“During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society, in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, my Lord, if it needs to be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die,” Nelson Mandela in the dock on April 20, 1964.
“But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom, comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my walk is not ended,” reads the closing line of his famous autobiography “Long Walk to Freedom,” published in 1994, the same year he became the president of a country which once jailed him for life.
Mandela, the agitator, the freedom fighter, the terrorist, jailed for escaping from South Africa without passport, jailed for terrorism and incitement, who almost got death sentence for his alleged sins against the State, ended his race an immortal history. At his death on December 5, 2013, obsequies were announced with Nelson Mandela: 1918–Eternity. Didn’t Proverbs 10:7 say, “the memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot”?
With their arrest on foreign soils, disappointed disciples and delighted adversaries like Joe Igbokwe, a recently-baptized nationalist, have knocked Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu for lacking in needful sagacity to lead their respective nations to freedom, as stand-alone republics.
No doubt, obvious brevity of tact has consistently manifested in their chosen styles, particularly in the handling of gains of populism and accolades of bravura. They had mis-addressed heavyweights from their zones, deemed disloyal and unsupportive. While they have cost themselves extra supportive vertebrae, nothing happening around them today, is strange to recent history.
Just like Joe Igbokwe’s kpalongo on Facebook, celebrating their arrest and prosecution, some low-quality blacks also rejoiced when Mandela, who Igbokwe’s kindwere lapping his cold feet at death as global hero, was arrested and jailed for similar offences, now framed against Kanu and Igboho. For immigration offence, which Igboho is now facing in Benin Republic, Mandela got five years. And for inciting riots/terrorism like Kanu allegedly did, leading to fatalities, he got life imprisonment, missing the hangman noose by an inch.
In jail, he became the face of the emancipation struggle, transmogrifying from uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) commander to the conscience of chained black people world over and from a supposedly hunted-down terrorist to the soul of a dreaming people and the new nation of their imagination. For decades, his body was tethered at Robben Island prison, but his soul had connected to freedom in a way that only death could disconnect. On May 19th, 1994, the statesman lurking in him was born. He became a lord to his jailers. You never know how the story of a man would end.
Today, the soul of an average Southerner is out of Nigeria, no thanks to President Muhammadu Buhari’s lofty hoisting of cave-age ethnicity as statecraft. Even the very apolitical in the South-West, including regular housewives whose main worry is owo obe (home upkeep allowance) and not Abuja, are now asking: what is Igboho’s offence? That is the problem of not properly choosing a target before shooting. Igboho is one of them. I mean market people, a symbolism of where gossip thrives. Despite his acquired affluence and his best at living it, the omo oko o gbo kira kira (unrefined personality) colouration is still all over him. It is always easy for locals to identity with his kind, leading a struggle.
If Ayo Fayose hadn’t soaked his neck, hands and soul in Nigeria’s penkelemesi (peculiar mess) politics, his person was also cut for this kind of trade. That has been the difference in Kanu and Igboho’s cases, though the rousing support Sunday is reaping from Yoruba princes and peasants may ignite the sun to rise like a wildfire from the East when Kanu’s full trial begins.
I pity the Buhari administration. In its bid to put out a smouldering log with power-hose to ensure not an ounce of ash is left unblown away, it has ignited massive conflagration, especially in Yoruba land where the omo eni o ki n buru ti ti, (you don’t sacrifice a prodigal) proverb, is already working in Igboho’s favour. And oh boy, the sentiment is running very deep, even among those who used to make excuses for the president. Even for the Yoruba heavyweights that received the uncircumcised side of Sunday’s tongue, it is now a case of omo eni o se idi bebere (you support your own first, regardless).
For the fixers of this administration, experiences have shown that all they need from Aso Rock is body language, though trusted aides will still get direct briefings and debriefings. But President Buhari has shown that he doesn’t like answering for crimes. So, he has a way of getting people to answer for his infractions, particularly when the acts are felonious in nature. Since 2017, Nigerians are get to know who signed the controversial NNPC Joint Venture N648 billion contract, considered the biggest heist in history for Nigeria. Minister of Petroleum Muhammadu Buhari, VP Yemi Osinbajo, late Chief of Staff Abba Kyari, former Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu, and late NNPC GMD Maikanti Baru, simply bounced blame around.
One Yoruba proverb that comes with a lot of introspection for me is the twenty-year-old pounded yam being hot enough to hurt fingers. That must be extra-ordinary. And that exactly is the life we live. Daddy G.O told the story of the teacher who got Nnamdi Azikiwe expelled from school, lining up in blazing sun by the roadside in Efon-Alaaye to welcome him as the first indigenous Governor General. Zik reportedly stopped his motorcade, walked up to him and simply said, “how are you”? The man was soaked in tears.
When the case of Mandela, the terrorist, began at Rivonia, the immediate end was certain. But the sentencing was the beginning of his destiny. The day before Igboho’s arrest was Mandela Day. Who can tell how the story will end.
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