hardball’s drift, and the devastating bite of the pun, instantly clear to native speakers.  Suffice it to say: while Ajekun Iya connotes the unsparing juggernaut willing and ready to further tan his luckless victim (Dino, then), Ajeku Iya is the direct opposite: the sorry glutton for punishment, whose plight is self-imposed and deserves no pity (Dino, now)!

    But beyond the nadir of Dino’s empty politics and vacuous grandstanding, there is something in the self-caused fall of (wo)men of standing — and Dino, as a senator ought to be a man of standing, until he dwarfed his position with juvenile conduct and wayward behaviours — that demeans common humanity.

    The great Roman masters called it hubris.  In Roman classical theatre and even in Shakespeare, the hero often develops a fatal flaw; and that flaw drives him or her to his doom — reference the great Anthony, in Shakespeare’s historical tragedy, Anthony and Cleopatra.

    The Greeks were even more severe, as malevolent gods just seemed to snare uppity man, and glory at his loud fall — again, visit the travails of King Oedipus, in Sophocles’s famous play, Oedipus Rex: the man that did everything to avert a dire prophesy of killing his father and marrying his mother but ended up doing exactly both!

    For poor Oedipus, the pathos was deep because he strove very hard to avert the catastrophe.  At least, in your deep sympathy, you blame the baleful gods, playing yo-yo with humans.

    But how do you find sympathy for “gods”, who suddenly found out they were no more than men?  That’s the self-imposed tragedy of Dino.

    But it’s no time to laugh, or to mock, or to gloat.  It’s only a time to be sober and learn.  However his trial turns, it’s clear Dino has run himself into a cul-de-sac — and it’s all so avoidable!

    Meanwhile, when will Bukola Saraki’s Senate prorogue to attend Dino’s court sessions?  Isn’t what is sauce for the goose also sauce for the gender?

    Again, it’s no time to gloat or to mock; just a time to drive home that harsh fact: if a Senate abandons lofty function of state to play in the nadir of empty politicking, it sets the Lilliputian level by which it wants to be rated.

    So, as it was with the Saraki court sittings, so it should be with Dino’s court sessions — all animals, after all, are equal — Ajeku Iya!

  • Ghosts did it

    Not only did the move to recall Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West) fail, the result of the verification of signatories to the recall petition by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showed that the attempt was unpopular. INEC said only 18, 762 signatures were genuine, though there were 39, 285 signatories. INEC’s presiding officer for the verification, Prof. Okente Morthy of the University of Abuja, said the number of genuine signatures fell short of the number required.    A report said: “The genuine signatories represent a dismal 5.34 per cent of the total signatories to the petition, which fell short of 51 per cent or 98,364 signatures required for the petition to sail through. It was observed that the verification failed largely due to fictitious and forged signatures and names of dead persons affixed to the recall petition by its promoters.”

    It is noteworthy that before the verification Senator Melaye had alleged that there were forged signatures in the petition against him.  Melaye had reportedly said through one of his legislative aides, Malam Abubakar Sadiq: “Let me also say authoritatively that here in Lokoja Local Government Council, several others whose names and signatures appeared on the list of the signatories to this failed exercise were identified and known to us as being dead long before now. Such people like late Abdullahi Abubakar, his immediate younger sister late Halima Lawal Abubakar and Ibrahim Adama of Unit Code 021, Adankolo Ring Road in Ward ‘A’, Lokoja Local Government Council.”

    Whether Melaye’s forgery claims were correct or incorrect, whether the petitioners were verifiable or unverifiable, there is a time to prove or disprove, and there is a lawful body in charge of verification. Now that INEC has exposed fictitious and forged signatures and names of dead persons in the recall petition, it is time to find out what happened.

    Some of Melaye’s constituents had submitted a petition to recall the senator to INEC’s headquarters in Abuja in June 2017.  A report said: “One Mr. Cornelius Olowo led the petitioners to submit the recall petition which alleged poor representation as one of the reasons for the move to recall Melaye.”

    It is interesting that Kogi State Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Haddy Ametuo, was quoted as saying that “some ghosts” initiated the recall process against Senator Melaye. So, the police should be looking for the “ghosts” in this plot, including ghost petitioners and ghost forgers.

