FFK and the Omoluabi burden

Femi Fani-Kayode is a social media frenzy but a no-weight in PDP. He is without doubt, fronting for a 2023 president-wannabe. He gave himself away when he threatened “we would leave PDP” if party structure is taken away from Cross River governor, Ben Ayade, a lawless professor, messing up his state judiciary. The “We” question was what the Daily Trust fellow asked in an ebullient way and Fani answered the way that has become his way.

Cognitive Dissonance and Reactance have a common root in the guilt factor. Though, the former minister apologised, he must have done so under the duress of the meeting with his so-called advisors after his Calabar “carnival”, because only a coward apologises for his belief system and he isn’t. Brash and brusque, Fani-Kayode is a serial brute who pride has made impudent. How do I mean?

One bright day, I was doing Lagos to Abuja and the warble-fly was also for the flight, donning a nonsensical Igbo red cap, over a light-blue kaftan. He deliberately took self out of the boarding queue and stood like a badly-chiseled manikin. Before you could say enem mi ndi kut fi (pleased to meet you in Efik), he was already unloading on a female personnel conducting final boarding checks, simply because the braggart was asked to follow protocol and remove his cap. You know the real content of a heart during unguarded moments. By referencing Donald Trump and Olusegun Obasanjo as his no-nonsense models, FFK has shown where he is, with civility and those who don’t give, should not get. He threatened to call the lady’s bosses, for possible sanction, just like he did with the Trust reporter. Fani has a pattern already in dealing with those he thinks nature has subordinated to him because of his assumed super-heritage and won’t stop, until he is stopped. Imagine tongue-lashing someone for doing her job, and because the only fightback he got that day, was the same apology he got in Calabar, Fani would keep behaving like a dog raised to feast on blood, which won’t accept other appeasement except it drips.

The airport lady and the journo likely apologised because they weren’t sure their bosses would stand gidigba like rebellious Warri pikin for them, against a rampaging ex-this, ex-that who still eats the salt of yesterday in his soup.

I wish their bosses are like mine, Edward Dickson, Nigerian Tribune’s MD and Editor-in-Chief. He would pardon me telling this story.

Akinwunmi Ambode had emerged the governorship candidate of APC in 2015, and the documents he filled under oath, regarding his state of origin had become an issue. A case of alleged perjury was loading and his opponent got the police involved. So, Mr. Candidate was summoned to Force Headquarters in Abuja and I filed an exclusive story on it. When his camp was asked to react to the invitation, one of his media aides, who has a long-standing friendship with my boss, started working telephone lines to stop the publication. He got those he thought my boss would never be able to say No to, to plead his cause.

All this was behind me. Then, he made a costly mistake. He called back to taunt that not only would the story not see the light of the day, I should have behaved in the first place, respecting the friendship between him and my boss. After his call, my boss and I got talking and once I got to the point of the aide trying to use him as Ojuju Calabar against me, he simply said I should forget it that nothing would stop the report despite “interventions”. He directed Ambode’s pix should adorn the front page alongside the screaming headline of his probe. He settled my perception of him as a leader.

There is a story told me by a friend, now late, who was a grassroots mobiliser in Lagos State. Years back, one of their prominent leaders who had made unsuccessful attempts at becoming governor (name withheld), was said to have led a delegation to a country I won’t want to mention. He was then a visible official of the state government, obviously before his sojourn in the opposition. Right at the entrance of the hotel housing the delegation, an argument reportedly ensued between the leader and one of those he considered lesser mortals. Before one could say king get virus, leader had sent a thunderous one to the face of the annoying delegate. Mr. Delegate reportedly responded with a heavier hand, before packing the entirety of leader, lifting and showing him up to God, and nicely spreading him on the floor with a deafening thud. The rest of their stay was peaceful. Gibbers isn’t recommending this antidote. Just saying.

I suspect Fani-Kayode is running a Tambuwal errand and it is a plus for his road-worthiness to be hired for what is known in Washington as exploratory. He could tour the end of the earth if the right hand is knocking the doors of government houses for him and maybe our colleague should not have also counted a slave, in his presence. Yoruba will say, ta ba ka eru, inu eru a baje.

But for someone who claimed to have met the Lord Jesus, he can’t remain cantankerous and scandalous. He won’t be doing his new birth much good.  Ecclesiastes says Wisdom is profitable to direct. If he remains the same person he has always been when brought into politics, the value that would be placed on him by those who consider him a ready-made foot-soldier hireling won’t go beyond that infamous plate of rice and would still be required to do the palongo dance.

That is why I want to speak to the onibiniran (honoured dynasty) in his bloodstream from the Book of James 3. “Even so the tongue is a little member and it can boast of great things. See how much wood or how great a forest a tiny spark can set ablaze….The tongue is a fire, world of wickedness set among our members, contaminating and depraving the whole body and setting on fire the wheel of birth, being itself ignited by hell….The human tongue can be tamed by no man. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”

I move to Proverbs 29. “A man’s pride will bring him low but he who is of a humble spirit will obtain honour….Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a self-confident fool than for him….A fool utters all his anger, but a wise man holds it back and stills it.” Will a short-fuse still fit?.

 

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