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believe in the divine concept of seed time and harvest. It simply means you reap what you sow. Beyond the persona she helped the Nigerian public frame of her, I know nothing about Ms Lauretta Onochie’s private life and the real content of her heart. So, the much of her I know is that she is a street Buharist, ready for the lowest of low, to defend her political choices and hibernations.
If I had a national assignment that could define the Nigerian state the way our elections have come to, I won’t give it to her. But she would be my top pick when prebendalism is a priority. Thankfully, I have no such jobs to offer. So, no reasons to hire or fire. But I am not one to celebrate her tough luck or more like her temporary setback because I have no reasons to. You ask if the job she was being recommended for isn’t Nigeria’s, of which I’m a part, and I say, posterity will make everybody answer hin papa’s name, at the appointed time.
The constitution which General Buhari swore to operate on behalf of 200 million Nigerians is clear about what is right, just, fair and justiciable. If illegality has become the playground for the president, he can as well, with due respect, spread a mat there for unending picnic. Recent history assures me all in the land today will soon become history. At least, APC as the ruling party, will be remembered for whataboutism, whenever caught pants down.
Lanre Issa-Onilu, the one with suspicious locus to speak in representative capacity for the party, came out swinging with a ludicrous defence. Goodluck Jonathan did it with some of his appointments to INEC. What kind of ad hominem is this? If Jonathan was the ideal benchmark for constitutional governance and delivering democracy, for APC, of what use then is the ruling party to Nigerians? But even with all his flaws, the former president would appear a more appealing democrat. At least, he had the sensibility and sensitivity to withdraw nominees with PDP’s logo like Lauretta before the Senate could take the process out of his hand.
On record, he dropped the likes of General Bagudu Mamman from Abaji, FCT, Ambassador Mohammed Zaki Anka from Zamfara, Alhaji Yakubu Shehu from Kaduna and Mr Eddy Nwatalari from Enugu State. He also went ahead to appoint an INEC chairman he knew not from Adam, not a foster son or daughter, who grew up in his household. The way we allow partisanship to turn us into enablers of the grotesque, someday, when politics is done, the comeuppance may rob us of sleep for years.
Just like it is happening in the North now. When Atiku Abubakar and co. were talking of making the country ungovernable because Jonathan was seen standing in the way of their presidential ambitions, little did they know that the small smoke they intended to draw water and tears from then president’s eyes, would conflagrate so much to chase them out of comfort. Today, the much-coveted village ambience is a taboo for many who boasted of setting their country ablaze because an unwanted minority was president. Now, the fire is right under their pillows, heating and eating up their medulla.
It is same thing Senator Ahmed Lawan and his legislative collaborators are doing, trying to rob future elections of integrity. Surely, what they are sowing today would bear fruits for them, to swallow, squirmy, tomorrow.
General Buhari loves winning, even when little is at stake, once he is up against public opinion. He can’t just see himself lose to the wailing Nigerian public, now considered a perennial foe, in the absence of a virile opposition. It was the same in-your-face attitude that propelled the president sending Ms Onochie’s name, despite the limitless outrage that welcomed the nomination. That is god-like gut. It is also a symptom of inferiority complex, masked as toughness. One of the signs of greatness is to know when to withdraw in the face of overwhelming objection, to win bigly, the next time. But we are who we choose to be and only an educable man can be taught to be left-handed at the old age.
If his antecedents are considered, no amount of pleadings, threats and cajoling would stop the President from representing her, maybe this time, he would wait till December when Mary Agbamuche-May’s tenure would officially end for Delta State to have an opening. Then the partisanship battle would be fought out, though Lawan’s Senate has already handed Aso Rock a clear advantage, considering the stance of the Kabiru Gaya screening committee that Onochie’s name on APC membership register in her Ward 4, Aniocha North Local Government doesn’t amount to being an APC member. Funny lot.
For the remaining 680 days of the Buhari presidency, due-process Nigerians should be battle-ready for a marathon because the President will always want to win, whether crookedly or transparently. The pawns of the days ahead, like Onochie, should remember a certain Ibrahim Magu, who the President kept presenting for a job he didn’t actually want to give him. He got Bukola Saraki, where he wanted him, almost, for free. How could Bukola count Lawal Daura, a Buhari growler, in his corner when he and the President weren’t chummy? A simple intellectual arithmetic of the nomination politics should have Bukola on Magu’s side, despite his Buhari-sanctioned graft probe, to take the EFCC fry out of the way, in order to properly see the Aso Rock humming Bulldozer. The orchestra with Daura turned a political dirge for small Oloye.
Just as Magu counted for little or nothing in Buhari’s war with Saraki, Onochie isn’t also an issue in this adventure embarked on by the President. After Nigerians wailed off Mr Buhari’s inordinate attempt to make his god-daughter, Amina Zakari, INEC’s top-dog, the warrior in him must be roaring this time. The new cliché is, once bitten, twice mad.
Madam Lauretta is closer home to Oduduwa and this warning to desperadoes can’t be strange to her; ohun owo mi o to, ma fi gogo fa (I will get anyhow, what isn’t within reach). As for the President, I will employ 1 Corinthians 10:23. Even when things are lawful, they may not be expedient. And when legitimate, may not be edifying. God bless the President.
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and then