Category: Yomi Odunuga

It was a sombre moment in Mt. Aso Rock last Sunday when Brother Jona mounted the altar to read from the book of lamentations. The day was special in many ways. Of course, the congregation wore the usually inexpensive plastic laughter on their faces as they occasionally exchanged banter. However, that facade did not obliterate the pervasive gloom that filled the space. This time, the venue was the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Life Camp, Gwarimpa where a thanksgiving and farewell service was held in honour of President Goodluck Jonathan and his family. If he had wanted, he could have picked any of those inspiring verses from the Songs of David, especially when his loving wife was making her first public appearance since the day the First Couple was routed out of office in the March 28 election. As a Christian, Brother Jona understands the spiritual interpretation of giving thanks to God in all things. Yet, being human, we cannot blame him if he chooses to lament the scary realities that await him once he steps out of office on May 29. Really, it is not a laughing matter and Brother Jona was not laughing in his long canticles that day. As for Knucklehead, his long-winding sermon could just be an abridged version of the autobiography of his 50-something years on Mother Earth.

Jonathan needed to voice out the many contradictions that bedevil his stewardship. Being a self-confessed prisoner of power in the last 16 years, it suddenly dawned on Brother Jona that those who were swarming around him some months back; those who continually nudged him on as the best gift to humanity in Nigeria; all those who worshipped at his feet are gradually thinning out. They no longer choke him with love. Where could his friends have gone? He wondered. He even whined about the glaring prospect of losing more friends as soon as he hands over power to General Muhammadu Buhari on May 29. De-robed of the immense power he once wielded whilst these same ‘friends’ pandered to his whims, Brother Jona now knows that all that would be history. Soon, he would have to chew his loss alone. The same persons that genuflected before him would mock and snigger at him. He knows his trials and travails are about to unveil as the handover date draws nearer. As he braces up for the challenge, the altar offers him the chance to externalise his thoughts and he made effective use of that opportunity. It was, to me, Jonathan’s moment of purgation; his time to lament his uncommon fate.

Well, it turned out that Brother Jona’s patient wife was not the only one that is scared stiff of the Nigerian prisons even though VIPs and moneybags get preferential treatment. Brother Jona, whose love for this country is that strong that he expressed his convictions to pay the supreme sacrifice if need be, spoke of the ‘costly decisions’ he made and which may eventually lead to his waterloo. Perchance the incoming administration calls on him to make clarifications on certain issues, Brother Jona says such would not be for any altruistic reason other than the trial of a good man. Aptly put, it would be the persecution (not prosecution) of a patriot and his gang. Washing his hands squeaky clean of any misconduct in his 16-year sojourn, the outgoing President wonders why he should be hounded for engendering an “electoral process and other things that brought stability to this country.”

Waxing needlessly sanctimonious, Brother Jona expressed concerns about the fate that awaits his men outside power. And so, it is not just about the ‘rough’ road that he is bound to tread as he retires to his hilltop mansion like many other past leaders before him. It is also about the drill that those who work closely with him would be made to go through by an administration that has vowed to make public officers account for their conduct or otherwise in office. In other climes, they call it investigation after which those found wanting would be duly prosecuted and appropriate punishment meted out. To our President, it is would amount to nothing short of persecution, which presumes the innocence of these public officers.

Hear him: “For ministers and aides who served with me, I sympathise with them; they will be persecuted. And they must be ready for that persecution. To my ministers, I wish you what I wish myself. They will have hard times; we will all have hard times. Our ways will be rough.

“Some people come to me and say this or that person, is he not your friend that benefited? Is it not your government that this person benefited from? But this is what the person is saying. But I always say worse statements will come. If you take certain decisions, you should know that those close to you will even abandon you at some point. And I tell them that more of my so-called friends will disappear.”

By the way, it is understandable if the President feels disturbed at the rate his friends now desert him – fleeting temporal nature of earthly power. But that is not enough excuse for the needless religious slant he unwittingly introduced to a simple matter of service and accountability. If he did not know, there is a whole world of difference between persecution and prosecution. Besides, it is surprising that Jonathan should be crying wolf over the gradual reduction of his band of friends. How did he think Obasanjo coped when those same friends shifted base to Aso Rock immediately Jonathan became his own man? Here I speak of the Ojo Maduekwes, the Ahmadu Alis, the Tony Anenihs, the Adamu Muazus and the Femi Fani-Kayodes. Or has Brother Jona forgotten so soon that he used to be one of the few trusted ‘friends’ of Obasanjo until he broke up with his ‘motor park tout” political godfather?

It is, to say the least; presumptuous that all that Jonathan thinks of the incoming government is the warped belief of a witch-hunt and putting key members of his cabinet in the sun to dry. There should be more to governance than such pettiness. It is, however, within the bounds of decency and good governance for the new government to seek answers to any foggy contractual deals wrapped up by the outgoing or any other government for that matter. Even an unlettered village boy knows that one day, impunity would yield its ‘rewards’. If this is what Jonathan equates to persecution, then he is way off the mark. If his government did things in accordance with the laid down rules and regulations, there should be nothing to fear even if the incoming government is on a witch-hunt. I don’t want to belief that the Yar’Adua/Jonathan presidency was on a persecution drive when it insisted on probing how the Obasanjo administration spent billions of dollars on generating megawatts of darkness for a populace that has become a micro local government in all matters particular.

The good thing in all this is that Brother Jona has told us that he would be vacating office a fulfilled man. Why shouldn’t he? In fact, he needs to be grateful for an unusually long run of exceptional luck that lasted solid 16 years until the electorate expressly announced through the ballot that they would not patiently tolerate the another four years of bumbling leadership. Why shouldn’t Jonathan be fulfilled when his Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has told Nigerians that the administration will handover solid economic legacies to Buhari few days from now? While thousands of Nigerians spend hours queuing for fuel, the minister said Jonathan has made “measurable difference in many important areas.”  She listed, among several other things, the revolution in the agricultural sector; the National Automotive Policy which must have made the prices of locally manufactured cars so cheap that our roads would no longer be clustered with Keke NAPEP; the fact that Nigeria is now the net exporter of cement as prices rise astronomically at the local markets; the yearly creation of 1.4 million jobs while millions of unemployed persons slap the streets daily in search of a living; and the massive infrastructural revolution that makes it possible for every Nigerian to enjoy uninterrupted electricity supply in their homes and work places.

With all the achievements “eye-marked” for Brother Jona by one of his trusted ministers on a day he was busy reading from the book of lamentation, it beggars belief that a fulfilled man would be making a meal out of a planned prosecution. Oh, I now get it. Could they have suddenly become jittery because of the likely consequences of a probe into Emir Sanusi’s allegations over the routinely missing oil billions as well as the hollowness of the PwC audit report? Well, I concur that these allegations are weighty enough to give anyone who is remotely involved some really scary and sleepless nights under Buhari’s watch!

Like the APC has rightly noted, it is preposterous that Brother Jona and his friends have started playing the victims by exhibiting persecution mentality when all that would be required of them is to simply give an account of their actions and inaction while in office. That should not be a difficult task to do by a government that claims to be an all-rounder in all spheres of human endeavours, including the fight against insurgency. Anyway, since Jonathan has chosen to go the way of his faith, it is apt to remind him of a verse in the Good Book which says: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him out of them all (Psalm 34:19).” Let those that go to equity go with cleans hands so that no arrow of persecution or prosecution fashioned against them shall prosper! Or is there something that they know in the corridors of power that the ordinary folks rummaging the land for a living don’t know? Could that be the reason for this lamentation before the real trial begins?

As predicted by this column some months back, the hawks in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have started stringing their jagged lullaby of self-destruct. Less than six weeks after the woeful performance at a general election that swept off practically all the dead woods and cankerworms in Nigeria’s 16 years of political adventure, the party apparatchiks have started convulsing like a sick parrot. Oh, how I relish the way they sing like the proverbial bird with a broken beak. Some say it is not an unusual happenstance, insisting that the latest macabre dance in the marketplace by members of the crumblingbehemoth indicates an early stage of post-electoral traumatic syndrome. Whatever it is, these people are doing us a whole lot of good by revealing some of the dark secrets buried in the inner crevices of Wadata House and Aso Rock. Now, there should be enough for the dying Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to snoop on, for treasury-plundering and money-laundering investigations. I have always said it that when the chips are down and the veil of arrogance is lifted, the plastic laughter that has cemented a seeming seamless internal party mechanism over the years would give way and all hell would let loose. That explains the drama unfolding before our very eyes.

Knocked dumb by the deadly electoral sucker punch in the March and April elections with the subsequent gale of defections, the leftovers in a party that once lived in the self-delusory vision of 60 years’invincibility at the first instance could not believe that their ‘loyalty’ would be compensated with a thunderbolt from the party’s leader, President Goodluck Jonathan. Weaned of the initial toga of statesmanship, the President’s frustrations began to manifest penultimate week at a meeting with members of his campaign team. He just could not understand why he had to lose by “just 2.5 million votes” to his opponent, noting that “the PDP couldn’t have scored those kind of low scores” given to it even if “the elections are over, so the country comes first.”  He did not stop there. He delved into the political imperative of stomach infrastructure and its effect on party loyalty. His first jab hit his close aides below the belt. “It is not easy. I have been here for five years plus and you hardly satisfy 15 per cent of those who work for you.” He declared.

