The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Fayose: The medium, not the message

    Fayose: The medium, not the message

    Even before Ayo Fayose’s puerile and morbid advert, it was disaster waiting to happen. And that disaster was not the message but the medium: the medium that exposes itself to ridicule, for the sake of lucre.

    Shit money no dey smell, goes the cynical Nigerian saying in the streets.  But this was one of those cases that it really does!  Still, the Fayose coarse, crude and ghoulish thinking was not the first.

    To recap, Fayose, the supposed Excellency that nevertheless rules Ekiti with the vulgarity of a motor park tout, let go a shocking advert, that exposes an alarming thinking process — a well and truly heart of darkness that calls for an urgent shrink.

    He suggested that since some previous Nigerian military heads of state and an elected president, who came from the Northwest died, in office, he wondered what would happen to Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, should he triumph on February 14.  Still, isn’t Second Republic President Shehu Shagari from the Northwest?  Is he not alive?

    By Fayose’s morbid illogic, that was his brilliant way of pitching votes for President Goodluck Jonathan!  Only a Fayose could proudly boast of such base thinking!

    The outrage was instant; and virtually the whole of Nigeria’s population recoiled in outrage — the whole of Nigeria, except Fayose and his ilk.  What is more?  The enfant terrible of Ekiti politics declared he had no apologies!  Indeed, it’s real fun watching a lunatic display.  But whoever prays his child is the looney stealing the show in the market square?

    Still, Fayose’s mis-advert was only the latest in the mercantilist gifting of media space (for hefty lucre, of course) to advertisers. In contemporary newspaper parlance in Nigeria, it is called “wrap-around”.

    The malady started with some corporate players, baiting the cash-parched media with naked cash, to part with media spaces in the most unlikely of spaces.  The banks pioneered this practice, followed by telecoms, and others.

    But the first real shock came with the third term agenda by former President Olusegun Obasanjo or, in any case as he claimed in his latest memoirs, My Watch, his associates who he knew were behind the third term move, but did not stop them.

    A nation that had sheer revulsion for that self-serving gambit woke up one morning to see an audacious pro-third term advert, “wrapped-around” the front and back pages of a prominent national newspaper, with the newspaper’s masthead even giving it some tacit support!

    Then, all hell broke loose. Such was the resentment against that newspaper that the market negatively reacted, causing other newspapers to be wary of such “subversive” adverts.

    Still, that blew over — and now, it is Fayose’s with its ghoulish content and demented temper.  How could any newspaper worth its editorial sanity lend its corporate face to such advertising lunacy?

    But the logic: if in strict principle, you make your front page available for any advert when you know news ought to be there, how can you in all good conscience lament that a Fayose has virtually plastered your face with rotten eggs?

    Newspaper players had better take an industry stand on such ads, before another Fayose blights them with another crudity!

  • Stinking thinking

    Stinking thinking

    Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose ought to know that there are a thousand ways to die, speaking literally and figuratively. So, it doesn’t follow that 72-year-old Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is necessarily closer to death than 57-year-old President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Fayose’s chronological calculation, which highlighted Buhari’s age as an unquestionable evidence of closeness to the grave, is both simplistic and senseless. In reality, to stretch the argument, Fayose himself could land on the other side before the two older men, even though he is 54-year-old.

    Another counter-point to Fayose’s controversial political newspaper advertisement of January 19 is that, quite apart from exhibiting a lack of good   manners, he demonstrated crooked thinking. His argument: Murtala Mohammed from the Northwest died in office;  Sani Abacha from the Northwest died in office; Umaru  Yar’Adua from the Northwest died in office;  so, Muhammadu Buhari from the Northwest may likely die in office if elected president.

    The ad said: “Will you allow history to repeat itself? Enough of state burials.”  Fayose conveniently glossed over the circumstances in which the three former political helmsmen died, but this doesn’t make his reasoning any less silly. It is puzzling that Fayose presented his thought process as logical; the illogicality was way beyond logic.

