“Atiku is (sic) my godfather even before I joined politics… And let me tell you today that if Baba said he is going to contest in 2019, I swear to Allah I will go before him and kneel and tell him… Because if Atiku said he is going to contest and I remain in the cabinet of Baba while Baba also wants to contest, then I have become a hypocrite and I am not one…Allah gave it (her position) to me.… And even if I am sacked, I believe it is my time as minister that has ended. I never asked for it,” she had said.
Like the bomb which the statement was, Madam Taraba’s explosion has since left fragments in its trail. Waking up to playing opposition role aftermath a judicial resolution of its tiff, the PDP said Alhassan’s claim was vote of no confidence in the APC-led government. Second Republic minister and avid critic of Buhari’s government, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, said it mirrored lack of discipline and decadence in the executive arm of government.
If you ask this writer however, Alhassan is Buhari’s friendliest dove among the blood-baiting foxes surrounding power at Aso Rock Villa today. But for the Islamic faith’s frown at such, the President should, this hour, call Mama Taraba to his closet, give her a fraternal hug and thank her for her loyalty. It is doubtful if anyone inside that coven called government would ever look at Buhari in the eyes and tell him such home truth, at the risk of losing the social esteem and perks that are icing on the cake of office of minister.
In spite of the majesty and power of their office, those who occupy the zenith of government power are the most vulnerable of human beings alive. Unlike in the corporate world where curricula vitae determine recruitment and competence in office, public office is scarcely determined by such criteria. All manner of characters flock round power like bees do nectar. Mambas, pythons, cobras surround power, dressed in immaculate regalia and harmless miens, with scant of that number being there without ulterior motives. The vulnerability of those at the top of public office is dictated by their being sequestered in a make-believe world. They take actions which go into the marrows of individuals in society and are in turn apprehensive of public reception of their policies. They are feared, rather than respected. On their own part, because the job offered them isn’t essentially at the behest of anyone but themselves and their families, public official recruits feel insecure as well. They spin a number of yarns to remain in office, ranging from hypocrisy, raw lies to embarrassing grovel.
But, beyond Alhassan, how come the highly vilified Turaki has been able to retain such loyalty, not only from Mama Taraba, but among his following, which is public knowledge today? Aside the slur and profiling spat on him by former President Olusegun Obasanjo as a patently corrupt man, Abubakar is one of the most serious-minded politicians in Nigeria today, indeed the most realistic, with a scientific approach to power. Neither Muhammadu Buhari nor any politician, to the awareness of this writer, has a quarter of Atiku’s humanistic approach to power. Nor does any of them possess his political finesse. Though he walks this path of seeking presidential votes every season, he is not fazed by his political losses and has built an architecture of followers round the entire length and breadth of Nigeria.
Turaki is rumoured to have a humane disposition to his followers that only General Ibrahim Babangida is another public office holder highly burnished to possess too. They both treat those who work for them like human beings and not numbers. IBB is said to have learnt by rote the birthdays of the spouses and children of those who worked with him and never missed giving them early morning calls on their days. With their welfare top on his cards. Turaki, spanning more than 10 years now, has a strategy office which he runs like a professoriate, with the welfare of members taken as given.
The above human dispositions glue the following to a principal like leech to skin. Many principals assume that loyalty is lineal, rather than symbiotic. They expect loyalty but are not loyal to those who bite the bullets for them. They don’t care about the lives outside office walls of those who follow them; never ask after their spouses and children. Money alone doesn’t buy loyalty but a staunch abidance by the principles of humanity. It is apparent that Atiku, more than Buhari, gives Mama Taraba a high dosage of that symbiotic loyalty, reason why she was prepared to be tossed inside the fire gauze for the Turakin Adamawa. If this writer were Buhari, rather than sack Alhassan, I will favourably compete with Atiku for the heart of Mama Taraba.
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Imohimi’s class suicide
There is no doubt that the two weeks or thereabout spent in the saddle by Edgal Imohimi, new Lagos Police Commissioner, are a huge PR success for him. Whoever drew the blueprint of his first one month in office deserves a pay rise. Hardly had he landed in the land of aquatic splendor than he started pursuing the ghosts of graft, human rights abuses and acute inhumanity that have made police stations their places of domicile. Pronto, as the Americans say, he set up a committee to investigate alleged unethical behaviour among his men, which included allegations of sexual harassments and gross corruption. He was also said to have conducted a town hall meeting where issues that have to do with police responses to crimes and alleged compromises of bad eggs in the force with criminals were discussed.