And as if that was not enough indictment of a political arrangement in which the ‘settlement’ culture, as noted by the President, has become entrenched, Jonathan went on to label those who left the party as desperate and hungry fortune hunters. He predicted unpalatable scenarios: It is either they meet their waterloo in the hands of the incoming All Progressives Congress or end up returning to the PDP on empty stomachs! For a party still grunting over the loss of a meal ticket, the President’s speech could not have come at a wrong time especially for its leadership that was under intensepressure to resign with ignominy.

Although the chairman of the President’s campaign team, Chief Tony Anenih made subtle attempt to douse the fire by insisting that the PDP lost the election by winning the peace for the country, it was evident that an embittered President has spilled the beans in that moment of riotous rage. He did not only question an election in which he willingly conceded defeat hours before the official announcement of a president-elect, he practically rubbished the performance of his party’s leadership and took some of its members to the cleaners.

Maybe, as some have noted, Jonathan was merely externalising his own post-election trauma. Well, we now know that there are quite a number of heavyweights in that party who also needed to outgrow needless rage and allow the trauma to wane a bit. We now know that it took a disease called post-election trauma for the PDP chairman, Adamu Muazu, to realise that Jonathan was misled by a band of praise singers who were busy packaging tissues of lies to him as bankable electoral nuggets. Knucklehead can vouch that Muazu was not one of those who gloated on the campaign train that there was no alternative to Jonathan in this century as long as the nation’s Number One seat is concerned! He could not have been one of those presidential loudmouths that took the PDP from the zenith of electoral invincibility to the nadir of political extinction. We truly need to thank this trauma thing for helping Muazu to identify the hawks “who brought us (the whining party, I mean) to this level with their insincerity and praise singing.”Hmnnn, trust Muazu to always dribble his way through the tangled web.

Next to sing, after a momentary relapse into a post-election trauma, was the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh. Peeved by insinuations that members of the National Working Committee of the party diverted funds meant for electoral campaigns into private pockets, Metuh came out spitting fire and brimstone. He said the NWC was transparent in the disbursement of N9bn party funds to candidates spread across the country, including a N500 million donation to the “Professor Jerry Gana-led national presidential campaign fund raising dinner last December and N100 million to each of the 29 gubernatorial candidates on the April 11 governorship election.” Swearing that the NWC knew nothing about how the billions of Naira in the custody of the President’s campaign team was disbursed, Metuh said those blaming the NWC’s seeming inaction for the woeful performance of the party at the general election should direct their misplaced anger at those whom Jonathan handpicked to drive his campaign. Here, he pointed accusing fingers at the experts in hate speeches and derisive campaign strategies.

Hear him: “I can tell you from my own records that we generated billions. I think we generated more than N7bn or N8bn or N9bn. We generated more than N7bn; we generated a lot of money. They generated campaign funds up to N21bn. The party was not involved in it and the party cannot account for it because we were not involved in the disbursement. For those of us in the North where the type of campaign that we generated made it impossible for our leaders in the North to garner support for our candidate (Jonathan) because of the hate campaign that was generated, we are not answerable to that.”

Now, we can clearly see the likely consequences of post-election trauma. Between ‘we’ and ‘they’, no one knows what was generated apart from the generated controversy. Not one party member had been able to put a figure to how much was raised and how such was disbursed. Even Metuh’s “records” hovers without specific bounds; is itN7bn, N8bn, N9bn or even more? Only Anenih and his gang seem to be in a good position to give proper account of how the N21bn that was officially raised was disbursed. No one is sure of how much fell off the plates of ministries, departments and agencies in the course of the election. However, we are sure of one thing. While the President thinks there is more to his woeful ouster than meets eye, the NWC believes he lost fair and square, because he wasted so much energy in generating “hate campaign” against a man who remains popular among his people. I believe that it would amount to mere academic exercise for anyone to dig into how this same Metuh could not find his voice when his party was unleashing a flood of hate messages, scandalous documentaries and other negative campaign materials on the electorate. Did Metuh or any member of the NWC make any move to stop the sickening madness? Did they call Femi Fani-Kayode, Ayo Fayose or even Patience Jonathan to order at any point in time?

If we must hit the nail on the head, it is too late in the day to cry wolf. As Jonathan noted, only the PDP can save itself from the corner it boxed itself into. The journey into this cul-de-sac was activateda long time back when, wreathed in its oversized coat of arrogance, the PDP threw away all shades of internal democratic principles. The defeat could have come earlier than this but there was simply no strong alternative until reason prevailed over pride and the APC birthed. For many years, the PDP operated by the whim of a powerful President at the centre and it could not, in all purposes, lay claim to exist independently of the control of Aso Rock. That seemingly impregnable wall began to fall when Jonathan started acting like a demigod and allowed some key governors to walk out of the party. Anyway, that is not the story for today.

Now that there is a temporary embargo on the ranting and gloating, the PDP may rediscover its voice by learning from its mistakes. If only its leaders had seen the warning signs at the time some of us gave them a glimpse of what was to come, maybe the implosion would not have hit them so hard. I laugh when I read that the enfant terrible Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, has threatened to expose Muazu for allegedly working with the APC to unseat Jonathan. In fact, Fayose’s bully tactic is one distraction that a dying PDP does not need at this moment. Jonathan would do well to take another look at Metuh’s admonition that he lost because he surrounded himself with political liabilities and noisemakerswho just could not see any sense in the pursuit of issue-based electoral campaign. If these bickering birds with broken beaks are still interested in wresting the party from a looming devastating implosion and if they have truly overcome the asphyxiating aura of post-election trauma, let them listen to the lonely voice of the Senate President, David Mark, who rightly pointed out that “the PDP is already haemorrhaging” and only a quick halt of the bleeding and application of the necessary therapy would prevent”the final burial of the party.”At least, if some gerontocracts have led the President and the party astray in the past,the words of a 67-year-old should be enough for the wise ones among them. Should it not be?

Illuminations returns next week

Suddenly, someone is wielding presidential powers, albeit haphazardly, in a desperate bid to drop the toga of cluelessness at a very late hour. Between now and May 29, 2015, anyone than angers President Goodluck Jonathan would have to live with the inglorious consequences. This outgoing President is not laughing at all. As his spokesman reminded us, Jonathan may have conceded defeat to the President-Elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, but that does not in any way translate into a cessation of power. Someone has to be in charge before Buhari takes over the seat with his change choir and that person is Jonathan, Until that time, Jonathan’s body language shows a newfound tendency to wield the big stick, whip some of his subjects into line and sprinkle dry pepper into the eyes of those trying his patience (no pun intended). Oga Jonah’s eyes are red, no thanks to the insults that the incoming All Progressives Congress is rubbing on a festering wound. Why can’t they just wait until May 29?

Jonathan is vexing and the nation is enduring an artificial but fleeting trepidation as he unleashes his venom on anyone that dares to cross his path. Oh, because they say he is a meek and clueless leader, some persons think they could play games with his moustache? No way. This President sure knows how to pump some hot punches just like a Manny Pacquaio or Mayweather Jnr. would deal an opponent. Some say his recent attitude betrays the angst of a bull in a China shop. I say no. Even an emergency psychologist like this writer understands the unfolding drama: Jonathan has now woken up and he is fighting back with all the strength he could muster. It would be a disaster of monumental proportions if it is written of him that, at the twilight of his four-year chequered presidency, he chose to sit on his hands when all he needed to do was to whip people back into line. There is no way history would be kind to him if all he did as Nigeria’s leader was to wring his hands in sublime befuddlement as the nation he superintends over grinds in perpetual descent into anomie.

Some say a bruised and battered Jonathan is a tad too late in the exhibition of raw power. Maybe that is true. I, honestly, doubt if the victims of his latter day heroics would agree with such assumptions. Those who feel it surely know the devastating effect of presidential jabs. In his quiet moments, the nation’s ex-Number 1 cop, Abba Suleiman, would rue the action or inaction that led to his summary dismissal from office. For a man who, some months back, was busy genuflecting before power, it came as a rude shock that he had to suffer the indignity of an unceremonious exit. When the rhythm stopped for Abba, it came with thunderous silence. By the time he handed over to his successor less than 24 hours after, he had become a mufti-wearing former Inspector General of Police. His fate, though tragic, symbolises the transient nature of power. Suddenly, Abba has joined the league of yesterday’s men courtesy of a presidential proclamation. Yesterday’s hero who pandered to the salacious tunes strung in Aso Rock would have to contend with straining from the sidelines.