    Ironically, although designed to promote the second-term ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan, Fayose’s advertisement could actually be interpreted as a message to the electorate to vote against him. The ad said: “NIGERIANS BE WARNED! Nigeria… ‘I have set before thee LIFE & DEATH. Therefore, choose LIFE that both thee and thy seed may LIVE.’ Deut 30 vs. 19”

    This sounds like exactly the kind of message that should galvanise the electorate into electorally unseating Jonathan. It is the undesirable continuation of Jonathan in office that represents death, and not the possible election of Buhari to replace him. Is it not the Jonathan administration that has terrorised the people by deepening the country’s abysmal socio-economic conditions?

    It is noteworthy that Fayose’s language of crude desperation fits into the PDP’s developing approach to next month’s general elections. Consider the ridiculous comment by the Director of Media and Publicity of the party’s Presidential Campaign Organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode, at a news conference in Abuja. He was quoted as saying about Buhari: “We are constrained to urge him to prove to the Nigerian people that he really is as fit as a fiddle, as the spokesman of his PCO  has said, by taking a brisk walk or even jogging around the perimeter of the stadium before any of his rallies.”

    Clearly, Fani-Kayode’s suggestion is a reflection of the PDP’s level of unseriousness, not to say ludicrousness. Since what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, wouldn’t it be a nice idea for Jonathan to do the same before his rallies? Or perhaps it would be more helpful if both presidential candidates had a pre-election contest involving brisk walking and jogging. Fayose and Fani-Kayode enjoy stinking thinking.

  • Emir unusual

    Between HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, little appears to have changed.  Just as Malam Sanusi was CBN governor-unusual, so, it appears, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi would be Emir-unusual.

    After a bit of quietude since his enthronement, Emir Sanusi at the weekend gave notice of the probable temper of his Emirship, despite the arch-conservativeness of that stool.  Just as he did as CBN governor, Emir Sanusi appears set to spike his Emirship with some social crusading.

    The traditional CBN governor was to cook up monetary statistics for the extant order (the office is part of the executive, after all), quietly bring erring banks and their executives to heel and get on with the job in the best — or worst? — tradition of silence being golden (even if conspiratorially so).  Not Sanusi!

    At a stage, when his constant public x-ray of government numbers, at least as it concerned his CBN began to rile a section of the public, not the least the Jonathan Presidency, Mallam Sanusi confessed that though his dad was a diplomat, the elder Sanusi (Allah bless his soul) must have mopped up all the diplomacy in the Sanusi clan!

    A few months later, President Goodluck Jonathan struck — he “suspended” the CBN governor, less than six months to the expiry of his tenure. Ironically, Mallam Sanusi had secured his term by having it be known that he would seek no second five-year term; so his irrepressible soul could not be held back by a threat of non-renewal.

    Still, Sanusi had the last laugh — and not just because, shortly after, he was elected the Emir by Kano kingmakers. He had the last laugh because, even as CBN governor, he was a stout and gallant whistle blower, on alleged sleaze in the Jonathan Presidency.  Till date, the government has still not been able to clear Mallam Sanusi’s allegations of the missing $20 billion NNPC allegedly did not pay into the Federation Account.

    Well, just at the weekend, Emir Sanusi showed a streak of the restless though socially conscious CBN Governor Sanusi.

    At the closing ceremony of the 29th National Quranic Recitation competition at Auchi in Edo State, Emir Sanusi declared — again likely to rufftle the feathers of an already nervy and jumpy Jonathan government — that Boko Haram, the murderous Islamists, were gaining grounds because the Nigerian state was weak.

    Now, that was the truth and nothing but the truth.  But that did not make it less bitter. He also declared that the basic duty of the state was to guarantee the safety and security of its citizens.  Of course, that was trite — until the advent of Jonathan and his thousand-and-one excuses why the state, under his watch, could not deliver on that basic chore; yet he would not give up his agency for another person.