     

     

     

  • Between Adesanya and Adedibu

    Abraham Adesanya and Lamidi Adedibu offer contrasting paths, which present-day politicians are free tread.

    Chief Adesanya died 10 years ago.  But today a sterling assemblage, split into resource persons and the audience, is gathering in Lagos to discuss the future, tied to his memory.  The title of the symposium: “Leadership and the future of Nigeria”.  It is a classic of facing the future, armed with stellar legacies from the past.

    Alhaji Adedibu is not quite dead for 10 years.  He died seven years ago.  Perhaps to mark 10 years of his death, in three years time, his Amala-and-Gbegiri brood of rambunctious politicians would gather to do him requisite honour.  Until then, we’ll have to see what happens.  But given the reported abandonment of his once quaking Aafin Molete in Ibadan, the prognosis is not so good.

    That would appear the difference between the narrow and winding way of politics that leads to salvation; and the wide and merry way that leads to perdition.

    Adesanya, all his life, stuck to that narrow way, no matter the odds; no matter the discomfort, no matter the danger.  A faction of the South West progressives share federal power today, courtesy the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential triumph in the 2015 elections.

    But Adesanya, though he epitomized the Yoruba political ethos as much as anyone in his generation, never basked in federal power.  All his political life, he played opposition politics, but with dignity, with rigour, with principle.  He lived and died, revered by friend and foe.

    Adedibu was an unfazed wheeler-dealer, if ever there was one.  Politics to him was just another pay cheque, without scruples.  During the Abacha iron dictatorship, when Adesanya and other National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) braves were virtually walking in the valley and shadows of death, Adedibu and co were making merry in an unending gravy.

    When he showed up as a putative member of then All People’s Party (APP), his political leprosy so nettled the purists, who later fled to form the Alliance for Democracy (AD), to trumpet: Abacha People’s Party!  That was the end of that poor party in Yorubaland.

    Adedibu’s political merchandizing would drive him into the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), after it had been fully formed in then sitting President Olusegun Obasanjo’s grim image, and the more decent elements in-there had been weeded out.

    The Alaafin Molete, in his capacity as Obasanjo’s South West garrison commander, took full charge, as sector commander in the South West electoral front, in the infamous do-or-die electoral war of 2007.  When mighty Lamidi sneezed, even sitting governors, like Alhaji Rashidi Ladoja, caught a cold and trembled with fear!

    Adedibu, linked to Adegoke Adelabu, the great Ibadan politician, again echoed the Karl Marx quip that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.

    Adedibu farcically aped the Adelabu school of street-wise politics, but without Adelabu’s clock-like ticking intellect.  Busari Adelakun first essayed that aping.  He ended a tragedy.  Adedibu tried a second encore.  He ended a farce.

    Still, the Alaafin Molete had something going for him — proverbial generosity, and fellow-feeling for his plebs, many of them opportunistic, power-craving hustlers without scruples.  That was why his Aafin rocked with Amala-and-Gbegiri feastin g, 24-7, with the multitude feeding in tribute to Abula politics!

    But less than 10 years after, it’s deathly quiet on the feasting floor!

    It is the exact opposite with Adesanya, who followed the narrow and tortuous way; but left a legacy to crow about.  The evidence is today’s Lagos gathering, 10 years after.

    Adesanya of Adedibu?  Current politician can make their choice.  As the English say, as you lay your bed, you lie on it.

     

     

  • Serving two masters

    It is curious that former Osun State Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola is clinging to his position as board chairman of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). A report said he “presided over a major three-day international conference that ended in Abuja” on April 29 in his capacity as NIMC chairman.

    According to the report,  ”during the “Identity for Africa” international conference at which some 760 government officials from 47 African countries joined hundreds of technical experts to brainstorm on digital identity, security and population issues, Oyinlola maintained his position as chairman of NIMC and presented an address. It added: “He was acknowledged as one of the eminent persons in attendance along with Secretary to the Government of the Federation Boss Mustapha, who represented  Buhari, Minister of Interior Maj.-Gen. Dambazau and a host of others from Nigeria and the global community.”

