By Suyi Ayodele

The terror of Nigeria’s North-West is a man called Bello Turji. As strong as he is for everyone including Abuja, he is not half of the man in my story here. This man once terrorised his community so terribly that everyone became his slave.

To be spared, many people adopted the strongman’s surname, abandoning their ancestry. Those who refused to do so because of family values fled the town. Many were forced into slavery, working without pay on the man’s farmlands. And he had many of them!

The man of power, the legend says, became so powerful that he felt that nothing untoward would ever happen to him. He told his courtiers that he was not scared of anything; not even death! What a mistake.

In that same town remained a few other men who neither joined the bandwagon nor fled when the heat was much. Those few men of courage just held their posts, doing everything possible to outsmart the man of power. They consulted different diviners. Each prescribed a sacrifice that must be placed on the farm path of the powerful man.

But all the attempts failed. The sacrifices were placed on the path as directed and all the ingredients required provided. Rather than the man of power coming down, he waxed stronger each day. Then his adversaries returned to their diviners. They were short of calling the Babalawos fake, when a child suggested a solution.

The boy said that he suspected that something was missing from the pots of sacrifice. He asked the elders to place the usual sacrifice on the farm path and wait in ambush for the powerful man. Probably, out of arrogance or infallibility, the boy reasoned, the man of power might mention the missing item(s). Omodé gbón, àgbà gbón, ni a fi dá Ilè Ifè (the wisdom of both the young and the old is at the root of the creation of Ilè Ifè), is a saying among the elders of my place.

The elders took counsel and did as the little boy suggested. On the appointed day, the powerful man got to the spot where the sacrifice was placed. He looked at the items in the pot, using his walking stick, to touch every item. Then he laughed derisively.

“These people are foolish sha”, he said aloud. “So, you think that this is what will scare me?” He asked no one in particular. Then he laughed one more time and announced: “Come to think of it o; if they had added just a male lizard to these items, these people would have gotten rid of me o.” He upturned the pot, chanted some terrible invocations (Àyájó), and headed home.

Pronto, those in hiding emerged. They congratulated one another. The next day, they returned with a fresh sacrifice. Of course, an agama lizard was on top, dripping in palm oil. The powerful man finished his daily farm work. On his way home, he stumbled on the sacrifice. His first words were: kí lè yí (What is this)? He needed no confirmation.

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“Págà, àwon ará ibí mú mi” (Wow, these people finally got me), he lamented. He tried all the sorceries in his arsenal. He chanted Ògèdè (incantation); he recited ofò (evocation), none worked. He resorted to Àyájó (invocations), all to no avail. Within minutes, he felt feverish. His legs wobbled, and then he collapsed.

Those in hiding rushed out. They made jest of him to no end. As it is said by the elders, the corpse of the wicked is carried home in broad daylight (Òsán gangan làá ru òkú ìkà wá’lé); they carried his lifeless body home to be buried by his family. The whole community made a show of his downfall. As usual, derisive dirges accompanied the corpse home. The town became liberated and everyone began to answer his or her father’s name again.

This legend, the narrator said, happened around the throne of the ancient On’tagi Olele, the traditional ruler known in present-day as Onitaji of Itaji in the modern-day Ekiti North. That was the period the terror held Itaji, Umojo and their environs hostage.

The collective will of the few men of courage saw to his end because there is no champion for life. Only the swaddling cloth of the community can strangle a man and not the other way round. Every powerful man is scared of something. When a man tells you, ‘I am not scared’, just know that he is already dead with scare! How do I know this?

The generation that listened to folktales under the tree in bright moonlight is wise. The one that studied Classics is blessed. Yet, the one that listened to tales and went ahead to study Classics is the most fortunate.

What does this generation know? How much of Classics do our leaders have in them? How often did they listen to folktales, growing up? Is there a correlation between our parlous state and the lack of ancient wisdom in our rulers? I answer these posers with a short voyage to Ancient Greece.