    Emir Sanusi’s follow-up statement was logical: if the state cannot defend the citizens, then the citizens must brace themselves for self-defence. This was not novel from him. He gave the same charge before, prompting Boko Haram to attack the jumat-packed central mosque in Kano, with the possible motive of eliminating him.

    Emir Sanusi, by this declaration, has sounded new alerts to the current powers-that-be that Nigerians deserve far better deals, when the issue is safety and security. When otherwise sedate Emirs become social crusaders, then the extant order has better watch it.

    That is the moral from Emir-Unusual, HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano!

  • Gold medal for golden lies

    It must qualify as the most untruthful talk, not to say the most dishonest, in this political-campaign period ahead of the country’s general elections next month. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the speaker, President Goodluck Jonathan, deserves a gold medal for golden lies.

    Jonathan was in Ekiti State to sell himself and his second-term ambition to the people, and there was nothing wrong with that. The rally venue was the Oluyemi Kayode Stadium, Ado-Ekiti. Jonathan was quoted as saying: We have been following politicians in the 70s and in the 80s. You will remember the song of Tony Wilson, who says the politician is a man of many words.”

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate continued: “He portrays the politician as somebody who will call black white and blue red. But we are redefining politics, I cannot deceive Nigerians, whatever we say, we will do, that’s what we are doing.”

    Now, there must be something wrong somewhere if Jonathan actually believed his own words and expected the people to believe him. It is interesting that Jonathan quoted a musician’s lyrics, perhaps suggesting his musical taste. It is also fascinating that he seemed to agree with the musician’s general definition of the politician, but introduced a particular self-serving and self-promoting exception.

    His epic boast, “We are redefining politics,” must be understood as including himself and his party. It would appear that Jonathan failed to recognise the possibility of a negative redefinition, and took it for granted that the expression “redefining politics” could only be interpreted positively. This demonstration of his limited understanding of his own words mirrors a fundamental personal limitation.

    If Jonathan’s is correct that his party, with him at the helm, has redefined the country’s politics, it is demonstrably not for good. So, it is nothing to crow about. What is most disturbing about his vote-seeking verbalisation is the violence against truth. It is terrorising, which is putting it mildly. Still in the context of figurative language, it may not be far-fetched to label Jonathan’s performance in Ekiti as an instance of verbal terrorism because many people must have been struck by fear – fear that the country’s president could be so brutally unfaithful to truth.

    To appreciate the horror probably triggered by this scale of presidential untruthfulness, it is useful to quote a report of the Ekiti presidential rally: “The President said his administration is targeting two million jobs every year to accommodate not less than 1.8 million graduates.” It continued: “He explained that a Presidential Jobs Board has been set up to formulate a framework to reduce the massive unemployment. The President identified the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), power sector, CBN/Federal Government micro-credit loans, YOU-WIN initiative as other areas his administration has empowered Nigerians.”

    Has Jonathan thought of the possibility of powerless empowerment? In reality, this has been the experience of the people under the Jonathan presidency. In other words, the rally was a further exhibition of Jonathan’s deceitfulness. It’s all lies, Mr. President.

  • Their Wada Noise

    Remember Wada Nas (Allah bless his soul!)?  He was the Sani Abacha loyalist, till death did them part.  Even after Gen. Abacha had exited, and the dictator’s reputation as regards sleaze was zero, Alhaji Nas never deserted his hero. He died virtually still proclaiming his trust and pride in Abacha.

    That was Wada Nas, an epitome of noble devotion to a cause, even if not a few felt that cause was ignoble.  He lived and died for what he believed.

    Every crisis time in Nigeria produces its own Wada Nas. Indeed, at the zenith of Sani Abacha’s legitimacy crisis, the good Alhaji’s voice was so grating, against common sense and popular temper, that he was simply dubbed Wada Noise.

