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OPINION: Destiny And Enemies Of The State [Monday Lines]

Published

1 year ago

August 26, 2024

By Lasisi Olagunju

Nothing we do or say now will change Nigeria unless it turns back from its present plunge. Nothing. “No spring changes the desert. The desert remains; the spring runs dry. Not one spring, not thirty, not a thousand springs will change the desert…” That quote is from ‘Two Thousand Seasons’, a tumultuous novel by Ayi Kwei Armah. Remember he also wrote ‘The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born.’

We won’t stop asking that this country be rebuilt on the foundation of its beginning. Nothing will shoo away the present birds of hunger and thirst. Not this government; not the next. You don’t turn your back on your destiny and be well.

Grandfather of Nigerian theatre, Hubert Ogunde, sang a prayer which must be the prayer point of those in power today: “If I have a good head, may I also have good legs (Bí mo l’órí ire, Elédàá jé n l’ésè ire).” Orí (head) is destiny; Esè (legs) are the tyres that propel destiny to its realisation. Right there in the mix is ìwà (character) which helps man do what Karin Barber describes as “picking his way, aided by his Orí, between a variety of forces, some benign, some hostile, some ambivalent…” If your head gives you a throne, rule well; do not let your character open the door to forces that blow off roofs.

We become what we choose to become. I have two destiny stories to tell. They are from the earliest times’ tray of knowledge. The first is about a serially failing young man who asked questions and was told by the oracle that he wouldn’t amount to anything in life unless he became a thief. The second story is about another who was told that he wouldn’t ever be rich unless he was cruel and bloodthirsty.

The young man who must sell cruelty to be rich thought fate was not fair to him. A precondition of wickedness before wealth would sound alarming to whoever had that (mis)fortune. But this man did not have to wait long before an accident of fate created a trade for him. He became the pioneer maker of tribal marks. In the palace in Oyo, he got royal contracts to beautify princes and princesses with eyo marks. To the noble of Oyo, he slashed horizontal marks on each cheek and called it àbàjà. He went to Owu where he etched six incisions on each of the cheeks. In Ogbomoso, he gave straight and curved lines and called it kéké. He dashed down to the courtyard of the Osemawe in Ondo and, with generous thanks, inflicted one pronounced stroke below each eye. To the Ijebu, Ife and Ijesa he made the marks perpendicular and called what he offered pélé with variants of his offering dropped across other clans and towns of Yoruba land.

The man took his trade to the Tapa (Nupe) where he gashed the young there with the beauty of below-the-temple cruelty. He was called and invited to virtually all kingdoms around to come and sell the pretty pain he was hawking. They all looked at the work of his hand, pronounced it beautiful and paid him handsome sums. The ‘wicked’ grew rich and famous. His descendants today answer a praise name that valourizes his trade in brutality. Adebayo Faleti, in one seminal piece, said this man’s offspring are children of “he who stabs people and gets paid for doing so/ The one for whom it was divined that he must be brutal for him to be wealthy (Omo A-sá-mo-l’ógbé gb’owó/ Tí wón ní ìkà ni yí ó se là).”

The one who was to become a thief rejected the prophecy the way Pentecostal Christians reject bad portions. But nothing the man tried his hands on prospered until one day hunger pushed him to go dig his neighbour’s yam. At the very point of his being caught by the farm owner, his cutlass fortuitously killed a big snake coiled up by the yam heap. To the thief’s horror, the farm owner leapt out of a thicket. Among the Yoruba, death is always preferable to shame. If the ground would open its mouth and swallow the yam thief, he would kneel in eternal thankfulness to his Creator. But, there was neither a place to hide nor a wand to transport him out of the mess. This was, however, the point at which destiny took over. To the thief’s shock, the farm owner shouted for joy on seeing the big snake’s death. The farmer did not see a thief in the trespassing gentleman; what he saw was a benefactor who had delivered him from a dreadful reptile that had almost sacked him from his farm and barn. The yam farmer thought he owed the killer of his nemesis some token of appreciation. Fate pushed him to give the thief enough field and yam seeds that forever weaned the wretched of his poverty. The ‘thief’ was to become rich and famous. That is fate’s cultural explanation for the prosperity of the ‘unworthy.’

