So, it is Aiye that is ‘doing’ Fulani, Buhari?

On Thursday, the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, said Nigeria’s problems are caused by “Aiye”. In the write-up entitled “Lessons for Nigeria from EPL” he did a brilliantly academic comparison of the fate of the 2020/2021 English Premier League champions, Manchester City Football Club with Nigeria’s ‘wobbling and fumbling’ government. However, when we consider the set of circumstances ravaging Nigeria in this Buhari dispensation, and that of the English football champions, the piece, at best, can only serve as either a comic relief in a tensed atmosphere or be taken as an act of academic juggling.

Mr. Adesina contended that the inability of Man City to achieve its goals in the 2019/2020 season was as a result of the activities of mysterious, evil centrifugal forces, what the Yoruba would term ‘Ise Aiye’. He said the failure of Man City last season was the result of hard tackles by the negative forces of the world called Aiye.

“When you are high-flying, the centrifugal forces will come against you, and it would only take the grace of God for you to attain. Yoruba people call those forces Aiye. When Aiye is on your case, as it was against Man City, and it is against the Buhari government, you need God, and God alone. Aiye (meaning ‘the world,’ if freely translated) is the negative part of mankind. The pernicious, baleful, sly and scheming part of humanity. If Aiye gets on your matter, you need God and God alone.”

Oga Femi Adesina said he gets his kicks from football, especially the EPL. I also do. But my dear Arsenal FC is not giving anything to motivate me enough to leave ètè and be killing làpálàpà (leave a festering leprosy to treat a budding ringworm) like Mr. Adesina has done in that piece. He added thus: “Man City failed to make record in 2019/2020 season. Aiye was in full force against it. And the 2020/2021 season was initially not looking promising either. Eight weeks gone, the team was placed 13th on the table. It had lost 2-5 to Leicester City at home in Etihad Stadium, Tottenham drubbed it by two goals, played draw with teams that couldn’t hold a candle to it in the past, and was generally forlorn and limp. Aiye was having a ball, laughing Man City to scorn. Aren’t they doing the same thing against the government in our country today, due to unrelenting security challenges, some of them possibly instigated by Aiye themselves?”

Our president’s spokesman is only enjoying himself in the safety of the Presidential Villa, writing spiteful opinions against the sensibilities of beleaguered Nigerian people. I reiterate that “we cannot control the evil tongue of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them”, as espoused by Cato the Elder. Mr. Adesina has disregarded the feelings of Nigerians as he serenades in Aso Rock. We can now see that the rodent has peed in the beans soup, all of us must now seize our eko.

A Twitter user, ÍZÒN-ÓWÉÌTÚBÓÚ @CreekBoy14 in reaction to this piece, said: “We are doomed as a country. He once compared Nigeria to a ram’s blockos and a flapping breast of a woman running. Today, he has denigrated us again by comparing us with Manchester City. He forgot to know that, that’s a success. Nigeria under Buhari is worse than Arsenal.”

Adesina’s excuse for an absent president overseeing a crashing country is the kind of thinking from the seat of Nigeria’s power that informed the outcome of the meeting of governors of states in Southern Nigeria, a few days earlier. When the country is left to drift unrestrained and at the mercy of whatever vagaries, we must then pray and wait for Femi Adesina’s Aiye to leave the government alone for it to be able to think and act. In a situation like that, shouldn’t we put on our thinking caps? We hope that is what the governors of southern Nigeria states have done. Their meeting has altered the thinking in many spheres of the country. It seems to have awakened the sleeping giant in the political leaders of the South. It has set the tone for a belief in what people can achieve if they set at it with unity of purpose.

It is already proven that by that meeting, Southern Nigeria has sent a strong signal and the owners of the message have got it. The owners of the message have received it and it has greatly unsettled them. For the Fulani, who have reacted angrily to the communiqué of that meeting, and the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, the Yoruba holds that “Eni ti a na l’ara n ta…” Person wey them beat na him body dey pepper.” I only hope that the point is driven home better in pidgin. It appears that the federal government’s aloofness cannot be condoned anymore by even the best of the condescending governors and members of the National Assembly.

When what the seventeen governors of the South, in APC, PDP and APGA, are asking for is considered, we would all agree that they are routine. Why then are the Fulani enraged? Is the Fulani’s resistance to and dismissal of others’ concerns not putting a meaning to the arrogance and sense of entitlement of the North? The governors said in summary that Buhari’s appointments are lopsided and must be corrected to show national diversity; that the ban on open grazing be strictly implemented effective immediately in the entire South; that Buhari should convene a national dialogue; that state police be immediately allowed; that ports be made operational in other towns aside Lagos and that want a new revenue formula. Are these too much to ask?

The outcome of the meeting, in which the governors reiterated calls for a resolution of problems that are not new to Nigeria and Nigerians, caused a former Executive Secretary of National health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Professor Usman Yusuf, to bare his fangs and acted as if he would spank the governors if he caught them. He said: “Southern governors must provide land for Fulani bandits to graze their cattle if they want to ban open grazing. Gathering in one hotel and giving a blanket ban is irresponsible.” Also, the national secretary of Miyetti Allah Kautal, Alhassan Saleh, said: “The governors are confused and mischievous, are herders the problem of this country? Are they IPOB killing people up and down, burning police stations?”

I think I will agree with Pastor Femi Adesina. It might be Aiye that is doing ndi a, awon ara ‘bi (these people)… that is why we are where we are since 2015.

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