There is a god among the numerous Greek gods known as Ares. He is regarded as a god of war. One account says of Ares thus: “Ares often represents the physical or violent and untamed aspect of war and is the personification of sheer brutality and bloodlust (“overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering”, as Burkert puts it). Burkert here refers to Walter Burkert (February 2, 1931-March 11, 2015), the German professor of Classics with specialisation in Greek mythology and cult at University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Strong as he was in battles, Ares is also regarded “as a ‘coward’ or a god who shrinks from direct, equal competition when faced with superior strength or strategic prowess.” Though an inimitable bully, it is also said the Ares “whines or flees when injured or outmatched, such as when he was wounded by the mortal Diomedes with Athena’s help, leading him to flee from the battlefield.”

Cowardice is not the only negative side of Ares. Different accounts interrogate his paternity until he was finally regarded, in Homer’s Iliad, as being “established as the son of the chief god, Zeus, and Hera, his consort.” Many ancient Greek mythology scholars, especially Burkert, believe the character disorderliness in Ares could be traced to “…. a personification of the violent strife often present in their (Zeus and Hera). tumultuous marriage.”

In the battlefield at Troy, as recorded in Iliad, Zeus is recorded to have expressed disdain for the cowardly nature of Ares, such that when he returned wounded and began his usual whining, Zeus poetically says: “…. Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar/To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympus/Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, wars and battles…/But were you born of some other god and proved ruinous/long since you would have been dropped beneath the gods of the bright sky/”

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When a father expresses reservations about the character of a child he sired, it speaks volumes. This is further reinforced by the account that in his lifetime, the Greeks associated Ares “with Thracians, whom they regarded as a barbarous and warlike people.” (Iliad V 13.301).

For two days last week, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his man Friday, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, were in their boastful elements. They used a government function to ridicule the opposition parties. President Tinubu, while describing the opposition as “confused”, hinted that he might do some more damage to their camp by sending Akpabio to their midst to “scatter them anyhow you like.”

Expectedly, Akpabio found the joke funny. A friend who shared the short video of the encounter with me asked for my opinion. I had none to give. I asked if he had come across Ares and the company he kept. When he answered in the negative, I simply asked him to search for the Greek god, with particular attention to his ancestry and companionship. A god which keeps the company of the “barbarous” lot cannot but make jokes of the parlous state of the people.

A lot happened between Tinubu and Akpabio at that opening ceremony. Akpabio alluded to the fact that the insecurity, banditry, killings and kidnappings that have been the full share of Nigerians since the coming of the All Progressives Congress, APC-led government, of which Tinubu administration is a continuation, were self-made afflictions by the political class.

Because Akpabio knows more than the average Nigerians know, he projected that once the elections were over, normalcy would return. There were not less than a thousand security personnel at that event when the Senate president made that statement. It has been exactly a week since he uttered those words. There is no record of his being invited by those saddled with our safety to come and shed more light. This is Nigeria, where once you are big, you get away with blue murder!

If I were to interrogate the Senate President, I would have asked him how much he, as a politician, who is also seeking a re-election, had contributed to the spate of killings in Nigeria. I would have asked him when exactly would normalcy return to Nigeria and how many more men and women in the Military, civilians and innocent ordinary citizens we would lose before the elections are over. But he is a powerful man; the one that answers no questions.

On the joke about sending the Akwa Ibom lawmaker to the camp of the opposition to cause more commotion, funny as that sounded, I think it is most unfortunate that our Number Three man is the President’s purveyor of commotion and what my people call dàrúdàpò (medley). I wish Akpabio success in this new ‘National Assignment.’ But while on the voyage, I encourage him to study Momus (or Momos in some spellings), the Greek god of mockery and how Zeus expelled him from Mount Olympus. “Wisdom”, the Holy Writ says, “is profitable to direct’” (Ecclesiastes: 10:10)

We return to President Tinubu and his “Me?-They-want-to-scare-me-off-It’s-a-lie” statement at the meeting with the state coordinators of his Renewed Hope Agenda. I paid particular attention to Tinubu’s gestures as he narrated how he defeated his enemies while outside power. He angled his hands in a way suggestive of someone who has captured the whole universe and asked, gesticulating: ‘is it now they want to defeat me?’ What I got is a confirmation of a man who lacks every iota of the qualities of a statesman as espoused by Plato, who opines that ‘The true statesman is seen as a knowledgeable leader—often a philosopher-ruler—who functions as a “herdsman” or “weaver,” managing relationships and directing state affairs with expertise.”

