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OPINION: Ganduje And China’s Execution Noose

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By Suyi Ayodele

“I have not knelt since China’s liberation.” Those were the last words she spoke before the executioner put a shot in the back of her head. She refused to kneel down at her execution. She died standing!

Yan Jianhong was a Deputy Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Planning Commission, People’s Republic of China. She was also a former member of the Standing Committee of the Guizhou Provincial Political Consultative Conference, and former Chairman, Guizhou International Trust and Investment Corporation. Her husband, Liu Zhengwei was Communist Party Secretary of Guizhou Province. She took undue advantage of those positions. She was executed on January 16, 1995, for corruption, her status did not count. She was not alone.

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On September 14, 2000, China executed Cheng Kejie. He was the Chairman of the People’s Government of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Vice-Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. China’s Supreme Court approved his death sentence on September 7, 2000, and he was executed a week later!

Cheng was executed for accepting bribes and was also accused of fraudulently procuring 7,000 tonnes of sugar from Guiyang Sugar Factory at a reduced price for resale, thereby generating a significant profit margin. Such a practice, the authority reasoned, was capable of ruining the nation’s economy.

Earlier on March 8, 2000, the Chinese Government executed Hu Changqinga, a prominent Chinese politician who served as vice governor of Jiangxi. He was found guilty of bribery and corruption and was executed by firing squad!

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The same fate befell Lai Xiaomin, who served as Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of the Board of China Huarong Asset Management from September 2012 to April 2018. He was executed on January 29, 2021, for bribery, embezzlement, and bigamy. His private assets were also seized and his family left with nothing!

The former vice governor of Anhuli, Wang Huaizhong, was on February 12, 2004, executed by firing squad, also for corruption. The same thing happened to Wang Shouxin on January 8, 1980 when she was executed for the “biggest scandal of the People’s Republic of China prior to 1979.” She was said to have embezzled “at least 536,000 yuan of state funds”.

There were other executions for corrupt practices such as Wen Qiang, a judicial officer whose life was on July 7, 2010, snuffed out for taking more than 12 million yuan ($1.76 m) in bribes. Zheng Xiaoyu, Director, State Food and Drug Administration, who was executed on July 10, 2007, for “corruption and allowing possibly tainted products in mainland China.”

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China’s largest corruption case involved Li Jianping, a former official in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. He was said to have been involved in fraud running into $421 million (over three billion yuan). The 64-year-old was executed in August 2024.

I have taken the time to list the above cases in China since the present administration is likely to copy the one-party system operational in China. Unlike how we have messed up the presidential system of government we copied from America in 1979, Nigerians owe it a duty to ensure that as the nation slides, gradually, to a one-party State, a la China, we should also copy those things that make China great.

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In China, it is a capital offence for politicians or government officials to be caught on camera stuffing dollars in their suits pocket. Such persons don’t live to spend the dollars. In multi-party Nigeria, such people get promoted!

Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the immediate past governor of Kano State and current National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Alliance (APC), loves China and its development. In contrast, given the examples above, China hates characters in Ganduje’s mould.

That Ganduje loves China for its development is good enough. It is equally noble that our leaders love the developmental strides they see in the sane nations of the world. But unfortunately, as much as Ganduje loves China, the countryhates the Gandujes of this world because it knows that people like Ganduje would hamper, hinder and retard its development.

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China is not just a developed country; it is a nation that has converted its huge population to greater advantages for the Chinese people. Every rational mind and leader should be proud of a nation like China. Nigeria was also once on the path of greatness like China before wasters took over the reins of leadership, and the locusts we have as leaders ate up our vegetation!

China, contrary to Ganduje’s warped reasoning, is not developed because it practices a one-party system. One of the major factors, the most prominent, I say without prevarication, that made China what it is today, is that the country gives the worst treatment to its corrupt leaders.

Ganduje is happy that members of the opposition political parties are trooping daily to the ruling APC. The latest was the defection of the three senators from Kebbi State (Adamu Aliero (Kebbi Central, Yahaya Abdullahi, Kebbi North and Garba Maidoki Kebbi South), who all abandoned their Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the APC.

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The APC National Chairman took the trio to the Aso Rock Villa on Friday to see President Bola Ahmed Tinubu like trophies. He was accosted by State House correspondents who asked him about his feeling concerning the shift towards a one-party State in Nigeria.

Ganduje, rightly though, noted that nobody should quarrel with the fact that politicians were moving in droves to the APC. He assured that leaders who worried “about a one-party State have no need to fear.”

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Then he posited: “A one-party State is not by force; it is by negotiation. It is by other political parties seeing the effect of the positive governance of our party. If they decide to come to our party willingly, I think there is nothing wrong with that.”