In both stories, the two gentlemen enjoyed their good fortune till the end of time because they had character (ìwà). Early this year, I told the mythical story of one poor, old prince in Ofa who owned neither calabash nor plate (kò ní’gbá, kò l’áwo) yet he became king because he had a good head. Then his enemies said “this one will not be long before he dies and another will take his place.” But the old man became king and refused to die. Because he had character in addition to his good head, he ruled well; his people enjoyed him and prayed for his reign to last forever. He reigned long and died well. Why do you think Baba Opalaba in the Mainframe master play, Saworoide, asks the long dead Alaafin Abiodun to come back? You remember that solemn request? It is because the living oba has failed.

Thomas Hardy, in his novel, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’, says “character is fate.” He adds that “fate and character are names for a single idea.” It was as if Hardy was born a Yoruba with their very elaborate concept of destiny. My people put destiny at the mercy of character. They say if you have good destiny, pray also to have a character that is desirable because a bad character will most certainly destroy your good head. We see in ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ how fate propels someone from the gutters of life to wealth and to the position of mayor; we watch as the man loses his good character and consequently declines progressively in public estimation and respect. We see how he finally loses his authority and wealth and life – all to his bad character, his awkward ways.

A person’s calling is their destiny. It is my job to write what I feel. The right to hold opinion is a fundamental one which neither state nor its operatives can alienate. I am neither an enemy of the state nor hater of those in government. One funny coward who lives abroad is sending notes, with names, across WhatsApp groups suggesting exactly that about some of us – newspaper columnists. The idler may not be the only one with that pastime. Were they sent that errand of slaves? I am not sure. They just think they are inciting power against the bard. They forget that no matter how early a child gets to the farm, he will always meet Kùkùté there. Fishers of attention from corridors of power do what they are doing to please their palate. They tie the forehead to the occiput; they sit back and laugh. They are Esu, the one whose eyes cry blood while the bereaved sheds mere tears.

We warn because we notice not just the beak of the fowl; we see the whole bird. The seed we offer our soil is of the day; we offer none that is of the night. That is a line of invocation from the Bakongo. If you want more of the words, read J. Van Wing’s ‘Bakongo Incantations and Prayers’ (1930). It tells how trauma invokes the elements, seen and unseen.

The world is sick; even the sky weeps. Anyone who tells this government that things are alright is an enemy of the state and a hater of the president. It is probably the abroad fellow’s destiny to live away from the hassles of home. But, we live here. And, I do not know how to thank or ignore the ones to whom we are victims. We gave some people chickens to rear for us; we turned and they started peeling yam and washing their soup pot. And you think we should be deaf and dumb. To their own teeth, they feed the softest of meat; for the teeth of others, they give the toughest of tendons. Eyín eléyín ni wón fi nj’eran tó l’éegun. We write so that the prowling wolf shall see our sheep and goats and cows and have its teeth on edge. Van Wing again.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Protesters Of The North [Monday Lines]

Businesses are bleeding; the rich are crying. Weevils have taken the barn; weasels have overwhelmed the pen. Right on the road to the stream are wolves of thirstiness. We can join the Alleluyah chorus and feed from the gatehouse of power. But if we do and everyone keeps quiet, and this desert completes its encroachment, the hill will lose its trees and leafy glade; the valley will be shorn of its verdancy; the abroad will have no home to return to. We keep talking and warning because it is almost midnight. Nothing works – except mindless gluttony. Nothing is available – except long queues at petrol stations. In places that have sanity, electricity is called power; here, it has same value as the shit of the masquerade – very unavailable. On special nights when grace brings light, it is quickly switched off because its price is dagger to the heart of homes. So, shall we not talk in the midst of all these bad news? We get abused for putting our mouth into that which ‘friends’ of power think should concern us not. It is Fatwa they have not pronounced. We are fighting for Oja’s sake; Oja is asking who is fighting at his backyard.

Arise News founder, Nduka Obaigbena some days ago received Tinubu’s media/public relations managers in his office. They were there to seek his understanding and support. I watched them; they looked sober. Then, with acrid calmness, Obaigbena told them the truth: “People say you’re not communicating – you are communicating, you are here. But the communication you are not doing is communication by example.” Obaigbena said the way people in government live, “the way they conduct themselves, does not show that we are in trouble.” Candid words.

