Comrade Oshiomhole’s bilateral engagement in the skies

IF the critics of Edo North senator and ex-labour leader Adams Oshiomhole had their way, he would probably be quartered for dismissing the recent viral video showing him giving a foot massage to a lady inside a private jet as a complete fabrication. But the noise will soon fade. Speaking through his media aide, Oseni Momodu, the 73-year-old lawmaker said that the video was an attempt to “blackmail the people’s Comrade”. He added: “It is an awkward height of insensitivity by unguarded power seekers who hide under the use of false information and can go to any length in bringing down an innocent assumed enemy, which the amiable Senator is not. In fact, we urge members of the public and the media to disregard its purport comprehensively and in totality.” Surprisingly, though, the assumed AI lady, who has since been uncovered as a whore, spoke up in South Africa, affirming the authenticity of the video and declaring with impatience: “Your senator is the problem, go be mad at him, not me. ”The distinguished senator has since gone mute.

Naturally, critics went for the kill. Hear the activist, Omoyele Sowore:  “When ‘Comrade’ Oshiomhole says food prices have dropped, he’s not speaking from the marketplace; he’s speaking from 30,000 feet. A man who can casually rent a private jet for indulgent personal errands lives in a different economic universe altogether.” I make no accusations but even if the senator did engage in the bilateral engagements indicated in the video, surely he has distinguished company. The Comrade is a good Catholic and even popes have been caught in conferences. Pope Alexander VI (born Rodrigo Borgia in the Spanish town of Xàtiva in 1431) had two famous mistresses: Vannozzadei Cattanei and Giulia Farnese, both married noblewomen. Borgia openly acknowledged fathering seven children between them. Of course, he fathered many more children whose names have been lost to history. Pope John XII converted the Vatican into a full-fledged brothel and raped female pilgrims in the middle of St. Peter’s Basilica. We were talking about Fela last week: “Open you eye everywhere/Archbishop namiliki/Pope na enjoyment/Imam nagbaladun/Archbishop dey enjoy/Pope self dey enjoy/Imam self dey enjoy/My brother wetin you say?”

Sexcapades, objectionable as they are, aren’t exactly class-specific: a recent economic study estimated that in Lagos State in 2024, men spent about ₦661 billion on transactional s3x with s3x workers. If taxpayer funds are being expended on foreign whores and wine, so are taxpayers’ personal savings being spent on deadly orgies. It is a human affliction, but Comrade Oshiomhole has not admitted any wrongdoing. Hear him: “The video was clearly doctored by malicious actors aimed at maligning the reputation of the amiable Senator. In the footage, the 30-second video published by SaharaReporters on its Facebook handle revealed intent, desperation and the decrying state of media reportage devoid of investigative professionalism. Close examination of the alleged clip, especially up till 0.6 seconds, where the lady walked through the airstairs, and the remaining 23 seconds of the alleged footage of Senator Oshiomhole significantly revealed disparity, glaringly suggesting a contraption.” Hmm.

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How would a comradely, socialist defence of “the people’s Comrade” have sounded? Here’s how. The statement exonerating the senator from any wrongdoing would have pointed out that as a distinguished Comrade deeply concerned about the strained relationship between Nigeria and South Africa, His Excellency had engaged a famous content creator in bilateral discussions from an elevated height. The choice of venue, strange though it may seem, was actually strategic: the deliberations were meant to be private in view of the security dimensions of the crisis, and who better than an ex-governor (and therefore an expert) to tactically secure such discussion, taking great care to shield it from unauthorized persons? Indeed, given the pains the Comrade took to guard the outcome of the talk, does the fact that the details have now been pried open by enemies of the Nigerian State not demonstrate the concerns that the distinguished senator had all along? A private jet conference may be costly, but fractured relations between Nigeria and South Africa are costlier. Exactly!

I do not make this portrayal inadvisedly. As a student of Great Ife, I witnessed socialism in action at a congress of the student body. On that occasion, a member of the Student Union viciously grabbed the chocolate drink being consumed by another member, who was standing in a corner, then went into an overdrive. He got the entire hall into a frenzy, documenting the oppressive actions of the university authorities. The students were in full agreement with him, not paying any attention to the drink. Being close to the distraught owner of the drink, I could hear him muttering helplessly in Yoruba: “E so fun koba mi mu chocolate mi!” (Tell him to give back my chocolate), but no one seemed to pay him any heed. The hall was caught up in the rhetoric of the hijacker. This is actually how society—with its socialist leaders—works, and you miss a great point when you think a comrade ex-governor always attired in khaki (and “ridiculous schoolboy caps”, if Chinua Achebe in his Anthills of the Savannah has any say in the matter) can be trusted to live like the masses.

Remember Kwei Armah’s quip, “Socialism chop make I chop” in The Beautyful Ones Are not Yet Born. In the beginning of the revolution in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the refrain is “All animals are equal.” But the leaders, the pigs, soon exempt themselves from this principle, suddenly discovering that “Milk and apples… contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig.” And the Constitution is speedily manipulated: “No animal shall sleep in a bed” becomes “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.” If by the end of the novel, “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig… but already it was impossible to say which was which,” it is precisely because of what the Abami Eda, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, calls Government Magic. Think about it: if the leaders building our nation (remember the Ugandan poet Henry Barlow) crave strategic conferences with whores, won’t they need ample budgets to support the project?

Whores, money and wine go together. Per a Chatham House report, Nigerian politicians and civil servants took between $480 billion–$582 billion from the public till between 1960 and the mid-2010s. From 2006 to 2013 alone, 55 politicians helped us save $6.7 billion (about ₦1.34 trillion) in their private accounts. They did not want the treasury to explode under pressure. And just in case you think that they did anything wrong, then consider the fate of Jeroen Dijsselbloem, then President of the Eurogroup, who pointedly told a German newspaper in February 2017 while defending strict fiscal discipline for southern EU countries that: ”You can’t spend all your money on wine and women and then ask for help.” Amid allegations that he was stereotyping Southern European countries (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy)–and using sexist language to boot!-Dijsselbloem repented, and said that his comment had been “misinterpreted”.

Fela again: “We fear to fight for freedom/We fear to fight for liberty/We fear to fight for justice.” So if our “decisioners” (apologies to the poet of timeless passions, Tony Afejuku) continue to “leave sorrow, tears and blood” as “regular trademark”, please understand that they are doing so for our good.