This renewed charge of alleged obtainment by Chief Olu Falae, the Afenifere chieftain — is it that same Falae we all knew and revered?
And that same Afenifere that, for so long, with devastating bragging right, preened and savaged everyone with their squeaky clean essence?
There is something brutally rigorous about the ethos of the Roman masters, in the classics.
That clearly explains why Julius Caesar could proclaim Caesar’s wife — note, the wife, not Caesar himself — must not only be above reproach, but should, indeed must, be seen to be so!
Now, if Caesar’s spouse was expected to scale such great heights, in private and public rectitude, what height was Caesar himself expected to vault? It would appear the political equivalent of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative.
That also, it would appear, explained the Roman strict military code. A misfiring general would much rather end his own life, than suffer the supreme indignity of being paraded, in chains, in the streets of Rome.
Nor, nearer home, is such ethos exactly novel. When the traducers of the late MKO Abiola taunted him with sickening bail conditions, after annulling the free mandate he won in the June 12, 1993 presidential election, he reportedly scoffed: Iku ya j’esin (better to die than be mocked)!
And thanks to Wole Soyinka’s gripping play, Death and the King’s Horseman, it was only such a rigorous code that would compel Olunde, the Elesin’s medical doctor son — with his western education to boot! — to challenge his father to be man enough to do dire duty, following the death of his king, after fattening, for years, on the sweet lollies of office!
But back to politics from fiction. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the Afenifere doctrinal avatar, was never far from political sainthood. His piqued rivals often growled and, mala fide, dismissed him as “holier than thou”.
Back in 1978 when presidential candidates were thrusting their papers upon the then Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO, now INEC), with Chief Michael Ani (now dead) as chair, Awo wasted no time declaring his tax returns, which then had hit the million naira mark.
Tax was what you did in private; and it is an open secret that the world over, citizens would rather not pay tax, if they could get away with it. His presidential rivals back then, including the Great Zik of Africa, manifested such a syndrome, leading to a lot of media hoopla. Not Awo!
But such saintly attitude drove the story by the defunct National Concord, about the Awo Maroko land deal. In lieu of cash, Awo’s law firm had negotiated payment in land with the client it represented in the land dispute. That party won and duly consummated the agreement.
Still, Awo in his autobiography, Awo, had explained his grand strategy: law was his profession. Politics was his vocation. He needed a viable profession, he reasoned, to fund his rather demanding vocation.
That was why he proudly referred to himself and his disciples as oselu (politicians), in contrast to his venal and corrupt rivals, who he contemptuously dismissed as ojelu (parasites)!
That such a straight land transaction could elicit such media uproar, therefore, was tribute to Awo’s rather “holy” public persona. The Nigerian polity back then, seemed to share the sentiments of Geoffrey Chaucer, the old English poet: If gold rusts, what would iron do?
Awo did nothing wrong in earning fair wages — even if in kind — for his hard forensic labour. Still friends, defensive, felt queasy; and fiends, malicious, ecstatic; triumphantly gushing: holier-than-thou had been unhorsed! Yet, Awo did no wrong! Remember the Caesar quip about his wife?
But why this long tie-back to the Awo essence, as man and politician? It is because, with the advent of another obtainment allegation against Pa Falae, one of his supporters, some top hierarch at the Ondo State Social Democratic Party (SDP), is already manifesting an empty sophistry, in defence of a suspect, if not entirely, lost cause.
It is a neither-nor rationalisation a contemptuous Afenifere, at their full glory, would have mocked with clinical derision.
Falae obtained money from nobody, he seemed to reason. His evidence? First, he submitted, the initial claim was Papa obtained from Sambo Dasuki, the Jonathan era National Security Adviser (NSA)-turned spigot for slush electoral funds. That “lie” had now changed colour, he triumphantly enthused, with Papa allegedly obtaining from a special coded account from the Central Bank of Nigeria!
Case dismissed and Papa’s image restored? Not quite.
For starters, it isn’t clear if the first alleged obtainment is the same as the second. The only similarity is the alleged sum: N100 million. Besides, if Papa earlier admitted he indeed collected N100 million for SDP to mobilise for Goodluck Jonathan’s doomed presidential encore and drum up support for PDP, where was the lie in all of this?
And more worrisome: what if the CBN obtainment was indeed a second in the series? Do we then brace ourselves for yet more muck, if the Papa obtainment were indeed a series? Holy Moses!
Just imagine: with Awo alive, and his most trusted lieutenants, say a Michael Adekunle Ajasin or an Abraham Aderibigbe Adesanya, listed with the Demo duo of Remi Fani-Kayode (aka Fani-Power) and Adisa Meredith Akinloye, Yoruba conservative rivals Awo loved to slam as ojelu, as having obtained, from the government of their day? That is the Awo-era impossibility post-Awo Falae has found himself, even though an avowed Awoist!
Incidentally, Pa Falae, horror of horrors, is listed with a Fani-Kayode! That, of course, is no conclusion of guilt. But in the severe beauty of Awoism’s puritanical politics, such mere listing is damaging enough, if not outright fatal!
Classical Awoists don’t do grey — just black or white; not unlike a severe Nigerian political interpretation of Kant’s categorical imperative! And Falae, with his Afenifere commune, crested the public wave as fiery Awoists, clutching the political, nay spiritual, franchise of Awoism, and would brook no defilement of their holy grail.
For Pa Olu Falae, these are not the best of times: evening years savaged by extreme chill, after the merry sunshine of youth, built firmly on integrity and unassailable character.
But these are logical results from options he deliberately made, even with ample warning, from the generality of the Yoruba, majority of who are Awoists at heart. Ripples just hopes and prays he rides the storm and clears his name.
Still, his odyssey should be a fitting lesson to others, especially younger and aspiring politicians —and that quip comes from a rather common saying: as you lay your bed, you lie on it!
History may well remember Pa Falae more by his grand mistakes of old age, than the fine strivings of youth, on which he built a solid reputation. Sad!
- Correction: Christopher, not John, was the patriarch of the ill-fated Adubes: John, Joy and Lucky, all four, massacred in Rivers, in the build-up to the 2015 general election, as mentioned in this column last week.