There is always a problem anywhere the palace feasts while the people yawn. Filthy, festy ostentation and mindless show-of-force degrade authority. Freedom curtailing, extra-legal actions shame democracy; they put a lie to all its lofty claims. They drag democracy back to be at par with where we were before May 1999. Copying what the military did that made it lose the people will post a tag of regret on our struggles that birthed this era. Perhaps, everything takes us back to the need for a restructuring of this cracked structure.

When Obaigbena said his words, I would have loved to see how his guests took the shot. The visiting ones are not the problem. They have a difficult job to do which is increasingly made more difficult by the real culprits, the cats in opulent offices. Those ones are too big to care about what image they etch in the psyche of the city. They don’t go out to seek help; they are too big to crawl out of the vault. You can’t be feasting and telling the people to fast. I am fasting for your sake, you are flaunting mid-day meals (A ngbààwè nítorí won, àwón nj’òsán). That is what this government and its big men do. They feast and fart; the people fast and faint. They say it is patriotism. The government is wise; the people are stupid.

Starving workhouse inmates of Charles Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’ never prayed for the housekeepers. Friends of this government in the media are daily embarrassed by its aberrant ways. One of my old university teachers wrote a warning in a Lagos newspaper some weekends ago. The professor told the government that “creating a zone of affluence in circumstances of bewitching poverty or a new breed of billionaires in a condition of appalling deprivation will produce a toxic effluence which can overwhelm the entire society.”

I hope ‘they’ listen to the advice from the prophets and tell the big boss to clean up his government. A government that won’t go with the winds will do what the eyes do. The eyes, in utter humility, lower their gaze, and because they are humble, they are allowed to see the nose. Hubris is a government speaking the words of Archibald MacLeish’s poet persona: “We have learnt the answers, all the answers. It is the question that we do not know.”

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OPINION: The Madman Sermon On Mapo Hill

Published

11 minutes ago

September 28, 2025

Editor

By Festus Adedayo

Ibadan, Oyo State, the city of warriors, quaked last Friday. The rumbling vibrations of the historic coronation of Ex-Governor Rashidi Ladoja as Olubadan sent valleys into a seismic shake. Ibadan’s ancient event center, Mapo Hall, was nearly submerged with excited feet. Children of Oluyole were at the zenith of their excitement. Expensive automobiles, resplendent attires and infectious joy lit the faces of a people who christened self as cunning. That Friday, however, Ibadan wasn’t ready to listen to the rhythm of its famous Láyípo christening. It was rather ready to receive the world.

Suddenly, a huge blot appeared on the landscape. In the eyes of the world, àjàò, the animal called sloth, suddenly crept up the hill of Mapo. When àjàò creeps up an event like this, it is a moment of anomaly, anomie or dystopia. Yoruba then speak in dispraise of this unusually created amoebic-shaped animal. They say, Kinní kan ba àjàò jé̩, apá rẹ gùn ju itan lọ – the only blot in àjàò’s creation is that its arms are disproportionately longer than the legs.

Many have questioned àjàò’s mis-taxonomy, especially one that equated it with the sloth. To them, àjàò is not a sloth but a flying squirrel. In terms of features, both sloth and flying squirrel strike a resemblance with the Yoruba àjàò, in that they possess disproportionate arms and legs. Apart from these features, the sloth is also the world’s slowest mammal. Flying squirrel, however, is a gliding mammal which is more of a squirrel than any other mammal. Unless àjàò is today extinct, both equivalents it shares features with – sloth and flying squirrel – do not belong to the African habitat. While the sloth’s habitat is the tropical rainforest of Central and South America, the flying squirrel lives in North America, Northern Eurasia, and the temperate, tropical forests of India and Asia. Features-wise, àjàò however slants more towards the sloth.