The fact of the matter is that the President is a wounded lion. It is clear that Abba toyed with the nose of a live cobra and he was spiked with its deadly poison. After the misplaced hysteria over the simple chore of a defeated President conceding defeat in a contest laden with hate and acerbic campaigns, it should be obvious that Jonathan would demand his pound of flesh from those he deemed to have contributed in one way or the other to his ouster. Do not ask me if Abba falls into that category of persons. All I know is that, as May 29 draws near, public officials and political appointees would have to be exceptionally careful in their conduct if they do not want to become victims of a thoroughly flustered President. They need to understand that while the man may be on his way out of power, he is still fully holding the baton of power!

By the way, it is not for nothing that the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, made allusion to the fact that his boss’ concession of defeat should not be misread as cessation of power to the incoming APC leadership. To demonstrate that this is not one of those hollow triumphalism that Jonathan once cautioned the APC to be wary of, the President did not hesitate to match words with action by ordering the release of the forensic audit report of the alleged missing billions of dollars in the nation’s energy behemoth—the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. Had Buhari not made a vow to revisit a matter that had been technically buried with the ‘clean bill of health’ allegedly given the NNPC by the PriceWaterHouseCooper after an abracadabra auditing process, maybe Jonathan would have kept his calm. Trust the Daura-born General, he would simply not allow a sleeping dog to rest. Now, Jonathan is angry and no one is resting.

Rather than douse the tension, the PWC report has unleashed many unanswered questions about the gaping holes in the accounting system adopted in the oil sector. Yes, we may not know the actual amount said to be missing from the humongous figures being bandied around. What is sure is that the Nigerian oil sector is rotten to the bones. Barefaced theft has become the norm to the point that the auditors engaged by the government to look at the books were denied something as simple as the bank statements of the corporation’s accounts even by the Central Bank of Nigeria. The underhand dealings and strange lodgements daily perpetuated in that sector should be enough to make a truly angry President cry blue murder and begin a process of making some people account for their shameful conduct. However, that never happened. Instead, after the decoy of a favourable forensic report, the PWC document was carefully wrapped in one of the secure cabinets in The Presidency due to what the Auditor-General of the Federation, Mr. Samuel Ukura, called Aso Rock’s “great interest” in the information contained therein. Hmnnn! Maybe we would not have known the extent of the entrenched rot if Buhari had not hastily announced his determination to get to the root of the missing billions of dollars!

Do you know the good thing in all this? We now know there is much more to that 199-page report than the tales by moonlight the public was initially fed with. The ‘celebrated’ report riled the Transition Monitoring Group so much that it described the NNPC as “the stinking cesspit of official corruption.” And it is the same report that the Jonathan administration had embraced with pomp and panache!

If I may ask, exactly what and what should constitute presidential interest? Could it be the fact that the CBN failed to accede to the auditors’ request for bank statements? Did the President order a probe into the $32,909,590 under-valuation relating to thirteen different liftings (Equity and domestic crude) during the review period  due to the underhand dealings in the NNPC? Could it be a coincidence that no one saw the bit about the $4.92 billion that was to be remitted by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Commission or is it that they were satisfied that the report demanded a refund of a minimum of $1.8 billion? How about the additional $1 billion FIRS remittance that was reported by the reconciliation committee but later traced by the auditors to the CBN/FIRS JP Morgan account? Was the President concerned by that part of the report, which claimed that cash payments of $863 million by NPDC to FIRS was not captured by the Reconciliation Committee and that the total cash payments of $839 million was also traced to the CBN/FIRS bank statements with JP Morgan? The slices of accounting incongruities go on and on and one cannot help but wonder why anyone should make a song and dance of such a piece of implicating document.

By the way, what value can one place on an audit report whose credibility was, ab initio, discredited by the auditing firm. Listen to the lamentation of a friend, Oyedeji Kayode, on the same report: “If you have not read the PWC report, you will not be as angry as I am. $40m! Wait a minute is that not over N8bn? That is what NNPC “mistakenly” paid into an account. Then, $59m, that is another over N11bn, paid for charter services without receipt, invoice, or any confirmation of payment. Now, is this not the same country where cancer kills about 70 people daily while the Federal Government and the states cannot afford a cancer-screening machine that costs just N90m? Is this not the same country where simple students’ hostels are not better than prison wards?”

Honestly, now that Jonathan has found the balls to play a latter day hero at the twilight of his more than five-year adventure in Aso Rock, it would be nice to see how he handles the daylight robbers sitting atop the oil industry and ruining our collective future. It is not enough to rant about who is in charge or why a presidential ‘magnanimity should not be taken to be cowardice.” All the flailing, puffing and gale of sackings would amount to nothing if the man in charge fails to muster the balls to begin the process of bringing the thieving elite in the nation’s corrosively rotten oil sector to justice. That is how to leave the seat of power in a blaze of glory, like a hero on May 29. Will he?

It has been one agonising year of fruitless search with no single verifiable news about the whereabouts of the Chibok girls. Of course, no one thought it would get this far before those kids would be re-united with their families. However, the reality is that it may take much more longer before we get to know the real truth behind the April 14, 2014 Boko Haram insurgents’ raid on a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State and the abduction of about 219 girls. First, the authorities thought it was one of those political stunts being played by the opposition to paint the government in bad light. When it finally dawned on them that Shekau and his band of blood-sucking insurgents had actually done the impossible with the huge haul of helpless and inocent girls in their custody, Nigeria had already become the butt of a big joke in the comity of nations. It is not so much about the tardiness with which the news was handled but more about the countless days the authorities conveniently decided to live in denial that any man born of a woman would perpetuate such monstrous act on a set of girls in their dormitories. They fiddled for too long and therefore bungled early possibilities of actualizing a rescue.

Today, some 368 days later, the story of the Chibok 219 remains an endless maze of entrapment. It is the shame of a nation. It is interesting that, as concerned Nigerians and the international community are unwavering in their campaigns for the return of the girls, there exist a significant number of people who still see the whole abduction saga as one big fraud and a political tool hyped by the opposition. Pity. While doubters have the right to operate at their whimsical best,  it will not be out of order to remind ourselves that a top ranking security official once confirmed that the abducted girls had been sighted and everything was being done to rescue them ‘alive.’ Just that it turned out to be one of those usual dud promissory notes issued by a mindless government to expectant citizens. It did not take long before that hope of a rescue paled into insignificance as the parents, well-wishers and campaigners for the return of the girls continue to endure their pains as days run into months and months into the whole cycle of a year.  As the unimaginable agony unfolds daily, hope dims into hopelessness and some parents’ lost their lives in prolonged psychological distress.

Some have suggested that it is high time we gave up hope on ever finding the girls. Yet that would be defeatist. Not even President Goodluck Jonathan, in spite of the initial bungling, has given up on the matter. His logic that the insurgents would have released a video of the mass killing of the girls, if such had happened, gives a glint of hope. Agreed that Jonathan’s kill-and-exhibit analogy may not be the most logical of comments by the country’s Chief Security Officer; that statement, somehow, mediates the trauma and anguish of the parents and every other concerned citizen. We just cannot wish away the disappearance of such a large number of girls in the bloody hands of the unfeeling lot called the Boko Haram sect. Of course, we do know the insurgents’ capacity to wreak maximum havoc with cold-blooded impudence; we just have to hold on to the tinniest thread that hope offers.

Now that Nigeria has wriggled out of the pure chicanery of its hate-laden politics, it is soul lifting that the authorities are beginning to cut through the façade of denial that they were once robed. In a rare show of empathy, the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, spoke of the government’s determined effort not only in rescuing the girls but also every other person held captive by the terrorists. As the Nigerian military continues to comb all the hideouts of the terrorists with the aim of flushing them out, Dasuki’s revelation that the much-dreaded Sambissa Forest would be liberated before Jonathan’s official departure on May 29 should enliven the spirit. If that happens, then that may as well mark the beginning of the end for a sect that has bloodied the land in the last six years. It could also end up being the most valuable legacy of the Jonathan years.

Truth be told, the post-election Jonathan we see today is miles apart from the lethargic, albeit uninspiring, leader that was overwhelmed by the hawks who sold tissues of lies to him as facts. Jonathan’s self-discovery of his humanity in his last few weeks in office is humbling. Now, his aides seem to be toeing the path of responsive and responsible governance. They are saying the right things and taking the right steps. The arrogance and sheer buffoonery of the past five years have simply vanished. If only Jonathan had listened to us when we voiced out our frustrations over how the court jesters held him captive. Then, the President’s ears were completely blocked by the sweet lullabies of deceit and he was alienated from the people who did nothing other than task him to act presidential and put an end to the “there is God” farcical drama which eventually went viral on the social media.