To further allay the fear, the Kano politician drew a parallel from China’s one-party system, saying, “Today, China is one of the strongest countries in the world and is a one-party system. We are not saying we are working for a one-party system, but if this is the wish of Nigerians, we cannot quarrel with that.” He went further to slam the current multi-party system Nigeria runs philosophising, “You know they say too many cooks spoil the soup; too many political parties spoil governance.”

There are some fundamental issues in Ganduje’s submissions. One, the APC National Chairman lied when he tried to project that those moving over to the APC were doing so because they were “seeing the effect of the positive governance of our party.” We all know that nothing can be farther from the truth than this assertion. Except Ganduje lives in another Nigeria than the one we have; every rational mind knows that the APC-led government since 2015 has led Nigeria to the bottomless pit of poverty and despair. I cannot see anything enviable that should attract this level of bandwagon folly going on in our political space!

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Again, the attempt by Ganduje to condemn the multi-party system is equally an unfair judgement on that system by the very people who made nonsense of the system. If, for instance, the PDP had behaved the way the Ganduje APC is behaving, there would not have been a party called APC today! It is people like Ganduje and the intolerant president like his principal that make the multi-party system to look like it is a failed system.

That Ganduje also made the attempt to hoodwink us to believe that his party and government were not forcing people to join the APC goes to confirm the hopelessness of our situation in the hands of these guys whose penchant for the tall tale is legendary! The most doltish of us knows that there is nothing ‘voluntary’ in the gale of defections we are witnessing.

It is also fallacious for Ganduje to think that China is developed because it practices a one-party system! We need to impress on Ganduje that a nation that hates corruption is bound to develop. China abhors corruption and executes corrupt leaders. Anyone who shows any sign that could hinder China’s paths to greatness does not live to tell the story. Evidence of that attitude abounds. That is what makes China great. That is what can make Nigeria to be great again, if we all desire greatness.

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It is also perilous for Ganduje to think Nigeria becoming a one-party State will have no consequences. For him to believe that the heavens will not fall if Nigeria slides to a one-party State as the APC is wont to have it, tells more about the shallowness of his discernment!

So, justifying the intended perfidy of a one-party State, Ganduje drew an analogy from China. Can we ask the former Kano State governor, who was once caught on camera stuffing dollar bills into his babariga, what would have been his fate if he were Chinese? If Nigeria were to be China, what would have happened to Ganduje and his acolytes in the face of the allegations of corruption the Kano State Government brought against them after he left office?

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Honestly, a one-party State like China would not have been a bad idea here if only we could copy China wholesale by doing to people like Ganduje what China does to its citizens who are caught with their hands in the nation’s cookie jar. The elders of my place say that when one prays to be as rich as the man with a big mansion, the one praying should also be prepared to go the same route the owner of the mansion passed through (Òòsa òkè jé kí ndà bí onílé yí gbúdò se òhun tí onílé se). Is Ganduje ready to be given the Chinese treatment for corrupt leaders? Is his neck thick enough for the Chinese hangman’s noose?

This is what Ganduje should consider before drawing a parallel between Nigeria and the one-party State of China. He should have mentioned that China has no room for the type of leaders we have in Nigeria. That if it were to be China, there would have been no way President Tinubu would be occupying Aso rock Villa now. That 99.9 percent of our political leaders would have either been in jail or serving as manure in their shallow graves having been executed by the State.

How do we reconcile the fact that the man once adjudged “the most corrupt governor in Nigeria” is the current President who is also desperately chasing his second term? How do we come to terms with the fact that the number three man in the hierarchy, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, did not contest the primary of his party where the senatorial candidate was nominated, but today, he ‘won’ an election to the senate where he emerged the Senate President because the Supreme Court said so?

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Would China have closed its eyes to the fact that while the returning officer for the 2019 senatorial election in Akpabio’s Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District, Professor Peter Ogban, is in jail for announcing fake results in two local government areas – Oruk Anam and Etim Ekpo – in Akpabio’s favour, the sole beneficiary of the electoral heist is busy “sending prayers to the emails” of other senators today?

Go to Imo State. Would China allow a man who came fourth in an election to be the governor of any of its provinces? Can any minister in China ride a Rolls Royce to the office without the State interrogating his sources of income? Or can the son of President Xi Jinping embark on ‘state visits’ to any of the provinces in China with crass impunity as we have here in Nigeria?

The axiom: “a nation gets the type of leaders it deserves”, has proven to be true of our calamity as a nation. The possibility of a one-party State before 2027 is something that should not scare us again. If it happens, we SHALL all live to savour the sour taste! So, for the Gandujes of this era, I say, ride on!

