Are we now stateless in Osun?

UNITED Nations may have lost verve because it has too many “bosses” with equal strength, controlling it. But it is never short on emergency creativity. As a way of providing an identity for those with challenged nationality, it tagged them, stateless. It is instructive to note that the stateless brothers and sisters are mostly refugees, fleeing their original domains due to all manners of war; economic, political, ethnic and religious. Wikipedia is patronising in its description, calling a stateless fellow “someone who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.”

Expectedly, Africa, the dark continent, kept in darkness by darkened leadership, leads in the head count with 1,021 million persons while a combination of Middle East and North Africa (seen and treated more as the unfortunate African Oyinbo) has 374, 237 persons, by official account.

Creative internet interpretations of the judgement on the identity of our dear state of Living Spring (I’m a little confused on how to reference it for now) voiding the “State of Osun” re-christening by Governor Rauf Aregbesola, could make an addition of the state’s 3,423,535 million people to the Black Africa count of these unique people, an irresistible exercise. At a media parley somewhere in GRA Ikeja before his re-election, the governor attempted to rationalise the name-change. Well, his position would not matter so much again since the entire saga is now about the position of law. Until the appeal is resolved one way or the other, a state of statelessness will seem to be the situation in our dear state. The governor had outlawed Osun State. The court outlawed the State of Osun. The geographical carving currently has no identity stricto senso and the people, I mean, my people, …

Hon. Agbonayima’s malady

If someone with barely enough is happy to discard a portion of what he should hold vice-like while seeking more, that portion must be truly undesirable. In Nigerian politics of the majority having all, the scramble for numbers is the whole reason for always finding accommodation for the good, the bad and the ugly and holding on tightly to them, at least until the poll is conducted. PDP is in such dire search for numbers. The opposition party is combing everywhere for the numbers to gain ascendancy again and perhaps, continue the looting. At least, its crudity in the looting competition should be helped by the refinement of the ruling APC, whenever or if it ever returns to Aso Rock. Like our Lord Jesus Christ taught us to leave the preserved 99 and seek the lost 1 sheep, the party is pleading even with the monstrous, to either return “home” or come join it as “new comrades.” To show it meant the expansion business, the party members of the House of Representatives vehemently protested last week, the defection of one of them from Imo State to APC and actually staged a walkout. A few days later, another member Rep. Johnson Agbonayima from Edo defected to the same APC and it was with rapturous joy that the PDP guys sent him off (not forth). For a party like PDP, home to all manners including Ali Modu Sheriff, Agbonayima should be worried. Without doubt, the party in the lower chamber must have been looking for ways to dump the fellow and when he jumped, his erstwhile colleagues quickly flung him and shoved down his throat, how despicable they thought him as a “comrade” and their stinging opinion of him. The defector should expect the worst in his new abode, regardless of the red carpet he got moving in. His new family in APC heard loud and clear what those who sired him, thought of him. He came into the ruling party practically without value, save for making up voting number during partisan consideration of issues. He can’t even effectively protest likely maltreatment in APC because his adopted family knows he has no “home” to go back to. Yes, PDP has made a habit of taking back prodigal children and despite its humiliating send-off for Agbonayima, it could take him back if beaten by rain in APC but the terms would be heart-crippling. Instead of celebrating his admission into the new “eating centre,” Agbonayima should reflect on his rejection even by a party rejected by Nigerians. His name reminds me of a once-upon Nigerian heroic goalkeeper, Wilfried Agbonibare. He ended his national assignment as Agbonibasket.

Firdaus and missing verses

The hijab brouhaha involving Firdaus Amasa and the legal community is a lava. Because it was conceived to achieve a pre-determined end, according to the young lady, the religious opera will run for a while. While running from episode to episode, common sense should prevail over law, legality, constitutionality and tough-talk. Above all the grandstanding, a life is involved, even if she appears set on a career suicide mission. A future is also involved even if those currently egging her on, are pushing more on the edge of destruction. I bet, Firdaus didn’t really know what she signed on, when her father and possibly Islamic scholars, talked her into the plunge, though she might controvert this assertion. I know enough of the “old men” running the legal education not to yield to any form of threat, whether from a blubbering professor or a revered spiritual cum royal leader. And even if positive judgement from the court is highly likely, is Firdaus alongside her family ready for the “cost” (particularly psychological) of a legal battle especially when the supporting choristers would soon move to the next “highly inflammable” religious issues which are ten-a-penny in Nigeria?