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OPINION: Ifa’s Message For Our President

Published

1 year ago

August 13, 2024

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

At the very beginning of time when the deities lived among human beings, Òrúnmìlà, the father of Divination, occupied a prominent space. He attracted many people to himself, friends and foes alike. He assisted many people to achieve their ambitions. Òrúnmìlà was instrumental to many becoming wealthy. He made nobles of not a few. He crowned and assisted in dethroning kings. He was powerful, influential and generous. But he has hubris. He was always ruthless whenever he saw any obstacle to his ambition.

A time came when Òrúnmìlà wanted to take the highest title among the deities. Of course, many rose in his support; those who wanted to repay his past good deeds. Likewise, some others who had felt cheated or ill-treated by Òrúnmìlà, also lined up against him. To these people, it was payback time. Two Òrúnmìlà’s partners in divination were ferocious in their opposition to Òrúnmìlà’s aspiration. What went wrong between them, only the gods could tell. But Òtúrúpòn and Òkàràn swore that Òrúnmìlà would not attain the position he sought. While Òkàràn was ready to shift ground if certain conditions were met, Òtúrúpòn was so determined, and nothing would persuade him to be soft on his erstwhile friend. The duo approached Èsù (the trickster deity) to assist them in their mission against the great diviner. Èsù kept them in his shrine, waiting to see what Òrúnmìlà would do.

At his wits end, Òrúnmìlà summoned his diviners to find a solution. Ifa revealed to Òrúnmìlà that his two enemies were waiting in ambush for him at the shrine of Èsù. Òpèlè equally told him that it was only Èsù that could save him and get him to the position he so desired. Sacrifices were prescribed. Among them was that Òrúnmìlà must carry 700 empty gourds and 4,000 cowry shells to the shrine of Èsù. How would one man carry those items at once? Ifa simply asked Òrúnmìlà to make the poor in the town to be happy. He was asked to attend to the needs of the masses reasonably.

For seven days, Òrúnmìlà took care of the needy. He fed them, divined for them pro bono, attended to every of their needs and asked the king to initiate policies that would make life bearable for the poor. The people were happy. On the eighth day, Òrúnmìlà brought out the sacrificial items and began to carry them. The people who came to thank him for the way he had treated them in the past one week saw his struggles with the items. They offered to assist Òrúnmìlà. The masses shared the items among themselves and Òrúnmìlà led the way to the shrine of Èsù, otherwise known as Elégbáa.

The noise from the items as the empty gourds and cowry shells knocked one another was terrifying. The noise produced a music, which according to the Odù, says: A ó pa Òtúrúpòn/A ó kan Òkàràn lésè (We with kill Òtúrúpòn. We will break the legs of Òkàràn). On hearing the music, which was just coincidental, the duo thought that it was a battle cry, and took to flight. Òrúnmìlà and his party arrived at the shrine, offered the items to Èsù. He was instantly proclaimed the head of all deities. Òrúnmìlà defeated his enemies without shooting a single arrow. The masses who made up his team were his strength. When a dog has the people behind it, even the monkey on a high tree becomes a meal!

Today is barely three days after the Annual Convention of my church, The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), with the theme, “Heaven”, ended. For those my fellow heaven-bound brothers and sisters, who may be wondering why I chose the path of divination early this New Year in the RCCG, I refer you to my new position in the cabinet of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Senior Special Adviser, Culture and Tradition (See “Dangote Refinery: Blind man and his yam scrapers”, published on July 30, 2024). It is in pursuant of that new office that I offer this ‘advice’ free of charge! But like the deity, Olúa, in my town is wont to say: I wish Tinubu not to accede to my divination so that at the fullness of time, he would say the Oracle warned!

The year 2027 is going to be a decisive year for Nigeria, Nigerians, and particularly for President Tinubu. It is the year that Tinubu will be seeking to be the head of all principalities and powers in the corridors of power as the ‘number one citizen’ of Nigeria. Tinubu will seek his second term in office, no doubt. Many will support him, just as many will be up in arms against him. The battle will be fierce, mean and bloody. The opposition camps will give all it takes for the president not to realise his second term ambition. President Tinubu should have no doubt in his mind that the Òtúrúpòns and Òkàràns of the nation’s political firmament will assemble all arsenals at their disposals to see the end of his political career. We will be on the fringes to observe events and lend our voices here and there, and from time to time, by God’s grace. However, the battle will rage most fiercely, in Tinubu’s camp. What should the president do? We shall come to that.