Sorry, I digressed. On Friday, àjàò appeared in Mapo. It came in the form of the official musician of the coronation event, Taiye Akande Adebisi, famously known as Taiye Currency. Many felt that, even if the need was to Ibadan-ise the Olubadan coronation, for a city which parades A-list musical wizards like Saheed Osupa, Currency was not apropos for an event of that high-octane magnitude. They felt justified when, perhaps seized by an unknown muse of Apollo, Greek mythology’s central deity and embodiment of the spirit of music, Taiye Currency suddenly and seemingly veered off-theme and sang, “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…” – madness is the curative medicine for insanity.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Fubara And The Witches

Instantly, the musician courted huge flak of his audience for this perceived off-key musical line. The crowd felt nostalgia for Awurebe exponent, Alhaji Dauda Akanni Adeeyo, popularly known as Epo Akara. Epo’s evergreen tributes to Oba Daniel Adebiyi and Gbadamosi Akanbi Adebimpe, the latter being the 35th Olubadan of Ibadan, who reigned briefly from February 1976 until his death in July 1977, are still considered classics. A typical song sang at political rallies where call for the Mosaic an-eye-for-an-eye is often rife, “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…” was seen as an anti-climax among Ibadan people who, for once, forgot political schisms and were united in celebrating their new king.

Unbeknown to the crowd, Taiye Currency was indeed right and deserves our praises. While madness is of a truth cure for madness, on the converse, on that Friday, could the musician have been lost in the mire of the literary device of dramatic irony? In dramatic irony, though the character in the story is oblivious of the situation he plays a vital role in, the audience is aware of it. It then leads to a gap or contrast between what the audience knows and what the character understands. While all of us as audience saw contradictory meanings in Currency’s “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…” and the theme of the coronation event, the musician might be communicating a deeper sense of humour and existential tragedy.

Talking specifics now, could Taiye Currency, by that song at Mapo, be espousing the Madman Theory?

Indigenous psychiatrists who specialise in treatment of lunatics and allied mental ailments pioneered this “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…” phrase. The earliest theories on madness believed it was a spiritual affliction. The assumption was that its victims had their minds possessed by an alien deity. While many also believed madness was hereditary, others believed it was a punishment from the gods, resulting from a gross disregard of the gods’ warning. Then came Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.) and the theories of madness shifted to the belief that most bodily illnesses were as a result of various imbalances in the body. Even with this, madness, abnormalities of behaviour and epilepsy were still generally believed to be the workings of the gods.

It is generally believed that, since insanity is a hardcore ailment, its treatment is also hardcore. I witnessed this in the early 1980s when I followed my late father to hire farmhands from the indigenous sanatorium of Baba Aladokun of Ikirun, now Osun State. I saw mentally challenged men and women wickedly shellacked with whips.

In Yoruba’s main translation of the word, “madness” or “madman” is synonymous with wèrè. The logic of the Madman theory in national leadership was first articulated by Daniel Ellsberg in 1959, followed by Thomas Schelling, in 1960. It is a political theory usually attributed to American President Richard Nixon’s foreign policy. It is derived from Niccolo Machiavelli’s 1517 book, Discourses on Livy and its argument that sometimes, it is “a very wise thing to simulate madness”. Similarly, in his 1962 book, Thinking About the Unthinkable, Herman Kahn, the futurist, argued that to “look a little crazy” could be an effective way of making an adversary stand down from their attack plans.

It worked for Nixon because leaders of hostile communist bloc countries, having assimilated this tendency of the American president as irrational and volatile, avoided provoking the U.S., their fear being of an unpredictable response from Nixon. Another believer in the Madman Theory is President Donald Trump, whose irrationality has attracted renewed interest in the Madman Theory among scholars, lay scholars and the public. Other leaders in recent history associated with the madman theory reputation included Kim Jong-un, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vladimir Putin, Muammar Ghadaffi and Saddam Hussein.

Last Friday in Ibadan, Oba Ladoja received one of the greatest honour of his coronation as President Bola Tinubu graced the historic occasion. When it was time to address the audience, the president gave an inkling of what would be his address to Nigerians on Wednesday, the anniversary of Nigeria’s 65th. In an admixture of felicitations to the new monarch and a message of hope to the Nigerian populace, Tinubu declared that the country’s economic suffering was now back-flung, just the same way a masquerade flings his loose regalia. “Today, I am honoured and feel very proud to give you the cheering news that the economy has turned a corner. There is a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Your suffering has been as painful to us as a painful surgery. But the economy has now returned to a moment of growth and prosperity. Thank you for your perseverance, and thank you for your endurance,” he sermonized.