The braggadocio displayed notwithstanding, President Tinubu is greatly dead-scared! If there is anything he wishes not to happen now, it is the 2027 elections. The man is scared and desperate. The Tinubu I saw in that video depicts a man that has been over romanticized. Like Ares, he is “the brutal, bloody, and chaotic aspect of battle rather than strategic warfare.”

He represents the typical Ares of our contemporary politics. Yes, he is Jagaban (the warrior). Ares was also a warrior of no mean repute. But the Greek god is also a bloody coward, “who flees to Mount Olympus when injured or facing a worthy opponent like Athena or the hero.” The only time Tinubu is a ‘master strategist’ is when the law is skewed in his favour. He lost Lagos State woefully in 2023.

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He had to beg all the hawks and sharks of Lagos politics before he could ‘re-install’ the incumbent Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu! In a free and fair contest, like Ares, Tinubu will flee when confronted by “a worthy opponent.” That ‘worthy opponent’ may as well be the missing agama lizard in the opposition’s pot of sacrifice; who knows? After all, our elders say: Ode ránun rànun ló ún pa ikún (The inconsequential hunter is the one who usually kills the deaf squirrel)

Cowards are always afraid of competition. Ares is a worthy example. Those scared of an imminent defeat at any enterprise put clogs in the ways of their opponents. This is what Nigeria is experiencing now. Tinubu has 32 of the 36 state governors in his armpits. Yet, his government would not allow the opposition to use the Eagle Square for its convention. When the opposition secured a private event centre for the same purpose, the administration goons sent words of intimidation to the owners. Who does that but a scared fellow!

In a sane environment and for an administration that prides itself as the pillar of democracy, and a President that flaunts democratic credentials even when not required, a character like Professor Joash Ojo Àmúpìtàn, the Chairman of the Independent national Electoral Commission (INEC), would have been thrown off the system the way market women sort out rotten tomatoes from the lot! This administration is retaining him because the man at the centre of it does not shine when the laws are straight and strictly observed!

What do we have? When Nigerians, with impeccable evidence, demonstrated that Àmúpìtàn is most unworthy of the INEC Chairmanship, the President and his party, the APC, are falling over each other in defence of Àmúpìtàn! If Tinubu is not scared; if he is not jittery of what awaits him in 2027, why is it difficult for him to ask Àmúpìtàn to excuse INEC? If Àmúpìtàn lacks personal worth to quit voluntarily, why can’t his appointing authority purchase the cheapest of human decency for him at Kuje night market, and ship him out of the electoral umpire building?

Again, why is the President mouthing his ‘I am not scared’ refrain all over the place if he is sure of victory? The elders of my place have a saying to describe Tinubu’s present trepidation: kò dùn mí, kò dùn mí, àgbàlagbà ún bò èwù ni ee mefa nítorí iyán àná (An elder that says he is not bothered about yesterday’s leftover pounded yam should not be caught removing his cloth six times for a confrontation).

If 2027 is going to be a no-contest affair for the President, why did he suddenly remember that he is the incarnate of the late General Muhammadu Buhari? The same Buhari that the Tinubu administration used over two years to vilify is suddenly now the hero! Yet, Tinubu said he is not scared but he is doing everything to become the friend of the North! What about the repentant bandits and their projected rehabilitation by the Tinubu government; is that not an act of desperation by a man that is scared to his very pants?

What Tinubu is doing now is to play psychological war against the opposition. That is his last joker having exhausted all the tricks in the book. Fortunately, Nigerians are getting wiser by the day. I wait to see how Tinubu would go to Jos and tell the relations of the victims of the killings there he could not even honour with his presence, but spent a wretched 10-minute airport stop-over to address, that he is the best to have happened to their humanity.

I want to see what he would tell the ravaged people of Benue, the decimated and displaced population of North-East and North-West; the humiliated people of Ndigbo clan and the daily-raped people of the South-West, and the average Nigerians who live in darkness while the President lives in a N10 billion-solar-powered Aso Rock Villa, that he is their Biblical light of the world!

One can only hope that Nigerians would appreciate that only one added agama lizard saved the people of old from their oppressor. Nobody holds that deciding lizard more than the people who are determined to use their voting strength to chart a new course for their future. May the Nigerian electorate be enlightened to the level that they would be able to assess those coming for their votes on their individual merits and choose the lesser of all the evils parading as political gladiators!