Did Jonathan remember that we once called on him to shake off his shambolic approach to the Chibok 219 issue at the height of the global outcry? Did he recall how we pleaded with him to ignore the script, ingeniously crafted by some of his men, that suggested that the Chibok story was nothing other than an audience-gripping tele-novella made real by Jonathan’s political enemies? Did he as much as express his displeasure with the way and manner some sponsored groups became tools in the hands of government as they laboured to put an end to whatever the #bringbackourgirls group was trying to achieve? Did he remember the abuse, threat and outright blackmail directed against the key leaders of the Oby Ezekwesili-led group in their persistent efforts to interface with their President on the way forward? Did he remember how the authorities giggled before Malala Yousafzai’s soul-searching words as she spewed her outrage over the impotence of government in plotting an early rescue of the girls? Did Jonathan know that some of us still wonder till today how they managed to keep a straight face as Malala tongue-lashed them like a toddler would chastise an adult for failing to live up to the expectations of a doddering infant?

Well, we do not need to gloat over the sickening drama of the past. Clearly, where we are today is better than the doubts, denials and cheap politics of the past. Why should we give up when the government has rekindled our hope with a commitment to finding and returning the girls to their homes? With the reported liberation of forty communities from the insurgents and the fortification of border routes in the affected areas, we just have no option but to cling to that flickering hope that the promised final invasion of Sambissa Forest would bring us to the end of the scary saga of the Chibok 219. Somehow, we just hope to see that silver lining at the end of a nightmarish psychological torment that has lasted for a year, holding on to the government’s assurance that latest intelligence report “indicates that the present military operation is focused in the area where the girls are believed to be held”.  What else can we do if not pray and hope that, this time, this government would walk its tough talk after months of flowing with the wind of deceit?

Some say it is ennobling that Nigeria’s outgoing leader, President Goodluck Jonathan, appreciated the reality of his exotic ‘imprisonment’ under the government’s care in the last 16 years. No sir. I beg to disagree. If anything, he enjoyed that caged life while it lasted and he would have relished spending an additional four years of opulence in the same ‘dungeon’ but for the devastatingly crushing blows unleashed on his second tenure aspiration at the March 28 presidential poll. Yes, ours is a cloak and dagger politics but Jonathan lapped every moment until the balloon of change blew right in his face. That said, he is the victim of the political enclave he built around himself. He may find the pill too bitter to swallow; the hard truth is that Jonathan had to go because his run of good luck has reached a dead end. He constructed a magnificent structure on a quicksand and the tsunami of change wreaks thunderous havoc, leaving little or nothing to salvage. That is the heart-wrenching tale of the empty shell that the once-powerful behemoth—the Peoples Democratic Party—has become. Dr. Goodluck’s reconstructive surgery could not stand the test of time and he has to live with the consequences.

Of course, living with the consequences of a failed presidential bid by an incumbent under the umbrella of the much-touted largest party in Africa would be nerve-racking. For now, the most important question that should confront Jonathan is the one that lays bare the trajectory to that inglorious trouncing at the poll—why did the PDP fail so woefully? The answer, by the way, is not that difficult to decipher. The party, under the rudderless vigilance of Jonathan, dwelt more on vain triumphalism rather than on substance. It started when one of its accidental chairpersons, Vincent Ogbulafor, gloated that the party would not only be in government but would also hold tightly to power “for not less than sixty years” at the first instance. By the way, Jonathan, I recall, never wasted time in kicking out Ogbulafor from his seat for publicly expressing his loyalty for an ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua in the intriguing power play between the cabal and the rest of us. That was loyalty carried too far and Ogbulafor was the first casualty of an Acting President foisted on the country through a Doctrine of Necessity. Many more were to follow as Jonathan took full control of the fortunes and misfortunes of the party.

Having plotted his way through the intricate web and delicate political intrigues to emerge as President and leader of the PDP post 2011 election, one would have thought that Jonathan’s major interest would be to reconcile the aggrieved powerful elements within the party. Instead, the seed of discord and rancour deepened and it was not long before the wall cracked. This association of strange bedfellows was torn down the middle as key members who could not stand the charade called a Special Convention stormed out of the Eagles Square venue. The group, comprising of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, Aliyu Wammako of Sokoto;  Sule Lamido of Jigawa; Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano; Murtala Nyako of Adamawa; Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers and many others, formed the “New PDP” on the same day, to polarise Jonathan’s stranglehold on the levers of power. As someone pointed out, that was the first snippet into the President’s Achilles Heels—the fact that he is abysmally short on competence, capacity and capability.

Spurred on by the genuflections of palace jesters, he fiddled while the palace was consumed in flakes of fire. He danced when what should have been his greatest strength was decimated through his inaction as the Governors’ Forum lost its potency. Today, he is the chief mourner of a self-inflicted anguish.

That is one part of the story. The other part is his public posturing. The fact remains that Jonathan lost the March 28 presidential election long before General Muhammadu Buhari emerged as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress. Buhari’s emergence merely gave a fillip to the general outcry for a change of leadership at the centre due mainly to Jonathan’s numb tactlessness in dealing with the issues of corruption, insecurity, unemployment and the general feeling of despondency in the land. There was simply no glimpse of hope that this President has the competence, capacity and capability to rein in those perpetuating the rot with astonishing braggadocio. It is not just about the sloppy handling of the endless bloodbath inflicted on the psyche of the nation by insurgents. It is not about the incalculable damage an endless cycle of brazen oil theft continues to pile on our shaky economy. It is not about the lip service the government pays to fighting entrenched corruption or the inglorious presidential pardon granted some convicted ‘untouchables.’ It is more about the impotence of governance in high places and the gripping leadership vacuity to halt the scary drift. It was as if Nigeria was just hanging on the cliff, waiting for the big fall. Yet, the emperor was fiddling while the empire was caving slowly but steadily on his head!

By the time reality nudged Jonathan to action, the powerhouse has become an empty shell laid bare of its gunpowder. All the flailing, huffing and puffing in the latter days were simply the footnotes of a sinking giant. This was emblematised in the result, which eased him out of his misery. It was the final nail on the coffin. He lost because he was fixated to the vain triumphalism exhortations of the countless court jesters around him so much that he forgot to check on the true feelings of the ordinary Nigerian who holds the ace to his fate as long as that exotic ‘cage’ is concerned. If only he had taken the liberty to peep out of that cage occasionally to measure the pulse of his subjects, maybe he would not have suffered such a crushing blow. You do not throw your chin up for such a long time, ignoring informed criticism to walk your talk and expect to reap a whirlwind of electoral victory. It just would not happen under the present arrangement where, through errors of omission or commission, the opposition was allowed to operate from the position of strength. Jonathan, in all sense of the word, was an active partaker in digging his own political grave!

In all this, there is a lot for Buhari to learn. First, he should know that those who ignored all the hate messages and truculent bile-filled campaign against his candidacy to vote him into power would hold him to his words. Jonathan, on assumption of office, painted an alluring picture of life as it should be for the average Nigerian but he was dismally uninspiring in walking the talk. He spoke about his humble ‘shoeless’ upbringing in the backwaters of Otueke but he did not make any significant impact in changing the poor statistics in the nation’s poverty index. He was quite poetic on the sanctity of life and a determination to chase every blood-baying insurgent to the gallows but he tarried until electoral humiliation stared him in the face. He said he would wrestle corruption to the floor but the monster has grown in leaps and bounds like the proverbial cat with nine lives. Under him, corruption became too muscular to confront. He promised regular electricity for hapless Nigerians but his best effort has only yielded megawatts of darkness across the country. Yes, quite an appreciable number of his apologists transformed their pockets but the real transformation is yet to take a firm footing. Maybe there are glimpses of it here and these but those peripheral gestures were washed off by the desire for change.

Now that change is here, Buhari needs to hold himself to the mirror. He does not have the luxury of offering excuses for any failure. An interesting aspect in his campaign thread was that moment when he called on Nigerians to vote for good governance and not good luck. They heeded his call and it is now time for him to remember his promises. For the avoidance of doubt, let me list them one by one. He told us of his strategic plans to ensure that we now enjoy constant electricity; tame the cabal in the petroleum sector and reduce petrol price; return the naira’s lost glory against foreign currencies; give one free meal a day in all public schools; open a vista of opportunities for Nigerians to access better living conditions; create employment for the millions slapping the streets in dejection; fight corruption head on and ensure the safety of lives and property. Surely, Buhari could not have forgotten so soon that quotidian living has become such a hellish reality that the citizens’ patience could not stand another bumbling whining from any government that is long on canticles and short on delivery.

If Buhari is in doubt about how serious the electorate value the power in their thumbs, let him ask Jonathan why and how the cookie crumbles on his head! Unfortunately, the early signs that we see now, especially with the gale of defections to Buhari’s All Progressives Congress by the same characters who swore by their mothers’ diapers that he would never become president, leave a sour taste in the mouth. While they are busy dancing naked in the market with the shameless realignment of strange bedfellows, let them remember the Yoruba adage that cautions the second wife to be wary of celebrating her husband’s hobby of crass humiliation of the first wife. Why? She never can tell when the pendulum would swing to her turn to receive the same ill treatment! Four years is just by the corner. It seemed an eternity when Jonathan laid bare his promised Eldorado until he was swept off by the Tsunami trouncing inflicted on his political fate by unimpressed voters. It is a rude shock that even a 16-year run of good luck has its own expiry date. Now, the time ticks for Buhari. We do not want to hear his lamentations about his experience in the ‘cage’ called Aso Rock. Let him fix his gaze on the voices from the market place—the ones who bought his ticket to luxuriate in that cage. We just hope he remembers, hopefully!

