Let ex-Comrade, Oshiomhole be

NIGERIA is a playground for the privileged. Nigeria is a playground of the privileged. This is my own way of casting a passing glance at the raging verbal war between the “shoot on sight” and “shoot at sight” warriors. Whichever way we look at these, their meanings are not lost on Nigerians. But today is not for winding walk through the labyrinth called grammar. Look around you, you would see why Nigeria belongs to only the privileged; why the country is a playground for the privileged ones will scream at you. And if you dare to complain that the country is systemically crooked, you would be shot on sight with brutal words and even come under a blitzkrieg of ruthless gaslighting.

Nigerians who are either considered as simply being jealous of privileged-others, or are seen as being bitter because they are far from the largesse, might just need to shut up. On the streets, you would be asked to lock up. But those who are not in government and therefore are not among the privileged few, must come together and reflect sincerely. Those among the citizenry who are roaming at the periphery of government should also put on their thinking caps. This category of people is the weapon fashioned against a collective voice against social oppression. This category of people forgets that we are all in it together. They would hit you with a common saying in Ibadan: Eni ìfà ò tósíló n pèéníhàram. The person who is not invited for the freebie, or who is not privileged to be among the partakers of a largesse brands it ‘forbidden’.

It is not in question that Nigeria is like that freebie for some category of its citizens… a huge bounty for the privileged of all hues and shades. The pointers all around us everywhere, every time. The country is designed to favour the rich and the privileged, whom we refer to as ‘the connected’. If you are not there yet, or you have no job, it must be that you are not working hard enough or you are simply just lazy. Those who built the system for us are the same people who saw Bini and could not believe the level of development of the people. They came back, waged an unprovoked war against the people, desecrated their land, plundered the kingdom and sent their king on exile. So, thieves – foreign and local thieves and vermin built our system.

Former Comrade, Adams Oshiomhole, is today among those Nigerians of immense privilege. He once served the country and its peoples as a labour leader. That era, we heard his voice and we saw his fight for social justice and egalitarianism. Thereafter, we are seeing an Oshiomhole who ruled as governor, worked as a national chairman of APC and is now relaxing as a senator. He might not have been this privileged if he had remained on the side of the people. But as a former governor and now a senator, Oshiomhole is fully entitled to partake of Nigeria. So, why would people be fretting and beating themselves when he is just being plainly a typical Nigerian political leader? Have we forgotten that no one kills a dog for the sin of barking? Or, would anyone sentence the he-goat to death for the offence of promiscuity?

As we all can infer, Oshiomhole is in the retirement home of our politicians with a number of his colleague former governors. After governing Edo State for eight unbroken years and reigning very hard too, he chose to retire to Nigeria’s cosy Senate so as to be able to properly stretch his tired legs and rest his stressed brain. Remember that his legs worked from the whole lot of dancing he did when he was campaigning for his election and that of Muhammadu Buhari. Recall also that he danced aplenty when he campaigned for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In addition, he engaged his hands so much wielding the broom for his political party and for this privilege. So, I think it is right that we allow him some well-deserved rest after those strenuous services to the nation. I also think he has the right to let his hair down and be properly stroked like a pet pussycat.

So what if it was not our ex-Comrade that was being stroked?! So what if he was the one giving someone a foot massage while they cruised on a private jet? Would you know who actually deserves more rest and massaging in the circumstance you saw in the video? Whether he was the one massaging them or they are the ones rubbing him and robbing us, we must allow Oshiomhole his own share of the spoils of the privileged.

It sounded so much like Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”, but Oshiomhole said it wasn’t him. He said he was not where you thought you saw him, that the video in which you saw him massaging the legs of a lady in a private jet is not real but artificially generated. The House of Oshiomhole seriously denied the video but the woman whose leg was being massaged or straightened in the video, Leshaan Dagama, says otherwise. It is okay to blame AI, the new devil. And we the less-privileged Nigerians are now falling over ourselves in defence or otherwise of our former Comrade. You can see why we are the victims, apologies to Isidore Okpewho.

In Igboland, a common contention is usually that one has to secure a space on the floor before one begins the quest for a mat. That seems to be the philosophy guiding Oshiomhole. He has secured adequate spaces in Edo State, Abuja and Nigeria. So he can do whatever he likes like his colleagues in the privileged class without consequences. He has even granted us a very rare privilege of hearing him respond to the morally debilitating video. So, why still begrudge him? Let him be, mbok!

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If nothing, the Oshiomhole video lends some credence to what some club owners in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city are saying. They cried out, lamenting that politicians are ruining their business. The clubs are complaining that Nigerian politicians have turned one easy aspect of their regular trade into a very risky venture. In fact, the politicians have turned that aspect of clubbing into a nightmare. You wonder how?

According to the entertainment businessmen, they run clubs in which there are strippers. They claim that they fly these girls in from other countries to come to their clubs to perform. They would give them the job and accommodate them. But soon they begin to lose the girls to politicians who visit their clubs as patrons. The politicians would come and see the girls perform. Afterwards, they would bombard the strippers with enough free money beyond what they ordinarily would earn as strippers at the various clubs. The strippers, they lament, soon abandon their jobs, their employers and the accommodation and run to the politicians. They find their comfort at the politicians and make the most of the opportunity to milk them.

Those saying that the actions of Senator Adams Oshiomhole remind them of Athol Fugard should please leave the legendary South African out of the dishonour the likes of a discredited South African “Sugar Baby” brings. Athol Fugard died on the 8th of March, last year at the age of 92. The world-renowned playwright lived and died as “the moral conscience against the apartheid regime in South.” There was no time he was called out for changing the lanes of the morality he lived for. Going by how he was celebrated on his passing, there was no time or anywhere it was sniffed that “The Man Died” in Athol Fugard. He stood true to his moral beliefs till the end. So, he should not be in the same conversation with an intercontinental courtesan.

But, indeed, one must remember something about Oshiomhole and a book by Fugard. Did you read Fugard’s “SizweBansi is Dead” in secondary school? Do you remember the identity crisis in man’s quest to be able to enjoy life better and at another level? Have you read the play? Do you see SizweBansi in what has happened in the life of our former comrade? SizweBansi died in the transition from Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to Governor or Senator Adams Oshiomhole. There is something about the transition. The comrade you knew is long gone and comradeship had long transmuted to something else. The question therefore is at what point did we lose the Comrade in Comrade Adams Oshiomhole? Let’s just let the man be. We must now come together to seek another messiah. Oshiomhole has shown who he truly is and has resorted to doing what he truly likes.