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IPF Celebrates Otuaro On His Birthday Anniversary

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The Ijaw Publishers’ Forum (IPF) has felicitated with Chief Dr. Dennis Otuaro, Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, on the occasion of his birthday.

A statement issued by the secretary of the body, Tare Magbei, commended Otuaro for his “steady leadership of the Presidential Amnesty Programme,” which according to the forum has “continued to strengthen peace, rehabilitation, and development in the Niger Delta.”

READ ALSO: Otuaro Lauds Tinubu For Backing PAP’s Peacebuilding Process In Niger Delta

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Your efforts in providing opportunities for ex-agitators and in advancing stability across the region stand as clear evidence of your dedication to the people and progress of our land.

“As you mark this new year of life, we join your family, friends, and well-wishers in praying for good health, wisdom, and greater success in the service of the Niger Delta and Nigeria.”

 

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JUST IN: Okpehbolo Appoints New VC For AAU

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Edo State governor, Monday Okpehbolo, has approved the appointment of Professor (Mrs.) Eunice Eboserehimen Omonzejie as the new Vice-Chancellor of the state-owned Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma.

A statement issued late night by Secretary to the State Government, Umar Musa Ikhilor, said her appointment takes immediate effect.

According to the statement, Prof. Omonzejie was appointed amongst the three names submitted by the Governing Council of the university to the state government.

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The statement partly reads, “Professor (Mrs.) Eunice Eboserehimen Omonzejie
Professor Omonzejie is a distinguished scholar of French and Francophone African Literatures and a long-serving academic in the Department of Modern Languages at Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.

“She is a prolific researcher and editor, with contributions to African and Francophone literary studies, gender studies, and cultural studies.

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“She has served as the President of the Ambrose Alli University Chapter of the National Association of Women Academics (NAWACS), where she has championed mentoring, research, and advocacy for female academics and students.

“Professor Omonzejie has co-edited several seminal works including French Language in Nigeria: Essays in Honour of UFTAN Pacesetters and Language Matters in Contemporary West Africa, and is the author of Women Novelists in Francophone Black Africa: Views, Reviews and Interviews,” the statement added.

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OPINION: Every democracy ‘Murders Itself’

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By Lasisi Olagunju

In ‘Jokes and Targets’ by Christie Davies, a Soviet journalist interviews a Chukchi man:

“Could you tell us briefly how you lived before the October revolution?”

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“Hungry and cold.”

“How do you live now?”

“Hungry, cold, and with a feeling of deep gratitude.”

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This sounds like Nigeria’s malaria victims thanking mosquitoes for their love and care. Between democracy and its opposite, reality has blurred the lines.

Last week, a group of White House pool reporters travelled with President Donald Trump on Air Force One as he returned from his U.K. state visit. At the beginning of the journey, actor Trump sauntered into the rear section of the plane, the traditional part for the press. He granted an interview and ended it with a morbid wish: “Fly safely. You know why I say that? Because I’m on the flight. I want to get home. Otherwise I wouldn’t care.”

Ten years ago, if a US president said what Trump told those poor reporters, his presidency would suffer immediate cardiac arrest. But this is Colin Crouch’s post-democracy era: the leader, whether in the US or in Nigeria, in Africa or elsewhere, is the law; whatever he does or says, we bow in gratitude.

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I live in a Nigeria of gratitude and surrender. In the North-West and the North-East, traumatised communities are grateful to bandits and their enablers. They invite them to the negotiation table and thank the murderous gunmen for honouring the invitation. A grateful nation anoints and weeps at the feet of terrorists. In emergency-weaned Rivers State, its remorseful governor is effusive in appreciation of a second chance. The reinstated is ever thankful for the favours of a six-month suspension. From the North to the South, on bad roads and in death-wracked hospital wards, sonorous hymns of appreciation for big mercies ooze. The legislature and the judiciary, even the fourth estate, are all in congregation, singing songs of praise of the benevolent executive. Is this still a democracy?

American political scientists, Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman in 2020 wrote ‘The Fragile Republic’ for The Foreign Affairs. In that essay, they list four symptoms of democratic backsliding. Prime among the four are economic inequality and excessive executive power. “Excessive executive power” is a three-word synonym for autocratization of democracy. It is a by-word for a democracy hanging itself.

The second president of the United States of America, John Adams, saw today; he warned of democracy decaying and dying: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Adams was not alone. There was also William Blake, 18th/19th century English poet, who said “if men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny.” This reads like it was written today and here. If you disagree, I ask: Is it wise (and normal) for the tormented to thank the tormentor?