One thing that sets this year’s electoral campaign miles apart from the previous ones is the overflowing stream of cheap talk – call it pedestrian propaganda. One is also astonished at the creative, even if warped imaginations of Nigerians in twisting real life history to malign or impugn the reputation of opponents. In fact, someone said a former Head of State had put a call to some of his colleagues, urging them to find a way of putting a halt to the gale of hate-filled messages that continue to resonate on the campaigns trains. It’s not just the election proper that is turning out to be a do-or-die venture, even the campaigns have been soaked in blood. Well, literarily. If cheap talks were a major prerequisite for electoral triumph, by now some persons wouldn’t have bothered waiting for the official announcement of the results by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before rolling out the drums. Unfortunately, that would be carrying optimism to an absurd level.

The reality is that supporters of the two leading presidential candidates—President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari—have taken pettiness to a ridiculous level in their campaign strategies. They just don’t get it that the modern day Nigerian electorate needs to be persuaded rather being coerced in a participatory democratic system. No matter how we look at it, this election (especially today’s presidential poll) will not be won on a platter of the twisted logic and ad hominem arguments that is on display daily on social media platforms and even the traditional media. Too many lies are being peddled as truth and the Nigerian voters are becoming wary of the whole shenanigan.

From the little that one has been able to glean from the slime-laden campaigns, two things stand out; Buhari has been marked as an unbending dictator who is seeking office with the aim of inflicting more anguish on Nigerians regardless of the fact that, in a democracy, certain institutions are constitutionally empowered to check the excesses of the executive. It was as if Buhari would be the first former Head of State that would be seeking to be elected into the highest office in the land. On the other hand, Jonathan comes out as a woefully pathetic leader with an abysmal record that has gravely wrecked the ship of state especially in the last four years. These, by the way, are the two extremes that confront Nigerians and they wait to exercise their rights to pick their next leader. Likethe highly respected The Economist puts it, the choice on February 14 is between a former dictator and a failed President! Now, that says a lot about an entrapment between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Aside the uninspiring statements at the campaign podiums and the fixation on issues that have never defined the outcome of results, we need to understand that elections ought to be won and lost through reasoned logic and informed commentary and not by sentimental whinging of monumental incongruities. If only Jonathan and Buhari can help us in drumming this into the heads of their fanatical supporters, the long journey, which should come to an encore this morning as Nigerians troop to the poll, would no doubt be less tedious. It is this failure to grasp this basic fact that has led to the worsening tension in the land. Some persons have simply become paranoid at the looming prospects of losing power while others seems too elated at the possibility of grabbing it without really giving a deep thought to what they want to do with it!

The question has been asked: why can’t the candidates campaign on their strengths rather than spending quality time gloating on the opponent’s weaknesses? The answer is simple. There is pretty nothing much to thump the chest over. So, the next option is the resort to silly taunts and dirty strategies that beggar belief. And so, the argument is no longer about Buhari’s capacity to set Nigeria on the right track of fiscal discipline, economic development and a secured environment. It is now about that part of his that needs to go through some sort of purgation. Suddenly, they woke up to realise that a man who had contested election and lost three times in the past is nursing a national aspiration from the blighted position of an ethnic or sectional jingoist. And I ask, what then is Jonathan if he has refused to publicly condemn the perfidious rant of his kinsmen who threaten war should the incumbent lose in a contest that demands the free will of the people to elect their leader? That, by the way, has been the greatest malaise against our national growth. It is quite apparent that Jonathan is not an exception and that is why his ‘people’ keep on appropriating the seat as their turn to exhale. No matter how we look at it, a clear and present danger lies in the fact that we have willy-nilly allow the discourse to veer from the real issues of development to dovetail into the politics of the North versus the South. This is quite unfortunate.

At this time in the nation’s history and with the threats posed by the Boko Haram menace, those playing the dangerous cards of the North-South dichotomy will only aggravate the chaos. For, in truth, Nigeria is in distress. No matter how colourful the campaigns, we cannot forget that lives are lost daily to the insurgents. Those who aspire to lead us should appreciate the significance of this message. If they cannot rule over a united and indivisible Nigeria, then they should forget such aspirations. This is surely no time for political imputations and back-biting. The time requires leaders who would see a threat to one as a Nigerian problem that must be tackled headlong. This is no time for sitting on the fence and playing the ostrich.

For example, when Jonathan and Buhari tell potential voters on their campaign trains that they plan to end the Boko Haram insurgency in the next few years, we should take them to task on how they would achieve the plan. There is nothing wrong in asking Buhari if he has now realised that the Nigerian government has not been killing innocent Northerners in the guise of hunting down those blood-sucking insurgents. Just like I see no harm in taking Jonathan to task on when he realised that those killing, bombing, slaughtering and inflicting pains on innocent and law-abiding citizens do not fall into a presidential categorisation of ‘our brothers and relatives!” That is a no-brainer. We can even ask him to be categorical of what has happened to the over 200 school girlskidnapped in Chibok for over 247 days now!

No, don’t get it twisted. While no one can accuse Jonathan of doing nothing in pushing back the insurgents, he stands condemned for a rather belated decision to confront the menace headlong. Mr. President should be man enough to take responsibility for sitting on his hands for so long while these agents of terror soiled our streets with the blood of innocent souls. But those who did not offer him any advice on how best to resolve the matter do not have any moral basis to blame him for wielding his power to put an end to what has become a national calamity.

We can save this country from the brink if the real issues are brought to the fore instead of the pettiness that has been flying over our campaign space. As I write this, I shiver to mention the benumbing things that have passed on as campaign messages. The two main candidates in the presidential race should be worried that millions of Nigerians have reportedly left their bases to relocate to places they consider safe during the election. This casts a serious doubt on what most people consider the peripheral gestures of signing a peace accord when the campaign, in words and spirit, have been anything but issue-based.

For now, I think the campaign teams have done a good job of painting the two major contestants as not only monsters in a deadly race to appropriate presidential power but also as potential bunglers in office. That, by the way, is the harsh reality of a presidential campaign from both sides of the divide that is full of bubbles of rage but empty on any tangible discourse. Now that the die is cast, the people would have to make a choice not necessarily based on the convictions of the babbling of the candidates but on deep-seated sentiments that could make or mar Nigeria.

And so, as Nigerians go to the poll today, hope becomes a critical imperative in a country that is forever foraging for fate with bated breath!

Knucklehead’s note: This piece earlier published on February 7, 2015is re-modified due to the six-week shift of the election dates.  

Mama Nigeria or whatever the eternal lickspittle sycophants in the corridors of power chose to label you Ma, let’s just say this is not the right time to embark on such frivolities like that self-delusory courtesies of first ladyship. No disrespect to that office which you are committed to continue holding for yet more years anyway. As the Nigerian Nobel Laureate in Literature, Prof. Wole Soyinka, recently observed, every lady needs to first learn what it means to be a lady before being elevated to the position of a First Lady. That office, though manifestly unconstitutional, is a privilege enjoyed by wives of certain personalities in our warped political arrangement. It’s an unpalatable pill that an ever-docile populace has decided to swallow with tepid equanimity in spite of the persistent abuse of such privileges by previous and present occupiers of that illegal post. And so, it is safe to say that you are not the first and probably won’t be the last to wield a power that was never reposed in you beyond your due recognition as the wife of the President. I hate to use the word domestic appendage because that would be pedestrian. Be that as it may, the least the society expects from you is the deployment of your feminine wit in the physical, emotional and psychological balancing at the home front as the fate of millions of Nigerians hang on the lean shoulders of your husband, President Goodluck Jonathan.

In most cases, the wife of the man of power, especially one with the kind of unrestrained power that the Constitution confers on the Nigerian president, is expected to be the moral compass that ought to temper the likely temptation of an abuse. I want to assume that you are conversant with the elementary theory of power to wit: it is said to be held in trust for the good governance of the people. It is also my belief that you must have heard the time-worn saying that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Now, I need not stress your wit by asking you to discuss the fundamental ideology behind that statement. We all know that John Dalberg-Acton constructed that masterpiece, right? Generally, power is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it intoxicates. On the other, it is temporal. This means no one wields power ad-infinitum. It must end one day and that is why common sense dictates that it should be exercised with utmost caution.