    In the immediate aftermath of  the June 12, 1993 presidential election result annulment, the Wada Nas of that era was Comrade Uche Chukwumerije (many market folks in Lagos, where the June 12 battle was fiercest, in no less fierce anger, simply dismissed him), on account of his scare-mongering propaganda in support of the reactionary forces that scuttled that mandate.

    So ferocious was Minister Chukwumerije’s propaganda that not a few, not the least Easterners living in Lagos, believed the crisis would lead to a shooting war. Thank God, it didn’t, though road crashes claimed some fleeing travellers; and the consequent war attrition eventually consumed Abacha; and set up this democratic dispensation.

    The present Jonathan dispensation, with its eternal crisis needing urgent spinning, has produced its own Wada Nas-es.

    One was Labaran Maku, hitherto Information Minister, who gave the impression that his principal, the President, was the greatest thing that ever happened to humanity.  But partisan interest has since put paid to all that.  Maku has since jumped ship, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has come to his Nasarawa governorship rescue, and Jonathan and his party can look into their collapsing houses!

    But Maku isn’t the quintessential Nas, for Wada never jumped ship!

    Another is Doyin Okupe, the doyen of roforofo-fight-as-presidential-spinning. But when the chips are down, would he jump ship too like Maku?  That is in the belly of time. In any case, the good, old doctor and Remo blueblood is not likely to seek an elective office in a hurry.  So, we might not know if his own Wada Nas is mere noise without substance.

    But the loudest Jonathanian Nas has got to be Olisa Metuh, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national publicity secretary.  He, it was, who invented the Janjaweed label to tar the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).  He it was too, who summarily decreed, amidst boisterous partisan cheers, the rival party an “Islamic” party.  It took a Yemi Osinbajo entry into the vice-presidential race for his claim to pitifully collapse.

    But even as things are collapsing around President Jonathan and his doomed second-term presidential bid, the loquacious Olisa is still all excitement: “We have very popular and acceptable hard working candidates, which the people are anxious to vote for.  Our presidential flag bearer (standard-bearer), President Goodluck Jonathan, with verifiable achievements (ah!)… remains the candidate to beat. We have engaged in issue-based  campaigns” (ah!!) — even with Jonathan’s endless mud-slinging and bad temper?

    When the chips are down, will this Wada Nas remain true to his cause like the original, or jump ship at the earliest challenge like Maku?

    Time will tell!

  • Motor-park mentality

    Is Nigeria no more than a vast motor park? President Goodluck Jonathan introduced that possibility when he received members of the Northern Elders Council (NEC) at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. In reaction to recent criticisms of his administration, especially by two former political helmsmen, on the basis of alleged monumental corruption, Jonathan employed an interesting metaphor. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida were the apparent targets.

    Jonathan said: “Some people call themselves statesmen but they are not statesmen; they are just ordinary politicians. For you to be a statesman is not because you occupied a big office before, but the question is what are you bringing to bear? Are you building this country?” He continued: “Making provocative statements in this country, statements that will set this country ablaze and you tell me you are a senior citizen. You are not a senior citizen, you can never be; you are ordinary motor park tout.”

    It was a stinging comparison, and those who thought Jonathan went too far by likening the unnamed personalities to motor-park touts staged a counter-attack. The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) spokesman, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, said: “President Jonathan should know that in a motor park, there are touts and there are pickpockets. So, if some past leaders are touts, some sitting leaders are pickpockets and thieves. So, you have to pick from them.” According to him, “pickpockets in a motor park cheat the passengers as well as the owner of the vehicles, while touts work for a commission.”

    Isn’t it interesting and food for thought that Abdullahi didn’t reject the image of a motor park? Rather, he elaborated on motor-park structure and operation by bringing in “pickpockets and thieves” as well as “passengers” and “the owner of the vehicles.”

    It is relevant to reflect on the identities of those in the identified categories. Who are the passengers? These must be the people. Who is the owner of the vehicles? Who are the touts, pickpockets and thieves? In the picture painted by Abdullahi, “the passengers as well as the owner of the vehicles” are victims of cheating; and the beneficiaries of the system are the touts, pickpockets and thieves.