Here we go again. My first reading of the above claim of the president is that he has been so extensively hypnotised by his voodoo economists that he has crossed the Rubicon of reality. Or, that he has mouthed this economic recovery shibboleth for too long that the phrase sounds more like an ad-lib motivational speech that must be repeated like a musical refrain. Other than in the Utopia minds of his minders and in the renteer perception of regime fawners, there is no economic recovery in Nigeria, nor has the economy of the average Nigerian turned any corner. It is still in a long sprint.

When this government came in 2023, its demeanour was equal to the biblical “My father (Buhari) scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions”. At that time, some Nigerians thought, queerly, that though the Madman theory was a concept in international relations, the Nigerian government wanted to suborn obedience by creating economic fear in the minds of the people. With this ad-lib mouthing of the refrain of economic recovery on paper by the president and his team, when in actual fact, reality counters this claim, it seems to occur to Nigerians that government is simply telling them to go jump inside Kudeti River if they do not believe it. Or that a pure Madman theory is at work.

I just finished reading late Nigeria’s foremost professor of history, Festus Ade-Ajayi’s keynote at the first convocation of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (1999). It was aptly titled, “Development is about the people”. The problem with Nigerian leaders, this current ensemble not excluded, Ade-Ajayi said, is that they are selfish in their prescriptions. While building all their economic and social models, seldom do they enquire what the wishes of the people are. Wherever there is the mouthing of the word ‘development’ and there is no ample recourse to improved quality of people’s life, what we have is regression.

The statistical indicators which the Tinubu team claimed show it that Nigerians are enjoying better times are meaningless if the woman in Oyingbo market cannot agree with them. Same thing with the collapsing inflation rates which they hoist like a scientist who just discovered a fallen object from mass. Those statistics are meaningless if we go to the pharmacy and drugs are still sold at cut-throat prices as they are and our purchasing power is still this lean. Only the Madman theory can explain why leaders would taunt their people with the existence of a surplus when indeed, there is what looks like a famine.

What the president obviously confuses for the general well-being of the people is the flamboyance and the personal economies of his ministers. Indeed, these have “turned a corner”. The talk out there is that his ministers are literally buying up Uranus and Mars with illicit, ill-gotten wealth that will shame Sambo Dasuki’s arms money-gate and Diezani Allison-Madueke’s alleged petrol-dollar sleaze. Yet, there is calm on the home-front. Rather than live by personal example of belt-tightening as he urged his people, the president himself lives the lush life of an Oil Sheik, literally breakfasting in Lisbon, lunch in Paris and dinner in Alaska, at the people’s patrimony’s expense. The Tinubu pain-before-prosperity mantra is appearing as a huge scam. At the UNGA, it was said that 60 presidential aides were ship-loaded to the US, with their big fat estacode (Establishment Code). These are the ones whose economies are turning the corner. The endure-now-to-enjoy-later mantra reminds one of a father who tells his children to endure hard times but lives in unimaginable splendour.

So, the president knew that Nigerians’ suffering “has been…as a painful surgery”? Interesting. This analogy even makes the situation worse. Surgical procedures are preceded by anaesthesia and followed with analgesics to reduce pain. They are then accompanied with a post-procedure process of recovery and care. None of these did the government administer before yanking us open with its wicked scalpel in May 2023. Nor even thereafter. Many of our compatriots have died needless deaths and many are still dying.

So, when Taiye Currency sang about “Wèrè l’a fi ńwo wèrè…”, flesh and blood obviously didn’t reveal it to him. Either intended or a dramatic irony, what the musician was communicating was that there is no sanity anywhere in this country. We are in one huge sanatorium. The musician thus deserves commendation and not scorn. This government is curing the madness of hunger and lack with the madness of propaganda of a better life, “growth and prosperity”. And a dark cunning of “a bright light at the end of the tunnel”. Shikena!

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Edo To Immortalise Late IGP Solomon Arase

Published

14 hours ago

September 27, 2025

Editor

The Edo State Government is set to immortalise the late Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, who is an indigene of the state.