Madam, do not get it twisted. We are not unmindful of the fact that your husband would, once in a while, attempt to wield power crudely. Such is the ruinous allure of power. For someone who should ordinarily redirect her husband from treading that path of infamy, it is shocking that you have comfortably adjusted yourself to the situation with cold ease. If the bootlickers in and around the seat of power relish telling the President only what he wants to hear, it is your responsibility to pull his nose down the reality lane. You are to help him in keeping his head straight and focused. Unfortunately, you have hardly displayed any of these attributes in words and in deed. You are a direct opposite of what you say you are. As they say it in the creeks, ‘you don fall ya Oga hand, no be small.’ How? You asked. I will explain.

The problem really has nothing to do with your refusal to remain an ordinary domestic appendage in Aso Rock. I doubt if it is even about your outlandish comical showmanship. Most Nigerians are used to such executive comic relief in an economically challenged environment. They could even forgive the occasional flailing and railing. After all, you are human too and blood, we assume, flows in your motherly vein. What is difficult to stomach, our dear Madam Peace, is the violence and murderous intent embedded in your grammatically wonderful speeches, especially in the bid to get votes for the President who happens to be your husband. They worry not just because of the bare-knuckle punches you unleash on the use of Mama Charlie’s language. Instead, they marvel at the utter discourteousness and sheer baloney in your speech. Rather than wooing the electorates on the strength of your convictions, you tend to be convicting your husband in the court of public opinion. Painfully, and mercifully so, your speechmaking is a disaster to the art of oratory and many parents must have real fears about the likely future of children who dutifully follow or learn your mis-command of the English language.

Take, for example, your latest attempt at wowing the crowd in Ado Ekiti the other day. As usual, it was a bad copy of what electoral marketing is all about. Simply put, you were a bundle of contradictions. So, you knew right from the onset that you are an illegal occupant of a non-existent Office of the First Lady and that you are just a wife of the President? Wonderful! Question is: why the persistent abuse of the privileges as a wife of President Jonathan? Each time you step out to market your husband as a presidential product, you end up raising doubts about his competence to continue on that seat with the kind of questions you pose. Worse still, your efforts at de-marketing a major threat to Jonathan’s comeback bid, General Muhammadu Buhari, are often calamitous before they end being some sort of self-indictment of the stewardship of President Jonathan in office.

By the way, there is no law that says your husband must remain in office for two terms if the electorates think otherwise. In a democracy, the power is in the thumb and not in the wishful thinking of any candidate regardless of whether such person is an incumbent. And so, it beggars belief that you were quoted as insisting that nothing would stop your “moving train” from completing “our two terms in office.” As usual, you quote the constitution out of context by insisting at the Benin rally that: “Everybody is staying there for eight years. Now it’s our turn. We must complete our eight years. It is in the constitution of this country. Two,  two terms. We will complete our two terms and hand over.” Ha! I bet you wouldn’t have babbled this vomit if you had paused for a while to reflect on the likely consequences if the wife of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua had insisted on the implementation of this your queer interpretation of the Nigerian Constitution. Fact is: you miss he point Madam. That power your husband holds in trust for the people can be withdrawn and given to another person in the general election coming up next Saturday. Of course, he is entitled to contest for another term but his fate to remain in the office for another term lies squarely in the thumb of every eligible voter. The Nigerian electorate alone reserves the right to determine whose ‘turn’ it is to occupy Aso Villa and that’s a legitimate route to oust a moving train!

Also, there is something about your split image that unnerves the spirit—the way you cuddle peace with the cold comfort of a warrior! You crave peace with the biting pellets of hate on the campaign tuft. Aside the hate messages filtering from the embittered mouth of the man you gloriously called your ‘junior husband’, Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State, no other Nigerian has physically unleashed terrifyingly annoying language to malign the person of General Buhari than you. If you are not calling Buhari a spent force on diapers at 70 like some person’s mother, you would be busy diagnosing him as brain dead. If you are not indicting him for spending “donkey years” in office as a military Head of State for less than 20 months, you would be regaling in the assumption that your husband is contesting with an ‘expired drug.’ If you are not casting aspersions of a tribe that ‘born troway’, you must be somewhere encouraging people to stone anyone that dares chant the word ‘change.’ Is that your recipe for peace in a multicultural nation like Nigeria? Pity.

Mama Peace, listen to yourself on peace:  “I am a peaceful person and I preach peace anywhere I go. They are looking for a fight; they are looking for war. They are troublesome people. That is why they went and took expired drugs. Now they are crying. They are the people stoning people and nobody talked.”

Peace, as Albert Einstein puts it, “is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government.” As a woman who never gets tired of describing herself as “good” with the belief that your husband has given Nigerians all they ever wanted in a democracy, there should be no need for the veiled threats and outright abuse of power. Or could it be that you have let yourself open to the corrupt nature of power which corrupts absolutely? For a man who has given a good account of himself as far as good governance is concerned, people really don’t understand why Mama Peace should live with an eternally disturbing phobia that her husband may end up in jail should he fail to make it back to Aso Villa in next week’s election? They ask: What scares Patience Jonathan? Why does she think she may have to be taking food to a good man in prison when no court of competent jurisdiction has indicted her husband?

Well, I am the least qualified to answer their questions. All I can offer, Madam, is my one Kobo advice: when next you go on the campaign train on behalf of your husband, employ the simplest of language to drum home your points. Stop the posturing, whining over inanities that trigger comical laughter even within the hired crowd. Just beseech them to vote for your husband because he is a good husband that overlooks the laughable excesses of a loving wife just that peace might reign! No more forays into uncharted territories that continue to serve as veritable raw materials for stand-up comedians please!

Sometime, you wonder if Nigeria is not already at war with itself over the likely outcome of the 2015 general elections. It is not just about the hate speeches and denigrating documentaries that pervade the campaign trail. What should disturb us is the fact that the personalities spewing bile from both sides of the divide come from the clan of the high and mighty on the political ladder. Yet, it was not up to two months that, amid fanfare and panache, President Goodluck Jonathan, General Muhammadu Buhari and 12 other presidential candidates signed a peace accord in Abuja. It is also important to note that the camaraderie that enveloped what has turned out to be a mere peripheral gesture of a commitment to an issue-based campaign was chaired by no less a personality than the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Sir Emeka Anyaoku. Typical of the way we do things here, the ink had hardly dried on that piece of paper called the Abuja Peace Accord when the key actors picked up the gauntlet of bitterness from where it was hibernating, albeit temporarily.

Today, it is clear to everyone that that photo-op of a smiling Jonathan and Buhari in a warm embrace is nothing more than a fake pose. If anything, the postponement of the elections by six weeks seems to have given the ‘combatants’ ample time to oil their wheels of political chicanery and outright buffoonery. Literarily speaking, what appeared as grabs of peace has been torn to shreds. All hell is let loose and there seems to be no restriction on the deep-seated campaign of calumny, which citizens are bombarded with daily. At the beginning, concerned Nigerians expressed deep worry about the hate speeches. Now, the fad is direct personal insults and outright denigration of certain individuals in the political space. Truth is: Nigeria never had it this worse, not even at the early stages of its political maturity.

For the avoidance of doubt and for the benefit of those who may have forgotten the spirit and letters of the Abuja Peace Accord signed by those who have now done a 360 degrees turnaround to go for the jugular, below is what they commit themselves to in signing that document. They pledge to, among other things, “run issue-based campaigns at national, state and local government levels devoid of religious incitement and ethnic or tribal profiling; to refrain from making public statements, pronouncements, declarations or speeches that have the capacity to incite any form of violence before, during and after the election; to forcefully and publicly speak out against provocative utterances and oppose all acts of electoral violence, whether perpetrated by supporters and/or opponents; and

to commit themselves and their parties to the monitoring of the adherence to the accord, if necessary, by a national peace committee made up of respected statesmen and women, traditional and religious leaders.

Ordinarily, these things should not be too difficult to obey. It’s just that these are not ordinary times. In this winner takes all contest, the stakes are higher and respect for human dignity means little or nothing to the Rottweiler of power. In this fiery contest for the highest office in the land, a presidential admonition that his ambition should not attract the spill of anyone’s blood has fallen on the deaf ears of his henchmen—those who daily push for his re-election. Unfortunately, no matter how good his intentions, nothing suggests that the President has the capacity to call the violators of the Abuja Peace Accord in his camp to order. In the last three weeks, it must be said that his campaign office has championed hate-filled messages. And that is aside their ‘commitment’ to ensuring that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, is kicked out before the re-scheduled date for the elections. Not that it would have been acceptable if the opposition All Progressives Congress has been at the forefront of the renewed bitter, demeaning and disparaging campaign. However, it is scary that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party has failed woefully to obey the spirit and letters of a document willingly signed by a sitting President!

Some have argued that the twists, turns and the sheer baloney being unleashed on the voting public form sides of the political divide should not really bother us. They say that is what defines our politics and makes us different. No sir! I beg to disagree. Essentially, politics and its practice remain murky because those involved have refused to shed off the crude mentality which hallmarked the yore years of military rule. It is one thing to tar Buhari with the brush of a military dictator. It is another thing for those who lay claim to the finest democratic ethos to behave as touts of power. And so, it should matter to us that, less than two months into the signing of that peace accord, the focus has been on personalities rather than issues that should define our existence as a nation.