    The question must be asked: Why did Jonathan think of a motor park, which then informed the labelling of his targets as “touts”? Could it mean that Jonathan considers himself a motor-park president? If so, what are the implications of such self-perception?  Additional posers: As the self-perceived head of a motor park, what has he done to arrest the negativities of the pickpockets and thieves Abdullahi spoke about? Is Jonathan himself one of them?

    Perhaps Jonathan deserves praise for his enlightening figurative language because it has not only helped to clarify his idea of the space he governs; it has also prompted further clarification by his antagonists who appear to recognise his motor-park mentality. In this metaphorical motor park, the passengers who are perpetually short-changed will need to do something to achieve redemption. That must be the lesson to be learned from Jonathan’s motor-park imagination.

  • Et tu, IBB?

    Et tu, Brute? That was Caesar’s fatal shock — in any case, according to William Shakespeare’s dramatisation of the tragedy of Julius Caesar’s assassination by the Roman murderous conspirators of nobles.

    Among them was Marcus Brutus, the nobleman who wore his nobility like a gown, but who had to be drafted to murder Caesar — not because he hated his bosom friend, but because he loved Rome!  How about that for dramatically classical sophistry?

    Indeed, Shakespeare made it known that the shock of Brutus’s involvement in the plot was more fatal to Caesar than the other conspirators’ stabs.

    Well, even if you are not literature inclined, just carry the drama of old Rome over to modern Nigeria, and you could well imagine the shock of President Goodluck Jonathan and his court over former Military President Ibrahim Babangida’s cheeky comment on the current corruption of Jonathanian,  sorry, gargantuan proportions!

    When the news hit Aso Rock, perhaps President Jonathan had, in shock, gawked: Et tu, (You too) IBB?

    Ah, IBB too!  That is the depth of rot this country has plumbed under Jonathan. For IBB whose government is perceived — IBB insists his alleged corruption was mere perception — to have institutionalised corruption, to claim, corruption-wise, to be “saints” and “angels”, compared with the present, is well and truly confounding!

    Still, IBB does have some claims to flaunt.  For starters: the US $12.4 billion Gulf War Oil windfall alleged to have vanished. IBB claimed it never did, since there was no such windfall.

    But can Jonathan say the same of the US $20 billion oil money the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) never remitted into the Federation Account, as alleged by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (now Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano), then Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor?  Remember: it was on account of that whistle-blowing that Jonathan “suspended” Mr. Sanusi from his job?

    O yes, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Jonathan’s economic czarina, insists some forensic audit was afoot to clear the mess. But many weeks later, after the audit is supposed to be public knowledge, Madam Minister, where is that report?

    And o, there were some interesting parallels, in the EFCC-arranged (remember Fela’s Army Arrangement, AA) IBB-featured laconic and sardonic humour on corruption, which, if it were a play, should have been titled, My Regime is Less Corrupt Than Yours!

    IBB declared himself the “most investigated president Nigeria ever had”.  Jonathan had earlier christened himself the “most criticised”.  Similar crosses, would you say?

    Then Saint IBB says he made “less than” US $7 billion oil revenue; yet “I built Abuja” and also delivered Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos, besides the first dual carriageway in the North.

    Now, what is Sinner Jonathan’s bragging right to IBB’s?  As current head of IBB-reported government “making US $200 billion to US $ 300 billion”, what is Jonathan delivering?

    Well, some say retooling the railways. But others quickly snap: antiquated rail that would scandalise modernists in the Lord Lugard era?  Or maybe the president’s New Year’s resolve to fight corruption — after literally snoring for six years?

    Indeed, what should worry Jonathan and his aides is the symbolism of the IBB comment: the vanishing elite consensus from his presidency, some eight weeks shy of an epochal election!

    Well, ill luck is not transferable!

