Are Buhari’s breasts enough for Akpabio?

If you have ever been around the one and only Godswill Akpabio, the galala man of Uyo, he loves being noticed. Attention syndrome is a complex known as Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD). The Late Gani Fawehinmi, in giving a rare insight into his boyhood as the only son of his loving mum, confessed to attention-seeking behaviours and anytime he wasn’t considered too important for the moment, he would have a nuisance meltdown, until the mother stepped in to pacify him. He noted that on a particular occasion when the rage seized him, he gathered a mini-mountain of stones and went on an offensive against his own homestead, targeting the roof and other breakables. At that point, nobody could stop the rascal in him, but something did. Mummy Dearest was stepping out of the house while his David-like bombardment of the Goliathic home was on and a smooth stone, like the kind that brought Goliath down, caught Sweet Mother on the forehead and the crimson followed.

Though unlike Goliath, Mama didn’t go away, never to be seen again, it was the one who was always desiring that mother’s breasts be hung partially on his temple before he could be pacified, that learnt his lessons in the hard, emotive way. If dear mother had gone the way of Goliath with the smooth stone, connecting her forehead, there would be no comforter to seek out again. Condition exorcised him.

Mama Munirat was so protective of her son because male children have always been desirable, from time immemorial, for both fathers and mothers. Though many mothers have lost their homes to not having them, as well as losing sole ownership of their husbands’ midnight warmth, mothers, somehow, treasure boys more than daddies. In fact, researches have shown that countless daddies engage in subtle contests with their boys, without being completely conscious of the constant tension between them, to comparative advantage of girls who rarely lose the back of their fathers, when daddies mediate in boy/girl disputes at homes. And Gani was Mama’s only boy!

 

Akpabio is definitely not the only son of his adopted Aso Rock parent(s), even in his South-South, where Abuja is yet to sire enough treasurable boys. But without doubt, the Aso Rock Dad has demonstrated how precious his “boys” are to him and regardless of gravity of their proven felony, he has adopted double-amnesty policy, particularly for ministers and heads of major agencies.

Yoruba believe in indoor-justice; ka le eleyoro lo na, kato fabo ba adiye. Yoruba believe any child going the way of Hophni and Phinehas, the crooked duo who caused their father, Eli, unspoken grief in the midnight of his life, should be dealt with within the confines of the home, while his antagonist is sensibly excused. Yoruba believe that remonstrating with your child in the presence of the accuser has two major implications: the possibility of an overdo to please the one present, or the accuser going away, grumbling you haven’t done enough for the offence of the boy. Instead of adding to the offence on the ground, comeuppance is better served within.

But how does one know sanction is usually served, and what evidence is there to show President M. Buhari isn’t just doing it the Yoruba way, by choosing to remonstrate with his rogue boys, in comfy confines of Villa?

Well, the effectiveness of Yoruba justice style is measurable in what becomes of the child. If he/she continues in his/her waywardness, it is either the promised behind-the-lock sanctions are mere subterfuge to get the accuser away, or the child has chosen the way of perdition. That is when Yoruba would switch from omo ma pa mi, (don’t kill me this child), to “omo ma pa ara e (don’t destroy your life). At that point, parents of old would gladly accept public sanction for the child, especially if he/she is one bringing disgrace home, engaging in shameful acts of stealing, pilfering, robbery, lying and forming gangs, to dispossess people of their possessions. You hear things like, “tani Iya ole” (who is proud to show forth as the mother of a thief).

But that show of bravery and courage in disowning children that bring shame isn’t for all parents. Some mothers do have them and keep them. Some even draw them closer, to pat them on the back and ensure the two breasts are resting on their heads as a mark of motherly protection. There is a slang a senior colleague threw somewhere that first cracked me up, before sobering me, “Orobosa don cross.” Somehow, I can’t tell the story behind it today, not to offend a confidential arrangement.

Parents who celebrate roguish children may have their moments, but it is always an ear-bite regret at the end of the day. With manifest serial roguery in President Buhari’s government, it is doubtful he is saying anything indoors to those whose hands were hooked in the cookie jar. Listing Akpabio today isn’t a solo run against the Niger Delta minister. He is just gradually emerging as the poster-boy of all glittering in this government, but everything brunette.

First, immediately he showed up in APC, after a high-profile tattling, which got a very senior public officer controversially fired, landed him right at the heart of the president, all the amplified “sins” of his eight-year stint in Akwa Ibom Government House suddenly disappeared. Not even the eccentrically-brave Ibrahim Magu was ready to confirm if the galala man was still under probe or had been washed with partisan sponge that cleanses corruption once in the ruling party. The N108.1 billion just went away like that. Not even Elon Musk would throw such an amount away, meaning the people of Akwa-Ibom are poorer for it, if the money was actually missing as earlier claimed by the EFCC before the infamous Magu walk-back.

Two people who are also “poorer,” for their association with Akpabio are supposed academics, with reputation. By the time, time was called on the relationship of jailed Professor Peter Ogban and the disgraced and discarded Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei with the Akwa-Ibom maverick, their scholarship reputation in Soil Science and Virology respectively has been completely dented. Denied and abandoned, Ogban is now in jail and Pondei, who once headed Parasitology in his Ivory Tower, now in limbo, with opprobrium cleaving unto him like Naaman’s leprosy on greedy Gehazi. Both, like many others before them, have now learnt how not to be a parasite. Will Akpabio’s day ever come?

 

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