Like I hinted in my last piece, it should matter to every well-meaning Nigerians if the President is singing a tune which all the key members in his campaign team have refused to dance to. It wouldn’t have mattered if any of the party’s political thugs had been linked to the Buhari certificate or health issues during his recent visit to the United Kingdom. That could be conveniently waved off as the rant of an insignificant ant. But when the key sponsors of the damaging and disrespectful outburst are well-known apologists of the President, then there is need to wave the caution flag. It should matter to anyone that truly desires a thriving democratic system that the focus is now on sponsoring and instigating hate messages against certain elements in the opposition. It should worry us that, though the candidates signed an undertaking to ensure that “institutions of government including INEC and security agencies must act and be seen to act with impartiality”, the hawks in the PDP are doing everything within its power to arm-twist the electoral body into changing the rule of the game midway into a crucial election. It should matter that the personal abuse has become so scandalously trite that people now label others as thieves, drug addicts or suffering from life-threatening diseases without any shade of evidence other than beer-parlour rumour. It should matter!

If we say deadly and toxic political campaigns do not matter in times like this, are we also saying that it is right for the wife of the President to invoke a political fatwa on anyone who mentions the word ‘change’ at any gathering? Shouldn’t it bother us that such uncouth babbling that such persons should be stoned came from the mouth of someone who describes herself as the mother of the nation? Should we, in the spirit of political lousiness, look the other way when this same individual calls the main opposition candidate to her husband’s re-election bid brain dead? Should it bother us or do we also consign that to the exclusive garbage of political rascality? Is this what our politics has turned to?

It is not enough for any of the candidates to lay claim to signing a peace accord whose content has not only been callously raped but also been serially abused by their supporters.  If that gesture is not backed by action, then this latest experiment may end up a nullity. If we are all agreed that political violence starts with the kind of language deployed by the key players in the run-off to the elections, then certain persons ought to be cautioned now before they throw the entire country into another round of bloodletting and needless killings.  Those who crave peace should not abuse the privileges conferred on them by the office they hold. Clearly, sponsoring a smear campaign against the opposition in outright violation of the rules of the game could be deleterious to the overall craving for a non-violent poll. Peace, as the late Martin Luther King (Jnr.) noted, is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice. So, how just is it for those in authority to continue stoking the embers of conflict in a tensed electoral race with a belief that such things should not really matter?

The All Progressives Congress presidential candidate in the re-scheduled March 28 election, General Muhammadu Buhari, must have grown tired of reading news about his failing health and imminent death mostly hyped by political interests that would stop at nothing to frustrate his ambition to rule Nigeria again. Indeed, it is a miracle that Buhari is not only alive but also remains a candidate in an election that has shredded all bounds of common sense and morality. Never in the history of this country has a general election been this divisive, bitter and brimming with biting hate. If Buhari had not tried his luck thrice in the past to mount the saddle of leadership through the ballot box, you would have thought that he is one character from Mars that has come to upset the apple cart. It is, to say the least, benumbing that some people have elevated political buffoonery to a craft in governance. Pity!

As I write this, there are over ten cases filed at various courts in the land against the Buhari candidacy. Some of these cases are being handled by renowned legal luminaries who continue to feed off a warped political arrangement in which alleged corrupt politicians conveniently retire to the National Assembly to doze on the couch of slush funds; others are under the care of the popular ‘charge and-bail’ lawyers scattered across the Federal Capital Territory. At first, it was the long-running rant about his eligibility to contest based on the spurious allegation that neither did he attend a secondary school nor possess the requisite secondary school certificate. You would have thought such allegations, hollow and irritatingly mundane as they were, would naturally pale into insignificance after Buhari eventually made public a Certified True Copy of his secondary school result. Instead, it fired up other issues that confound the senses. The wailings of Buhari’s detractors continue in decibels of needless noise. That simple document had gone through different forensic analyses in the laboratories of the ‘Jonathanians’ with divergent findings to the consternation of many Nigerians.

In fact, the ‘findings’ as espoused by the lackeys of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party are parts of what the courts would have to determine in the next few weeks. Ordinarily, one would have thought that those pushing for Buhari’s disqualification from the presidential race would allow the courts do its constitutionally assigned responsibilities on the conviction of the ‘evidence’ before the judges. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It appears some of them would prefer a natural or, better still, faster exit of the enigma called Muhammadu Buhari. Do not get it wrong please. By all shades of imagination, Buhari, a former military dictator and strict disciplinarian, should not be an issue in this election. At least, not after three failed shots at the exalted seat with a crushing humiliation by a victorious President Goodluck Jonathan in his last attempt. That was in 2011. At that time, Buhari had his own crowd but he was not anywhere near the besotted bride he has transformed into in the last six months. Needless to say that, in 2011 and other elections before then, no one cared about the genuineness of Buhari’s certificates if he had any neither did anyone give a second thought to his age or health. It was immaterial who his friends were. He was simply a man of his own crowd, testing the murky waters of politics thatalmost drowned him.

Four years after, the story has changed. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and that has thrown some people into palpable tension. A presidential candidate that the dull-witted ones at the PDP had described as a ‘no contest’ and an easy pie for Jonathan to take to the cleaners has suddenly become a dreaded dictator that must be stopped by all means possible. Sadly, this election campaign has been enveloped in unduly negative sentiments; this election has been riddled with the bullet of seething hatred. The gloves are off and bare-knuckle punches are unleashed on the nation. It got to its infamous best with a muckraking documentary on Buhari that was serially aired on a popular television network. It was a hatchet job carried too far. Buhari, his life, his family and his anguish as a father became subjects of odious political propaganda. In that documentary, he comes across as an anti-establishment figure and a revenge-seeking bigot out to inflict a damaging blow on the waning psyche of a nation in turmoil. His second coming, when it happens, is projected as the real Armageddon. Then, you ask, why this rush of hatred for a man who had always been dismissively labelled an underdog in his last three attempts?

The answer is simple. The sudden outpouring of support for Buhari by millions of Nigerians jolted the authority to the reality of an ‘underdog’ pulling the rug from under their incompetent platform. For, if the truth must be told, the Buhari phenomenon and acceptance even in geo-political zones where he wouldn’t have mustered significant votes in the past developed due to the failure of the ruling government to walk the talk of its electoral promises. At a point, nearly all the indices of development with which the electorate would have assessed the performance of the government fell through. Clearly, the shoddy handling of the general insecurity in the land, especially the deadly activities of the Boko Haram insurgents in the North East, contributed to the low rating; coupled with the misfortunes of a rebased economy with the highest number of the employed grappling with survival. The situation is not helped by the perception, in spite of the persistent denial by the government, that corruption continues to grow in leaps and bounds as rent-seekers and shady portfolio cabal control the levers of business in the oil sector. The cry for change, which was borne out of despair and alienation, marks the beginning of a campaign that has been anything but issue-based.

Now, the concern is no longer about Buhari’s certificate. That should be settled by a court of competent jurisdiction. His eligibility or otherwise should also be by a verdict from the court since key members of the PDP believe he should be disqualified. In a democracy, litigants are free to test the veracity of their arguments, no matter how tendentiously mundane or pedestrian such arguments are, in the law courts. What they do not have a right to is the resort to blackmail and falsehood without any empirical basis or justification. That is exactly what Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has been doing through his devious fixation to a Buhari terminal sickness and likely death. It is one thing to play politics with an opponent’s credentials and past conduct. It is another thing to play god with that person’s health and life. Ever since Buhari left for the United Kingdom, Fayose continues with his mockery of that visit. Not satisfied with his doomsday prediction of a likely death on the throne should Buhari win the general election, Fayose now stalks Buhari. He has become a leech. He insists Buhari is sick and undergoing treatment in the UK. Earlier in the week, he vowed to release a picture of the retired General on his sick bed in the UK. In addition, he says that with such relish and sense of conviction that I doubt if Fayose would flinch should Buhari fall dead today. In fact, that should be his greatest joy.

Then, we ask why? It is surprising that no one among the ranks and file of the PDP has deemed it necessary to rein in Fayose in his bestial, demeaning and vicious propaganda against a man whose only sin is picking another party’s ticket to give Jonathan a run for his popularity in a presidential contest that still runs neck-to-neck. Vacuous as it may sound, Fayose has said that he is not particularly against a Buhari presidency. His greatest wish would be to see that such emergence must be based on the truth. He said he loathes the propaganda of deceit by the opposition party. That is fair enough. However, what elsecould be more dubious propaganda than when a man spends millions of naira to sponsor newspaper advertisements predicting the imminent death of a fellow citizen on the altar of political chicanery? What do you call Fayose’s commitment to scurrying the end of the world in search of the photograph of a sickly Buhari on his deathbed in a UK hospital? Moreover, how would the ruling PDP have reacted to it if the table has changed and the opposition is the one attempting to make political capital out of this no brainer? Would the hawks at the PDP have kept mum, believing that it is all fair and square in politics to throw decorum to the dogs?