As things stand, Imohimi is receiving thumbs up in Lagos and everywhere news of his posturing as one to clean the Augean stable spreads. Just as well. It is apparent that this honeymoon between Lagos and Imohimi would soon be over. This is because what the CP is combating is surface driven and highly superficial. The ills that afflict the police are too many. Police stations reek of such ills like bribery, corruption, ineptitude, connivance with criminals, sexual harassment and many others. The image of the average police is that of a criminal in uniform. Sadly too, the topmost echelon of the force is said to be deeply involved. Many are waiting to see Imohimi commit the class suicide of attacking ills that have become synonymous with the uniform he wears.
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The Kenyan model
Redemption came the way of Africa upper week Friday with the annulment of Kenya’s last-held presidential election by the country’s Supreme Court. And a pleasant shock wave reverberated across the world. In a continent plagued by acute insincerity of the leadership and the led and whom some white historians claim have dubitable character in their genes, the court ruling might make the world to begin to take Africa seriously after all. In the election, official results had given incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta 54.3 per cent and Raila Odinga, 44.7 per cent. But ruling on the matter, Judge Duvid Maranga, had said: “The declaration (of Kenyatta’s win) is invalid, null and void.” And now, re-run election is fixed for October.
What many people do not know is that injustice and bloodshed have spiritual connotations. They haunt generations and generations of not only the perpetrators but the land upon which they were perpetrated. Check the holy writs if in doubt. Modernity has not succeeded in reversing the ingredients with which the broth of the world’s foundational meal was prepared. For all you care, Nigeria’s ceaseless problems might just as well be the result of a consistent brew of bloodshed and gross injustice.
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The imperfect murder
One of the greatest alumni of the Tribune school is Ayopo Apesin. His father, Peter, who passed on some years back, edited this newspaper in the early 80s.
Those days when, precocious, we began to hone our skills here in Imalefalafia, young Apesin exhibited those brilliant skills of a wordsmith. He sent the word on errand and when it returned, welded it into a wonder to behold right inside his smithy.
Recently, Apesin, who resides in the United Kingdom, again welded words to make a world of fiction.
This produced a book entitled The Imperfect Murder. It is a crime fiction that is woven round a thematic concern that addresses issues that Nigerian couples face in the western world.
When he sent the raw copy to this writer to edit, I never could put it down until I finished the last sentence.
The book is arresting, its plot intricately woven and keeps the reader on the edge until the final denouement. Apesin says the book would soon be in the Nigerian market. Please, pick your copies on the shelf as The Imperfect Murder hits the bookstore with a bang.
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Oluwo’s example
This writer had the opportunity of driving through the Ibadan-Iwo-Ogbomoso road in Oyo/Osun States upper Friday to deliver a lecture in Ogbomoso, a land that is revered for its warriors and historical significance in Yorubaland.
He had earlier passed through same route some days hitherto and found many portions of the road, like many Nigerian roads, very bad and reeking of governmental neglect.
But Friday’s journey was smoother than previous ones and the writer wondered what magic had brought some measure of sanity to the highway.
It was thus good news when I was told the Oluwo of Iwoland, Oba Abdurasheed Akanbi, had been the one who mobilized his chiefs and youths of the town to the road with he himself leading by example in its rehabilitation, especially the road portion that is not even in his state, Osun. This is another good news that is worthy of being celebrated.
The road repaired may be mere tokenism and ineffective in a long chain of bad roads that snake through the land but the youthful Oluwo’s example is symbolic in many respects. First is that, the leader must be ready to serve; second, gone are the days when African monarchs are sequestered in the palace like some fossil figures.
More importantly, in a Nigerian leadership where the Kogi governor, Yahaya Bello and his Dino Melaye senator are becoming huge dis-advertisement to the youth’s quest to become leaders, this may yet be a push for the youth to wangle their way to the top.
and then