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Listening to what Trump wished the reporters, we could see that big brother America now leads in democratic ‘erantship’, the Third World merely follows. An enormous country, strong enough to appropriate the name of an entire continent, America, in 2025, is blessed with a strongman that is armed with a licence to rule as it pleases his whim; a president who does what he likes and says what he likes or ‘jokes’ about it without consequences. The result is an imperial presidency that has redefined democracy across the world.

We say here that the yam of the one who is vigilant never gets burnt. The American system used to be very resilient in providing a leash on presidential excesses. It still does, although under a very difficult situation. Donald Trump, in his first term between 2017 and 2021, signed 220 Executive Orders. In his ongoing second term that began in January 2025, he has, as of September 18, 2025, already signed 204 Executive Orders upturning this balance, rupturing that tendon. An American friend told me that he could no longer recognise his country. But the good news is that those who should talk and act are not surrendering their country to Trump and his faction of the populace. Because it is America (and not Nigeria), there are over 300 lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive orders or policies in his second term.

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The active legal challenges view the Trump orders either as unconstitutional, exceeding statutory power, or violating rights. And the courts are also doing their job as they should. A 2025 study found some 150 judicial decisions concerning these orders. Some are preliminary injunctions, others are full rulings. President Bola Tinubu last week acknowledged the existence of “over 40 cases in the courts in Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Yenagoa, to invalidate” his Rivers State emergency order. Our courts, especially the Supreme Court, are yet to acknowledge any of the cases with trials, rulings and orders.

It is easy for presidents with unrestrained executive powers to assume imperial airs. In the past, when they did, they feared losing their link with the people and a fall from power. Today, they are on very solid ground, no matter what they do with their people. Midway into his term as US president, an increasingly unpopular Jimmy Carter reassessed himself, and in lamentation told Washington Post’s David Broder that he (Carter) had “fallen into the trap of being ‘head of the government’ rather than ‘leader of the people.’” Today is not that yesterday of sin and punishment. We have surrendered to the point of giving ourselves away. Today’s leaders know that what they need is the government, its power and privileges, certainly not the people. And they keep working hard at it such that America has Trump, and is not the only country that has a Trump. There are Trumps everywhere. We have them in Africa, from the north to the coast.

What democracy suffers in America it suffers more in Africa. Former President Goodluck Jonathan said at the weekend that “democracy in the African continent is going through a period of strain and risk of collapse unless stakeholders come together to rethink and reform it.” He said politicians manipulate the electoral system to perpetuate themselves in office even when the people don’t want them. “Our people want to enjoy their freedom. They want their votes to count during elections. They want equitable representation and inclusivity. They want good education. Our people want security. They want access to good healthcare. They want jobs. They want dignity. When leaders fail to meet these basic needs, the people become disillusioned.” That is from Jonathan who was our president for six years. Did he say these new things because he wants to come back?

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Democracy is like water; a wrong dose turns it to poison. If disillusionment has a home, it is in Africa. It is the reason why the youths of the continent are bailing out for succour, and the reason for Trump’s $100,000 fee on work visas.

In The North American Review of November 1910, Samuel J. Kornhauser reproduced a quotation that contains warnings of what threat a people could constitute to their own freedom: “The same tendencies to wanton abuse of power which exist in a despot or a ruling oligarchy may be expected in a democracy from the ruling majority, because they are tendencies incidental to human nature.” The solution was “a free people setting limitations upon the exercise of their own will” so that they would not “turn democracy into a curse instead of a blessing.”

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In his 1904 essay, ‘The Relation of the Executive to the Legislative Power’, James T. Young, observed a dramatic shift in American governance: while Woodrow Wilson had earlier warned of “Congressional supremacy,” Young argued that “we now live under a system of executive supremacy,” showing how the traditional checks and balances had failed to maintain equilibrium among the branches. That was in 1904, a hundred and twenty one years ago.

Someone said a leader’s ability to lead a society successfully is dependent on their capacity to govern themselves. It is that self-governing capacity that is lacking in our power circles. Plus the leaders don’t think they owe history anything. “From the errors of others, a wise man corrects himself…The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.” Publilius Syrus (85–43 BC), the Roman writer credited with uttering those nuggets, was a master of proverbs and apophthegm. We don’t listen to such words; we don’t mind being tripped by the same stone, and it does not matter falling into the same pit.

A democracy can enthrone emperors and kings but it is not that easy to ask them to dismount the high horse of the state without huge costs. We elect leaders and for unsalutory reasons, we let them roam freely with our lives, our safety and our comfort. We promote and defend them with our freedom. I hope we know the full import (and consequences) of the seed we are planting today. A Pharaoh will come who won’t remember that there was ever a Joseph.