By the way, this is not in anyway to say that the APC should not come clean on candidate Buhari’s health if indeed it is true that he suffers any debilitating illness. Anything contrary to this would be tantamount to a direct abuse of the term, political expediency. It would be a disservice not only to Buhari but also to the millions of people who have decided to vote for him.Besides, it is a disservice to a nation that had travelled the same road in its penultimate presidential election.However, the concern is that even if the party comes clean, the likes of Fayose would not just be content with allowing a sleeping dog lie. Buhari’s medical report, no matter the reputation of the institution that issues it, would still be another subject of litigation. That is the sickening part of this election; nothing seems to be genuine to the ruling party unless what its propaganda machinery reels out to the public. That is why theysay the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, is no longer competent to supervise the election. That is why they are no longer comfortable with the use of the Permanent Voter Cards and the Card Readers. That is why they want Buhari disqualified on the excuse that Muhammadu and Mohammed are two different names with diverse meanings. That is why they say the death of his children because of a terminal illness should be an election issue. That is why they want him out before Election Day, by whatever means possible. The fear factor is driving those who fear change to nuts. And that’s scary. Really scary because of the length they are willing to go, even at the risk of putting all else asunder!

The curtains open as the audience catches a glimpse of the Ebora Owu perched on a carved wooden stool in front of one of the pottery pieces scattered around his Ota Farms. If he is not on one of his international travels or busy attending to politicians who normally pay homage to his Hilltop Mansion in Abeokuta, Baba – as he is fondly called in his days at the Place of the Rock – relishes an evening relaxation at that favourite spot. He looks forward to that moment when he sips his palm wine while munching pieces ofroasted bush meat at intervals as he listens to the evergreen songs of the late Ayinla Omowura filtering from the magnificent mansion built for him as a parting gift by one of the construction firms shortly before he left office in May 2007. As Baba picks the palm wine gourd to fill his bamboo cup, one of the security men whispers some words into his ears. Baba readjusts his sitting position. He looks in the direction of the audience and, with a grouching tone, mutters: “No problem; let them in. I dey kampe!”At that moment, about eight men and four women dressed in different traditional attires walk towards Baba’s seat and, as if previously choreographed, attempted to go on all fours but Baba stops them midway, shouting:

Baba: (Without offering them seats, he moves round to shake them) No, no, no. That is not necessary. Ladies and gentlemen, you are all welcome to my farm.E ma ki mi niikiabosi.There is no need for such peripheral greetings laden with a deep-seated snigger. A chicken farmer’s handshake would do. At least, you all know that this is not the Presidential Villa. Neither is it a military barracks. That I have decided to retire fully as an elder statesman does not mean that such important men and women in our polity should be prostrating and kneeling for me. In fact, you met me well as we say in Yoruba. I am sure you would not mind sharing the freshly tapped palm wine with me. I also have some bush meat to go with it.

Oro Kabiti: Thanks Baba, we are actually okay. We just had lunch before leaving out five-star hotel in Ikeja. We are here to…

Baba: (cuts Oro Kabiti) Now, now, now, Rubeeni Oro Kabiti or whatever you call yourself, don’t take this warm welcome too far. By the way, I am not your Baba. I know my children and my children know me. Even when a dog suffers a depressing madness, the dog still takes the directives of its owner.Ti ajaba n siwin, o moojuolowo e o! Who is your Baba? Is it the one you described as nurturing an odious plan to return to power through the backdoor? Me, your father? Even Lamidi of Jiga, whom I learnt told you people to come and beg me, cannot call me his father any longer. That one I was struggling for to become Vice President has shamelessly gone back to his vomit! When did I become your father? Was it after you accused me of sowing the seed of discord and crises while dancing foxtrot with the opposition? (Takes a large gulp from the wooden cup) If you dare call me Baba again, I will unleash the snakes in this farm on you. Sebi na you come meet for my farm where I dey do my own interim government!

Dopemu: Your Excellency, do not be angry. We are your children and you elders are the ones that saidno matter how good a child is at eating the pap, there will still be patches of it staining his hands. Just see us as that little child with stained palms and listen to why we have come to your place today. We are here in the interest of the party, the Olorioko himself and…

Baba:Hehehehehehehe…so Dopemu, I am now an elder abi? So you can carry yourself and your muck-stained handsto my farmhouse and call me ‘Your Excellency’? Sebi dem say you twitted that my leaving the ruling party would only lead to the loss of one vote in Ogun State. So, why should I listen to you. The elderly ones among you have not spoken a word but you are brazen enough to lecture me on pap and stained hands. Well, as you can see, na only emu funfun I dey drink and my hands are stained with the sweet oil of bush meat. You, Dopemuthat said my expulsion was imminent before I tore my membership card could come here to lecture me on national interest. What do you know about national interest? Was it national interest that pushed you to that forum where you were disgraced in the video that has gone viral? Even when you worked under me, was it national interest that propelled you to do what made me to fire you? If my leaving the umbrella would not have any national impact as you raved in that twit, wetincarry you waka come my farm where I dey siddon kampe? Please, do not test my patience because it will not yield any good luck to you. Se o ti gbo?

Ifemibaluje:That is exactly the crescendo we have been trying to get to sir—the leader of this delegation, Chief Ekun Kilaki, would have opened the good luck and patience discourse if you could just give us some moment to talk. We are not unmindful of the intrigues and political abracadabra that could have propelled you to publicly tear your membership card. However, in politics, nothing is impossible. We are to find out how things can be ironed out between a father and his many sons. In addition, as a respectable elder statesman, we do know that we can always assuage your fears. We are all in this for the betterment of the society at large. We just want to reassure you of our unalloyed loyalty to your leadership in the South West and even internationally.

Baba: (Fills the wooden cup again, gulps it and releases a loud guffaw, he then wipes his mouth with his left hand and refills the cup) Hmmm…Ifemibaluje, Ifemibaluje, Ifemibaluje, how many times did I call you? I know you and I said as much in my book that your Olorioko stopped me from selling in Nigeria. Your words are sweetened by the allure of minted notes. If you like, dress me in borrowed garbs. I am not moved because I know what loyalty meant to you when you served under my administration. I know what loyalty translated into when you joined the opposition party and I know what loyalty now means to you after retracing your steps back to the shade theumbrella offers you before it started leaking torrents onto your heads. Ifemibaluje, I do not have any fears. I have told you that people like your Chief Ekun Kilaki and I are sitting at the departure lounge. We are just waiting for the final call. So, what is there to fear again? I laugh in Egba language when you say that you want to iron things out between a political godfather and his many godsons. Like I told Oro Kabiti some moments back, I sure know my sons just like I know my chickens like the palm of my hand.It is only a bastard son that would use the left hand to pointthe way to his father’s house. When did you, Ifemibaluje, start embracing a father who tried to control and teleguide your new-found Olorioko? You, of all my former aides, should know how dangerous it is to come appealing to a father who is prepared to foist a devil in power for as long as that devil remains under the control of a chicken farmer like me.And you didn’t find it strange that you worked with me for all those years that I was a devil’s incarnate in power?Instead of leaving me to continue with my search for a stooge in power, you are here pleading that I listen to what your head of delegation, who once called me the most corrupt leader in Nigeria, has to say. Okay, has he come here with those people he said should arrest me? Look, look, look, this is my house and even motor park touts deserve some respect please. I think I have heard enough!

Oro Kabiti, Dopemu and Ifemibaluje: But Baba, we have not said anything. We are yet to deliver the message from Olorioko and you are yet to hear what the elders on this delegation have to say.

Baba: What else do you want to say? Me, I dey kampe in my farm and I do not give a damn even if someone calls me a motor park tout.You don’t need to consult me and I don’t have to be consulted. With an electoral value of one cheap vote, I am too inconsequential for anyone to waste campaign time on. Allow me the luxury of tending my chickens and goats. SebiI was a tout when I picked him as a Vice Presidential candidate to Ikubolaje? I was in the business of motor park touts when I stood solidly behind him to become Olorioko as I publicly condemned Ikubolaje for not telling me the true state of his health.Sebi I was a tout when I canvassed for votes for him in 2007 and he won. Now, I want to remain a tout legally by shredding any link with those who cannot accommodate a wanton and malicious tout who impugns the integrity of their Olorioko. Is that asking for too much under the rule of law? As you go back, please let me wish you good luck as you patiently wait for the inevitable verdict in March. As for me, I dey kampe.

…the curtains draw to a close, Baba grabs the gourd of palm wine and the wooden mug. He throws furtive glances at Oro Kabiti, Dopemu and Ifemibaluje, looks back at the pieces of bush meat inside the aluminium plate, shakes his head regretfully and takes his exit while his confounded visitors looked at one another quizzically, knowing not what to say.