But first, let us establish this fact. With the way the #EndBadGovernance ‘protest’ was prosecuted and ended in the North, it is clear, even to the blind, that the Òtúrúpòns and Òkàràns of the North have parted ways with Tinubu’s Òrúnmìlà. What happened between President Tinubu and his old friends and allies from the North is left at the imagination of the deities as it happened in the divination above. The North, we all have come to realise, did not ‘protest’ hunger, inflation and the general pains in the land during the August1-10, 2024 EndBadGovernance ‘protest’. What ails the North most in the last 15 months of President Tinubu’s administration is the loss of power to the South.

The folks up the Niger River have not been able to reconcile themselves with the fact that they are no longer in charge. They find the prospect of a Tinubu second term too difficult to bear. So, when the opportunity came for them to ‘protest’ hunger, the North sent their youths to do it peculiarly. That region is ready to do anything, ready to give anything and ready to allow anything, for power to return to it. The prospect of a military intervention is a welcome development! They openly canvassed it! Sad! But it is understandable, anyway. When a region has no other business apart from the government, the loss of power, no matter how temporarl, can never be palatable.

During the build-up to the 2023 general election that produced the Tinubu presidency, many of us warned Tinubu then that it was fatal for the dog to make the tiger its best man. Such a relationship comes with a huge price. But when a man sets his eyes on the throne of his forebears, it is useless to caution him to tread softly. In the course of realising his ambition, everything, no matter how deadly, got a warm embrace from Tinubu. While one is tempted to salute his dexterity at executing all his political battles, one cannot but shrug at the tendency of Tinubu to throw caution to the winds. He befriended his most arch enemies. One of them was Nasir El-Rufai, the immediate past governor of Kaduna State. The public insults El-Rufai heaped on Tinubu prior to the 2023 race paled into insignificance as the same diminutive governor became the arrowhead of Tinubu’s campaign. That is what our politics is all about; no clear-cut ideology.

In power, Tinubu has made so many concessions to his ‘friends’ in the North. He has done everything he could to pacify them. With numerous appointments, to even creating a full ministry for the cows of the North, President Tinubu has demonstrated that he is a man ready to give in anything for his own personal comfort and ambition. But despite what he has done for the North, the same people came out during the EndBadGovernance ‘protest’ to show that they are implacable. The only thing that will pacify the North is a return of power to the zone. If you are wondering why the North behaved the way it did during the ‘protest’, you need to know the fable of the insatiable bird called Àlúkèrè. Here is the story.

Children, especially those from the countryside, love to play with birds. Growing up then, our parents caught birds for us to play with. We tied a tiny thread on the legs of the birds and made them take flight, while we pulled them back. It was fun. On our own too, as children, we set traps for birds and whenever we caught any, we brought it home to the elders. But there is this tiny bird that we were never allowed to keep and play with. The bird is very easy to catch because it finds it difficult to take its eyes off the baiting grains in our traps. But despite catching many of them, we were asked to release them back into the wild without hesitation. Àlúkèrè is never a domesticated bird. It ruins every home it is kept in. Its needs cannot be satisfied. No matter what the keeper does to make it happy, Àlúkèrè keeps singing that its life is better off in its own home where it is the lord. Incidentally, Àlúkèrè lives in lack, want and deprivation in the wild. The same reason it keeps wandering into traps, seeking food. But take it home to feed it good rations, it keeps singing:

Ebi á pa Àlúkèrè Ku/Hunger will kill Àlúkèrè

Response: Àlúkèrè

Kó bá sulé honi/ If one were to be in his own house

Response: Àlúkèrè

Honi a dáná a jeun/One will cook and eat

Response: Àlúkèrè

Honi adúgbà some mu/One will once in a while drink water

That is exactly the North Tinubu has been trying to pacify all because of 2027. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan did the same. Rather than establish a Ministry of Cows for the North, Jonathan established nomadic schools for the ambulant pastoralist populace of the North. But that did not pacify them. They ensured he was practically chased out of power! Anything short of power is nothing for the region. It doesn’t matter the huge difference between the number of years the North has been in power and the alarming backwardness of the region, the zone still wants power and nothing more. Those children on the streets during the ‘protest’ are products of the wickedness of the elite class up there! That should get any rational mind worried. And this is why nobody up there appears to appreciate Tinubu’s rapprochement with the North! Come 2027, the North will queue behind any northerner that stands against Tinubu at the election. The only bragging right they have is the population. That itself is a ruse! In all this, Tinubu can change the narrative. He can do something that will make 2027 an easy ride. What do I think President Tinubu should do?

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Supper For Nigeria’s Àkébàjé

I refer the president back to Ifa’s counsel to Òrúnmìlà in the above divination. Nigerians, I have come to realise, don’t really bother about who rules them as long as life is more abundant. We demonstrate that in sports. Nobody cares if our National Team is populated by the Okechuckwus of this world or by the descendants of Ahmed Musa, or the offspring of Segun Odegbami. All they want is the gold medal!