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A Roman emperor called Caligula reigned from 16 March, 37 AD until he was put to sleep on 24 January, 41 AD. ‘Caligula’ was not the name his parents gave him; it was an alias, “a joke of the troops” which trumped his real identity: He was named after popular Julius Caesar.

Roman historian, Claudius Suetonius, records in his ‘The Lives of the Caesars’ that Caligula became emperor after his father’s death and then “full and absolute power was at once put into his hands by the unanimous consent of the senate and of the mob, which forced its way into the House.” The new leader came popular with a lot of the people’s hope invested in him. Suetonius says the young man “assumed various surnames (for he was called ‘Pious,’ ‘Child of the Camp,’ ‘Father of the Armies,’ and ‘Greatest and Best of Caesars’). Soon the fawning appellations entered his head and he became the opposite of what his people wanted in their leader. One day, Emperor Caligula chanced “to overhear some kings who had come to Rome to pay their respects to him” doing what Yoruba kings love doing: He found them arguing at dinner about whose throne, among them, was the greatest and the highest in nobility. The emperor heard them and cried: “Let there be one Lord, one King.” He called them to order and from that point, it was clear to everyone that republican Rome now had one Lord, one king, and that was Caligula.

The man said and did things that frightened even the heartless. At a point during his reign, Caligula saw a mass of Roman people, the rabble, applauding some nobles whom he detested. He voiced his hatred for what the people did and said what he thought should be their punishment: “I wish the Roman people had but a single neck so I could cut it through at one blow.” That statement became a quote which has, through centuries, defined his place in history.
It would appear that 79-year old Donald Trump defined himself for history last week with his “fly safely…because I’m on the flight” statement. A leader, a father and grandfather said he did not care if a plane-load of young men and women perished (without him) in a crash. And he told them so.

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A Twi proverb suggests that “the chief feels the heat only when his own roof is on fire.” Trump’s unfortunate remark is said to be a joke. Even as a joke, what the US president said sits in a long tradition of expensive jokes. Trump’s cruel ‘jest’ couldn’t be funny to any people even if they were under the spell of the leader. History and literature are full of such costly quips that come light from the tongue but which reveal something raw about power and rulers: power does not agree that all human beings possess equal worth, equal dignity, and equal rights. Power talks, and whenever it talks, it sets itself apart.
King Louis XV of France is remembered for uttering the line: “Après moi, le déluge (After me, the flood).” Some commentators say it was a joke, some others say it was a shrug. History interpreted what Louis XV said as the king not caring a hoot whatever might happen to France after he was gone. That statement is a sound bite that has clung to him forever as Abraham Lincoln’s mother’s prayer clung to her son.

When Louis XV said it, no one saw what the king said as a prophecy, grim and ghastly. I am not sure he also knew the full import of what he said. But it was prescient; fifteen years after his reign, the “flood” came furious with the 1789 revolution culminating in the effective abolition of the French monarchy by the proclamation of the First Republic on September 21, 1792.

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Emperor Nero of Rome is remembered forever for playing the fiddle while Rome was burning. In William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, we read a verse that ends with “Nero, Play(ing) on the lute, beholding the towns burn.” What is remembered of Nero is the image of a leader who ‘enjoyed the life of his head’ while his empire got destroyed by fire set at it by the enemy. But did the emperor really do that? Read this from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “So, did Nero fiddle while Rome burned? No. Sort of. Maybe. More likely, he strummed a proto-guitar while dreaming of the new city that he hoped would arise in the fire’s ashes. That isn’t quite the same thing as doing nothing, but it isn’t the sort of decisive leadership one might hope for either.”

I have roamed from imperial Rome to medieval France, to democratic America and its Nigerian side-kick. What is next here is to go back, and salute John Adams with this his dispraise of democracy: “It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.” A system or a country becomes a joke when its leaders toy with its destiny; when they make light of the fears of their people.

The Akan of Ghana warn that if you sit on comfortable rotten wood to eat pawpaw, your bottom gets wet and your mouth also gets wet. This is to say that there are consequences for choices made. A kabiyesi democracy is an autocratic monarchy. And what does that feel like? I read of a king who joked to his courtiers during famine: “Hunger has no teeth sharp enough to bite me in my palace.” It was a careless statement of a monarchy that has found its way into the mouth of our democracy. I saw it where I read it that the ‘joke’ “was remembered bitterly by the starving commoners who later sang satirical songs about the unfeeling king.” Some jokes outlive their laughter.

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