Crave a window into post-poll bluff and bluster, from the electorally vanquished? Go no farther than the lair of the Ebora Owu!
But then, want a double-take: into the jaunts, at the victors’? Check out the vibes, from the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium, the 2019 version of the yearly feast of ideas, put together to mark Asiwaju Tinubu’s 67th birthday.
But between the Ebora Owu and the Jagaban Borgu, there may well be playing out Nigeria’s 21st century equivalent of the Greek mythical change of regnant orders: the Olympian overthrow of the Titan gods.
The Titans were giants: powerful and strong. The Olympians were a marvel: beautiful and nimble. But the time, in Greek mythology, was ripe for change — from raw strength to dazzling brains.
But the beauty was the Titans knew, not without pains, when to quit. They bowed out with rare grace. The Olympians too, took over with even rarer magnanimity.
It’s the dazzling beauty of Greek mythology, as captured by John Keats’s incomplete long poem, “Hyperion”.
But it’s all a simple yet sweeping metaphor, in Greek traditional common sense, of the grace of wisely yielding to change — as the Titans splendidly did.
In contemporary Nigeria, however, that common sense would appear not common — and the bluff and bluster, from the camp of the Ebora Owu, is prime evidence.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is, for good or for ill, one of the towering figures of the current 4th Republic, right from its dawn on 29 May 1999.
He was not only the republic’s first elected — and two-term — president, he embraced Breton-Woods orthodoxy (most especially, in his second term, 2003-2007), which triggered “reforms” that nevertheless under-developed Nigeria; and mushroomed poverty, just for Nigeria to blissfully count among serf-countries, in the West’s neo-economic imperialism.
Needless to say, the coming of President Muhammadu Buhari (incidentally, the only re-elected president after Obasanjo) is changing all that.
PMB’s alternative economic philosophy not only pulled Nigeria from recession, the putative economic stability, that had resulted, has even spurred the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to cut the monetary policy rate (MPR) from 14 % to 13.5 %.
If that heralds a new dawn, it could well result in progressively lower MPR, crashed interest rates, cheaper credit to fund business and, other things being equal, a booming economy; and eventually, development and prosperity.
That is the sound bite that came from the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium, with the celebrator himself advising the PMB economic team to shun any hike in the value-added tax (VAT) — being canvassed, by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), to rise from 5 % to between 8.5% to 10% by 2019 year end.
Aside, Tinubu harped on the imperative of infrastructure upscale — better roads, more modern rail, etc., as the administration has already started — but insisted that electricity held the ace to power the economy into global reckoning.
Still, he decried estimated billing: the cash cow of electricity distribution companies (DisCos), pushing their democratic right to extort payment sans service — another Obasanjo-era legacy of corrupt privatization.
But he also charged the PMB government to deliver more electricity to power factories: to create jobs, reduce poverty and spread prosperity. That, the Jagaban called, “the government working for the people”, thus challenging the people to also work for the government.
The sweet mutuality of the state working for its people, and a challenged but immensely pleased people working for their state, is never more beautifully put! That is the fundament of patriotism; and it had its apogee in ancient Sparta.
Yet, that ethos was almost extinct, in the Obasanjo era (1999-2015). Back then, government policy became arbitrary ticket to enrich a few friends, but ruin the majority.
Elections themselves became a criminal selection process, to fulfil all righteousness in periodic (s)elections; with nary any righteousness in the whole charade.
That flared in 2003, when Obasanjo “won” re-election. But it hit the very nadir in 2007, when the outgoing president, after a crashed attempt to corral a third term contrary to constitutional provisions, pushed forth a mortally ill Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
To be sure, elections from 2015 have not become voter el dorados. In 2015, violence was higher but more localized, to some traditional flashpoints, especially Rivers State.
In 2019, there was less violence across the board. But the violence was more spread out, due mainly to non-democrats insisting on, by hook or by crook, “winning” democratic elections.
The more spread out violence has sent the losers’ camp howling, and projecting the electoral Armageddon that suits their troubled psyche.
But the election results have shown Nigerian elections are getting better, even if it hasn’t hit the desirable models many Nigerians dream.
Still, it would appear far better than the brigandage that ruled the roost in 2003 and 2007, when some lobbies, in some parts of the country, abusing the so-called “federal might”, just sat down to cook and award figures.
Incidentally, 2007 and its do-or-die election marked the beginning of the end for the Obasanjo era, though it would take another eight years (2007-2015) for that Titanic to sink.
Ironically now, it’s the old evil selectorate, that progressively ruined the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), that now try to pooh-pooh the electoral gains recorded since 2015.
Obasanjo, the fountain head of that ancien regime, crunching his sour grapes, sees nothing but chaos in the emerging new order; and blusters over his old power and glory, that nevertheless brought nothing but ruin to the majority.
That is why he would claim Nigerians were more divided today than ever – a contentious hyperbole, for Nigerian “unity” was also a serious issue under his presidency; brag he was the longest serving Nigerian leader (as if sheer length approximates quality delivery); and go to South Africa to resume his charge for the youth to “snatch power”.
But the last time Obasanjo had the chance to walk his talk on that, he abandoned his darling “youth” and scampered into Abubakar Atiku’s camp!
The Ebora and the Jagaban, therefore, epitomize two contrasts: the one led an old order to perdition; the other preaches salvation with an emerging order, even as the fierce transition battle rages.
The former president, not being a classical scholar, might not gain much by the Titan-ic wisdom: of embracing change with painful grace.
Still, the theology scholar in him should school him in the utmost danger of making false fires. That was the tragedy of Nadab and Abihu, the two blighted sons of the Levite, Aaron, who made false fires to the Jehovah (Leviticus: 10, 1-2).
But “false fires” is only a spiritual lingo for cant. Hauling cant, with the fond hope of subverting change, earns nothing but extreme diminution.
That is what the former president should be wary of, even as he comes to grip with his post-poll de-mystification.