So, if I were President Tinubu, I would, like Òrúnmìlà did, make food available for the masses by ensuring that farmers are no more molested by herders and bandits. I would ensure that Nigerians can travel on the highways without any fear of being kidnapped. As the president, I would take a look at the power sector and ask questions as to why the Power Generating Companies (GENCOs) generate so much but the Transmission Companies (TMs) could not transmit the megawatts generated for the Distribution Companies (DISCOs) to sell to the populace. I would address the issue of over-bloated cost of governance by cutting down on the number of political appointees and stem other profligacies. I would also not forget to look at the NNPC and its moribund refineries and do a decisive surgical operation there. In all the juicy pies where my family members, cronies and I have our hands, I will become more transparent and be above board. If indeed I were him, I would devote more time to good governance and leave politics for a while. I take a bet, if President Tinubu makes the welfare of the people the cornerstone of his administration today, when 2027 comes and the Òtúrúpòns and Òkàràns all gather, the masses will carry his sacrificial items to the shrine of Èsù with the battle cry: A ó pa Òtúrúpòn/a ó kan Òkàràn lésè (We with kill Òtúrúpón. We will break the leg of Òkàràn)! May the president hear and understand what the Oracle says!

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I’ll Support Trump To Fight Terrorism In Nigeria If… – Wike

Published

9 hours ago

November 3, 2025

Editor

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has said that he would support US President Donald Trump if he provides technology to combat terrorism in Nigeria.

Wike stated this on Monday while responding to questions in an interview on Politics Today, a programme on Channels Television monitored by DAILY POST.

His comment comes in the wake of the Christian genocide allegation in Nigeria made by Trump.

It will be recalled that Trump recently designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” over the same allegation.

The US President also said that he had asked the Defence Department to prepare for possible military action in Nigeria if the Nigerian government “continues to allow the killing of Christians”.

Responding, Wike said, “It is not enough for me to capitalise that people are dying in Plateau, Benue and other places.

“I have said that I will support Trump in providing and supporting Nigeria with technology in the fight against terrorism. I will also support any country that wants to proffer solutions in tackling terrorism in Nigeria.”

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OPINION: Trump’s Wrath Of Oedipus

Published

11 hours ago

November 3, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

Mr Donald Trump and his Generals are buckling their armour to wipe out terrorists who kill Christians in Nigeria. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet…” the American president tweeted yesterday. Nigerians who heard Trump probably wondered where he is going to start from. People abducting people, people killing people are everywhere in Nigeria: North-East, North-West, North-Central, the South – everywhere. The forests are deeply infested; the cities have them thick behind seedy walls. How do you kill terrorists in a terror territory without killing everyone?

I risk this question: Who is the real killer here?

What is killing Nigerian Christians, indeed, what is killing Nigerians of all faiths, is not just religion or religionists. The true assassin is the Nigerian structure; an abnormality sculpted with the cold chisel of Mr. Trump’s America and its complicit allies. As Tacitus once wrote of Rome, “They make a desert and call it peace.” Nigeria is a malformed republic calcified by those who pretend to defend it. The Nigerian structure empowers extremism and fetters the law. It enjoys the backing of the West.

Now, Trump says he is coming. Some saviours come to compound calamities. In Ola Rotimi’s ‘The Gods Are Not to Blame’, the Nigerian adaptation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Odewale is the celebrated liberator who becomes king. There is Baba Fakunle, the old, blind diviner of Kutuje. When the king, Odewale (the Oedipus figure), summons the seer to help identify the cause of the kingdom’s troubles, Baba Fakunle immediately sees the king himself as the source of the curse afflicting the land: “You are the murderer you seek”, the blind tells the king. He proceeds to even call him “bed sharer.” But the hot-tempered king thinks the prophet subversive, a coupist.

Tiresias in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, like Ola Rotimi’s Baba, is the blind who perceives what the sighted king cannot see. The blind reveals that the sickness of the city flows from King Oedipus himself. He is the murderer. Oedipus, who vows to cleanse Thebes, is the source of the plague and “pollution” of Thebes. Today’s world has Oedipuses; it has no Tiresias. The truth bearer exists neither in America and its allies nor in their viceroys, defenders of peace who switch off rights in search of freedom.

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Donald Trump described Nigeria as “a disgraced country.” It is surprising that Nigeria has had no word to reply to that insult. His threats are directed at the bad children in the forests of the north. There is not a whimper from the ACF and the Northern Elders Forum. Where is their usual courage? Where is the Federal Government? If I would be cynical, I wouid ask: Why not invoke our efficient Cybercrime Act to deal with this? In case the government missed the assault, it is there in Trump’s tweet on Truth Social:

“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities. I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!”