Governor of the state, Monday Okpebhole, disclosed this on Saturday while receiving the body of the late Arase at the Benin Airport.

Represented by his Chief of Staff, Gani Audu, Okpebholo described late Arase as “one of the finesse police officers and lawyers we have in Edo State,’ adding that “losing him at this time that the Nigeria Police Force and the country in general need him is not good for us”.

“As a State Government, we will work with the family to see how we can Immortalize him. He was a great son of Edo State.

“It is very painful to the government and people of Edo State but we are consoled with the good life he lived”.

Okpebholo described Arase as a team player and a man that was always willing to help.

“It is painful that we lost somebody who always listens to every complaint and tries as much as possible to solve them”.

He, however, prayed to God to give the family the fortitude to bear the loss, assuring that the government will do all that it can to support his family.

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Edo Activist In Police Net Over Alleged Assault On Abure

Published

16 hours ago

September 27, 2025

Editor

Edo-based activist, Precious Oruche, popularly known as “Mama Pee”, has been detained following a heated confrontation with the factional National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP), Julius Abure, at the Abuja Airport.

The incident, which had since gone viral, had sparked controversy and conflicting accounts from both parties.

According to reports, the saga began at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, where Mama Pee allegedly confronted Abure as he prepared to board a Max Air flight to Benin.

Eyewitness accounts said the activist approached Abure and accused him of being responsible for the hardships Nigerians are currently facing.

“Is this not Julius Abure? You’re the one frustrating Nigerians,” she reportedly told Abure in a confrontational manner.

Abure was responding by saying ‘how can…’ when Mama Pee interjected, saying, “In case nobody has told you, you’re the one frustrating Nigerians. Are you not Julius Abure? What are you now doing with Labour Party? Police are looking for you. You’ve destroyed the Labour Party, and you’re entering an aeroplane? May God punish all of you.”

Arriving at the Benin Airport, things took a more violent dimension as Mama Pee was allegedly attacked by a group of young men believed to be thugs loyal to Abure.

A video circulating online shows a scuffle at the airport’s exit, with several individuals attempting to drag the activist, before security and immigration officials stepped in.

Speaking in one of the video recordings, Mama Pee claimed she was assaulted by the group.

“Look at them oh!!! See them oh!!! They want to beat me after I told Julius Abure that he is the one frustrating the lives of Nigerians, and then he brought thugs. He brought thugs to harass me. Look at them, can you see them,” she exclaimed.

She further alleged, “I saw Julius Abure of Labour Party inside the Max Air, and I told him that you are the one frustrating the lives of Nigerians. You sold Labour Party, and then he called his thugs to wait for me at the airport in Benin.”

Another activist, Peter Akah—widely known as ‘Peter for Nigeria’—released a video calling for Mama Pee’s immediate release.

He appealed to Edo State governor, Monday Okpebholo, and the Edo State Commissioner of Police, Monday Agbonika to intervene.

Akah argued that the activist, who he described as a victim of political violence, had been wrongly turned into a suspect by the police.

Meanwhile, the Abure-led faction of the Labour Party has issued its own version of events, condemning what it termed an “unwarranted attack” on their chairman.

In a statement released by the National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, the party claimed Mama Pee accosted Abure at the Abuja airport in an unprovoked manner while he was boarding his flight to Benin.

“The assault, which attracted a large population of onlookers, continued unabated on disembarkment at the Benin Airport while she continued recording the scene,” Ifoh stated.

He added that Abure had to be quickly escorted to safety by security agents, while the activist was handed over to police for questioning.

The statement further alleged that Mama Pee, who is described as a known figure in the ‘Obidient’ Movement, bragged in one of her videos about her connections to top police officers.

“She vowed that she will not stop attacking Abure or any member of the Labour Party executive because according to her, ‘you have killed Labour Party and you are the reason why Obi is no longer in the Labour Party,’” Ifoh said.

He called for a thorough probe, just as he urged the Inspector General of Police to look into what they termed cyberbullying and political provocation.

As of the time of filing this report, attempts to get a comment from the Edo State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Moses Yamu, were unsuccessful as calls were neither answered nor returned.