Ode to Area Fada

The headline should suggest a tribute to Charles Oputa; a grandpa who relishes the Boyness of youthful exuberance so much, he has practically refused to outgrow the delinquencies of milk teeth. The Charly Boy brand is a creation of a society in perpetual admiration of aberrants. He came wearing blings on vacuous music talent. The hollowness of whatever projected him to “stardom” is as grievous as the piercings on his body; especially his lips, which are capable of obscenities beyond eccentricity. If my opinion of Charly Papa is sought, I would say he simply needs help. But this piece isn’t about him, though he won’t also be archived without the credit of enriching our political register with TheirMumuNeverDo.

In about two decades, omo adugbo (street toughies) have ‘appointed’ four area fathers. Same job of managing a swamp; four different personalities; same result. The quartet isn’t of the same hue; one is a megalomania, another; slyly serpentine, yet another; fretfully dovish and the one pretending to be draining the swamp; pretentiously stealthy.

The mockery of a regulating code which attempts to leave the swamp only stinking and not sinking, is capable of making a beast of any hood commander, except the saved. Both what is allowed and what is not, can be inferred from the rule book and the most decorous of the Baba Adugbo so far appointed, even went haywire with owo ile (commonwealth) at a time. The rule book makes area father the ruler who solely determines in unruly ways, rules that rule.

The other day, I was with a garage leader at his abete (area of influence). Apart from his vehicles always at the head of the queue regardless of when they get to garage, all manner of money stream into his pocket. Apart from the flourishing owo ita, men still worship even his uncoordinated mustache. They crouch, throwing the alaye baba pleasantries and grovel to make their uncoordinated pitch of loyalty, rooted in self-preservation, in their garage-made, guttural belch. It isn’t a make-belief, some men are living deities.

The megalomaniac area father was notorious for the incredible. Or I should say allegedly. He reportedly redefined the nuances of libido. The sly fellow with a bit of unkemptness was allegedly a chimney. I wasn’t there. Then the ever-fretting fellow. He allegedly went haywire with invitingly-shooting eyeballs, of Eves. May God be kind to us all. And finally, the one holding the traffic in a frustrating go-slow, wasting time, energy, money and lives. Historians may tell the story better when the eyes are no longer red.

Area fathers are permitted to have vices. Don’t we all? If a Yemi Osinbajo is your vice, aren’t you likely to seek keeping him permanently? But there is a way the law professor manages what should be a wide smile, with the contouring and mastered arrangement of the tail-spin of his clipped lips, to deliver a tailor-made gentlemanly Japanese-kind-of grin that suggests hidden mischief. Does that make Pastor Osinbajo mischievous? Mischief could be positively playful. Maybe he would be a freer man elsewhere when he isn’t trying to be the much-loved vice president. The good thing is that he has no known history of lasciviousness.

He has been excoriated for not standing for real drain of the swamp. But he isn’t the area father. He is second calabash, usually reserved for palm-wine refreshment after big bowl of pounded yam, in the days when eyes were on the kneecaps.

Not anymore. The world under our nose isn’t recognisable again. There is a way the current area fada is conducting the swamp that it isn’t only stinking like the way of old, it is now leaking, sinking and about swallowing everyone. Baba Adugbo doesn’t seem to care. Eni amori ibaa ku (let the worst happen). It is either he knows something about ‘area’, the rest of Omo Adugbo don’t know. The abete is discomfortingly dislocated. Area fada doesn’t appear to be in charge and a loquacious ‘Grade B’ thug-recruiting manager, had confirmed Baba Adugbo is all menacing-look and invertebrate-bite.

Incumbent area fada, like grandpa Charly, needs help. His staccato roar can no longer hem ‘area’, together. But it won’t be easy persuading ordinary men to give up deity status. All those seeking to push him out of abete and end his reign as the area fada, must be ready to die and this isn’t figurative or symbolic. Everything usually goes into planned take-over of motor parks, including the ones founded on shit-site. Ask Road, National, Auxiliary or Original.

Humiliation is when you assume to be in control but widely thought to be out-of-control and needed to be controlled out. The way, those who had shared his egunje (affiliation benefits), are now seeking their fiefdoms elsewhere, can only make area fada throw everything into the coming ‘garage take-over’ battle. If Baba Adugbo should manage to secure his abete for another four years, even Tuface sef go know say, something dey happen here.

• Osun gov race: Five horses, one track

   

Strictly Shehu

Overnight, Shehu Sani, senator representing Kaduna Central, became social media villain. While he wasn’t exactly a darling before then, there was strong, positive and kind consideration for him. Then, came the story he leaked the massive defection plan of his APC colleagues that would have left the ruling party an empty shell, to Mr President. Words and deals got around and the damage was minimised. Momentarily, he was the cynosure at Aso Rock dare-devilry dinner. But he has since found out that presidential assurances from someone who didn’t make new friends in 30 years (between 1985 and 2015) were nothing but fura-de-nunu joint gist. His alleged sin has found him out; Abuja-starboy, Kaduna-reject, and any solo defection at this stage, would be very sour to taste-bud. Should lice find their ways to Sani’s bushy scalp, their feasting won’t end anything soon, because he has more to contend with now, than murdering snitches around his head. Poor guy, this Kylian dribble isn’t just working.