  • Seven is a number

    bsurdity has reached new heights in Ekiti State under Governor Ayo Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It is beyond belief that seven PDP members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, in a move that turned the Constitution on its head, ostensibly passed the state’s 2015 Appropriation Bill into law despite the clear lawlessness of the act. That the lawmakers conducted themselves in a dishonourable manner cannot be in doubt because they did not form a legal quorum in the 26-member legislature.

    It is unsurprising, and indeed appropriate, that the embattled Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media, Wole Olujobi, described the empty show as “one in the series of comic tales by farcical politicians holding the reins of governance in Ekiti State.”  Omirin and 18 other APC members of the House of Assembly are currently fighting to re-establish sanity in the legislature after their dramatically undemocratic marginalisation and the emergence of a dubiously dominant group of lawless lawmakers.

    It is interesting that the power-backed seven reportedly approved N80.94 billion as budget, which was about N160 million higher than the figures presented to them by Fayose. The governor’s proposal was N80.77 billion. The group leader, Dele Olugbemi, was quoted as saying: “We decided to increase the budget estimate not for any reason but to prove that we are independent.” The difference in the figures was said to be for fixing the leaking roof of the Assembly complex. Even allowing for the benefit of the doubt, considering the ugly history of large-scale official corruption in power circles across the country, it might not be out of place to smell a rat in the narrative.

    Also, there was something fishy about comments credited to Fayose who spoke to journalists at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on his return from a foreign trip. Speaking about the 19 legislators who are in his administration’s bad books, Fayose was quoted as saying: “The Speaker just called me recently and asking for their Christmas gifts. I told him they should collect from Lagos and Osun state governments or the Speakers of those states.” Isn’t it food for thought that Fayose referred to Omirin as Speaker, suggesting that Olugbemi is merely being used for the spoiler’s role?

    Again, even allowing for the benefit of the doubt, considering the mud-slinging that has marked Fayose’s approach to governance, his remarks are more likely to be a continuation of the smear campaign against the opposition. It sounds far-fetched that the lawmakers on the other side would approach him for Yuletide presents, knowing full well that he is the kind of character who would readily use such a move to score political points.

    Fayose further said: “But in my state, you were elected by some people and the people had read the riot act to them that they will not come and destabilise the state. If you attempt it, the power of the people will rise against you because their power is higher than those of us who are in power.”

    No one is fooled by Fayose’s democratic posturing. The 19 beleaguered legislators are themselves representatives of the people, and their exclusion through undemocratic means is a reflection of megalomaniacal politics.

  • Selenkere: Impunity consuming own children

    Remember Gabriel Selenkere, the Ekiti super cop?  Selenkere was  he, who days to the Ekiti governorship election in 2014, threatened to “arrest” then Governor Kayode Fayemi.  Selenkere was the commander of the local MOPOL who also happened to come from Bayelsa, the home state of the President.

    Selenkere also had other briefs — or so, it appeared.  To him, the governor and his gubernatorial court were nothing.  All that mattered was the Goodluck Jonathan presidential court in Abuja.

    “I don’t know of any governor,” — or something to that effect, he reportedly snapped, when Governor Fayemi asked him for explanation on the bedlam, which his MOPOL boys appeared to have aided and abetted.  The vice-president was in town — and that was the sole authority in the land!

    Meaning?  Nigeria might run a federation on paper, but the governor could go jump into the lake and get drowned for his pains, instead of asking stupid questions, of a super-cop, loyal to nobody but the central authorities!  It was the metaphysical ouster of the governor.  A few days later, he was out of office.

    That was the level of impunity in the run-up to Ayo Fayose’s election.  But though Fayose now sits pretty, impunity appears now consuming its own children.  Still, the grand irony is that Selenkere trip would appear for something not at all ignoble.

    To start with, MOPOL Commander Selenkere, a Superintendent of Police, reportedly had issues with his Commissioner of Police (CP), Taiwo Lakanu.  If that were true, that would appear like indiscipline, for SUPOL is some way off from CP.  But then, that is Police business.