    It is curious that Oyinlola doesn’t see a conflict between his position as NIMC chairman and his romance with the Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) promoted by ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. Oyinlola was at the launch of CNM in Abuja on January 31. The group’s objective is to work against the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Oyinlola owes his NIMC position to the Buhari administration, which makes it interesting that he is supporting a group that is interested in making Buhari fail in next year’s presidential election.

    Is Oyinlola conscious of the incongruity of working for the Buhari administration and at the same time working against the Buhari administration? It is called running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Only those who do so can understand it. In other words, it is not understandable to those who understand the meaning of consistency.

    The report said: “When The Nation met him at the International Conference Centre, Oyinlola was eagerly responding to questions but he entered his car and drove away immediately he was asked about his continued chairmanship of NIMC board while mobilising for a political war against the ruling party.”We are talking about harmonisation of national identity here,” he remarked and turned away to hurriedly enter his car.”

    Oyinlola should know that we are also talking about loyalty, which is difficult when it comes to the question of serving two masters at the same time.  A saying of Jesus is relevant here: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.”

  • Baba Iyabo and willy-nilly relevance

    Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of the Federal Republic, lives on the rare oxygen of relevance.  So, you’d appreciate the extreme length he’d go, to ensure that oxygen isn’t turned off.

    The snag, however, is that the law of diminishing returns appears setting in.  Whereas the one and only Baba Iyabo was sounding poetic and lyrical, in his endless grandstanding on transparency, good governance and anti-corruption, the self-mockery from that dubious campaign appears forcing him down from his fake moral high horse.

    His latest campaign — no prize for guessing right against who — is springing from social media hysteria, over President Muhammadu Buhari’s London goof, over the work ethos of the Nigerian youth.

    The old Baba Iyabo has pressed himself into an opportunistic service for the youth, quipping that no good grandfather tells his youths that they are lazy.  The president’s goof may be impolitic and his opponents may well enjoy their days in the sun as they make a meal of it.

    But it’s not true — and the posturing former general himself knows — that fathers and grandfathers don’t rebuke the youth on account of alleged laziness.  Even Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the greatest sage of his generation, that needed no personal shrine to immortalize him, said that much in 1974.  The privilege to chastise the youth comes with the wisdom and severity of age in African culture.

    Still, who doesn’t  remember that as a callow youth himself, Baba Iyabo trod the contrary path, hauling insults at elders, much more distinguished than he?  If you doubt, get and read his Not My Will, his immediate post-military head of state memoirs.

    In that book, he summarily tried and condemned Gen. Yakubu Gowon, his former commander-in-chief, petulantly dismissing him as “Mr. Gowon”, for no more than unproven allegations of involvement in the abortive coup that claimed Gen. Murtala Muhammed.  Well, the good Lord has preserved Obasanjo’s life to witness Gen. Gowon regain his honour.

    In that same book, he dismissed Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first ceremonial president, as shrinking from Great Zik of Africa to a mere Owelle of Onitsha!  Well, the no-nonsense Gen. Theophilus Danjuma has also strafed Baba Iyabo as diminishing from Obasanjo of the globe to Aremu of Ota!

    Obasanjo also mocked, to no end, the great Awo, who he said pursued, all his life, the Nigerian presidency, which Obasanjo further taunted, was thrust on him on a platter of gold!

    Applause, applause to the callow youth of yore!  But God in His infinite wisdom has also preserved Obasanjo to old age, to see the Awo he despised and mocked, still set the tone for noble discourse, 31 years after his death.  Our past youth, now old, has changed little from the Not My Will Narcissus, shooting others down to willy-nilly stay up.  Hardly a noble path to follow!

    But back to the Buhari goof and Baba Iyabo’s latest activism, as commander-in-chief of the bruised Nigerian youth.  Still, isn’t that too many rungs down the hierarchy of edifying discourse, that started with glib pontifications on anti-corruption, transparency and good governance?

    Against even silent radiations from a taciturn Buhari, might such Obasanjo preachments equate spicy self-mockery, given his record of service, as both military head of state and two-term elected president?

    But then, Baba Iyabo must seek relevance as fish seeks water.  So, grant him that democratic right to pick his stage — lofty or plebeian.