    But his reported transfer stemmed from a much nobler act.  When Governor Fayose was making a public show of distributing his Christmas chicken, in fidelity with his stomach infrastructure policy, he had the conventional Police queue up publicly to received the largesse.

    It is unclear if Mr. Lakanu demurred.  What is clear is that policemen dutifully queued, received Fayose’s chickens and, in exchange, gifted the governor his glorious photo-op, as a benevolent Leviathan in the Yuletide season of goodwill.  But not a few stomachs churned — how could policemen in uniform possibly allow themselves the humiliation of being handed free chicken in public?

    That sentiment must have spoken to Selenkere, for he reportedly ordered his MOPOL men back to base, lest they too were exposed to such treatment.  Fayose, it would appear, did not like such temerity — not to talk of the vanished stupendous icing on the cake: the photo-ops of the all-mighty MOPOL queuing before the benevolent governor!

    To be sure, there should be no big deal about policemen, for good or for ill, queuing before a governor — after all, the governor is his state’s chief security officer, de jure, if not de facto.  But impunity is no respecter of persons!

    So, why did Fayose reportedly feel so piqued?  He probably remembered Selenkere’s Fayemi treatment — and probably felt it was a matter of time before he himself got something like that.

    Anyway, the news is Selenkere was awaiting signals to go build his empire somewhere.  Indeed, what goes around comes around.  Impunity, in Ekiti, is consuming its own children!

  • Jonathan the Great

    Was President Goodluck Jonathan speaking consciously when he said, “I don’t expect praises now, until I leave office”? Or was he consciously trying to impress his guests?  It’s been a long night of irredeemably poor governance by his administration, and the fact that he is still in power may explain why he has interpreted the fiasco in amusingly positive terms. To choose to see the comical side of his perspective is to play down its shocking quality.

    He made this remark, among other equally ludicrous comments, while receiving a delegation of traditional rulers and leaders from Bayelsa State at his presidential residence in Abuja. Jonathan further said: “People don’t often give credit when the man is still there. They often do it when he has left and another man is in charge. When they make comparison, they will begin to see the great things the former man did.”

    Thankfully he said “people” and not “the people”. What’s the difference? Well, of course, there are people who are likely to shed tears when Jonathan leaves office because it would mean that the door to their ill-gotten wealth has been shut. With Jonathan out of power, those who have exploited his tenure for personal profit at the expense of the masses, and who are unsatiated based on their gargantuan greed, will naturally sink into a depressive state. Such socio-economic wreckers constitute a circle that is certainly anti-multitude.

    It is a disturbing reflection of Jonathan’s shaky grasp of democratic essence that he apparently believes the people, the actual custodians of political sovereignty, cannot recognise good governance or appreciate creditable governmental performance. Even more alarming is the clear implication that Jonathan considers his own self-rating significantly more credible than how he is graded by the majority.

    Imagine Jonathan suggesting that he has done “great things” as president! Ordinarily, his exaggerated sense of self-worth and official achievement could be excused as a manifestation of sheer confusion. But it is probably a sign of a deeper and more serious condition, perhaps a sickness of the mind. Don’t forget that this is the same man who continues to equate himself with indisputable political greats at the international level, in a long-running comedy of grandiose delusions. It is laughable that he was quoted as saying, “people do not often give credit to great men when they are still in charge.” So, Jonathan is a great man, in his own imagination. Surely, it requires a stretch of the mind to accommodate the thought of Jonathan the Great.

    “If Nigerians didn’t want me to be here, when I contested elections in 2011, I wouldn’t be here,” he reportedly said to the visitors. “But they voted for us and we are here.”  Without exploring the purity of his alleged win in 2011, it is sufficient to highlight what he himself hints at in his reasoning, if he may be credited with a logical thought process, which is that the people have the power to vote against him and deflate his dream of a second term. If and when that happens, it would be bye to a grandiosely delusional character.