America’s Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, with a “Yes sir” replied Trump with ‘automatic alacrity’. He said his boots were “preparing for action” on the soil of Nigeria. He posted on X:

“Yes sir. The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria — and anywhere — must end immediately. The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”

Greek historian and Athenian General, Thucydides, underlined the causes of war: power, fear, and ambition. He warned that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Secretary Pete Hegseth’s words are a salute, and a promise of death wrapped in benevolence. He and his boss spoke as relievers of the besieged of Nigeria. We thank them for their interest. But where are they going to start from?

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“They can start from anywhere,” a voice replied me.

“Where is anywhere?”

It is cool to read Trump’s promise of reprieve; we’ve seen too much not to embrace any messiah who comes around. Too many have died with their blood calling for vengeance. But this Trump rain, if it ever falls, won’t fall on one roof. Oedipus comes into Thebes, kills their terror and for that is made king. Years later, the saviour’s coming becomes bad, mass death.

I read online many who are happy that Bola Tinubu’s government is facing fire from America. Some of these are even from the Muslim North. Ancient Romans would see this and intone: “Amicus meus, inimicus inimici mei” (my friend, the enemy of my enemy). Mathematical sociologists would dust up Frank Harary’s formalisation of the Balance Theory; they would trace their signed graphs, and point to Fritz Heider’s insight that a pair of friends with a common enemy forms a balanced triangle: A friend of my friend is my friend (+ × + × + = +). A friend of my enemy is my enemy (+ × – × – = +). An enemy of my enemy is my friend (– × – × + = +). Politics!

It is strange that a government that has conquered everyone is now being conquered from a strange angle. “History shows that there are no invincible armies and never have been” (Josef Stalin).

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Ofala: Glo And An Invite From Agbogidi

I would have joined in the celebrations to welcome Trump but for the fact that history shows me the strong disguising ambition with the language of virtue; I hear the powerful invoking justice and faith while pursuing dominance. If I asked the Greek to use human history and experience to analyse Mr. Trump’s threat of a war to end all terrorist wars in Nigeria, Thucydides would likely have viewed Trump’s threat with cold, unsentimental realism. To him, the tough-talk would not be an act of moral outrage but a performance of power. He would see in Trump’s posture not compassion for the Nigerian victim of terror; the historian would see the timeless logic of empire: using other people’s tragedy to affirm strength and moral superiority.

As Thucydides might have put it, “War is not so much a matter of right as of necessity.” From history to literature, we find that those who claim to fight for justice are often merely fighting for influence. In the eyes of experience, America’s preparation “for action” would be less about saving faith, limbs and lives; it will be more about staging yet another play in the endless drama of power.

So, I ask: Is the noise from the US truly targetted at the Nigerian Wall of Jericho? We wait to see.

We are a complicated country with complex problems. If Trump kills all today’s terrorists tomorrow, how about the next generation of killers that will come out the day after? The hatchery is not tired of making them.

So, where is the way? Donald Trump’s message of war? It cannot be the way. One thing is certain, this crisis and the response to it echo a tragic pattern: leaders are chasing false targets; messiahs will end up as wrathful Oedipuses whose presence will poison the land. These healers, they will spread plague.

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OPINION: Saluting Our Permanent Patriarchs

Published

11 hours ago

November 3, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

Respect old age. A “strictly by invitation” conclave of Yoruba cardinals sat for two days last week, not in the traditional capital, Ibadan, but in aged Akure, Ondo State. They took the masquerade to the eastern ancestral grove and had it costumed there. If your masquerade was not there, it is because your buttocks were deemed too small for the gilded stools there. And by not being there, you just missed balls of àkàrà made specially in frying pans of honey. The cardinals sat and chose for the whole race and decreed that “we must speak with one voice.” Their Holinesses danced to African pop singer, Angélique Kidjo’s ‘Agolo’ in their own sacred way and ordered that the waist-beads of their Olajumoke must remain where it is. Who are we to say the mouth of the elder stinks? That is the judgment of age, the decree from the ancestors’ gavel. Coourt!

It is an African thing. Of what use is age if you can’t use it to dominate the youth? Àgbà kò níí tán l’órí ilè is a daily prayer in Yoruba land. It simply means “may elders not be extinct in our land.” What the Akure papacy wants is already being done in other parts of Africa. The results have been phenomenal. I am moving from Cameroon to Côte d’Ivoire, then Tanzania, and, then other places where age is prized far higher than rubies.

They say wisdom comes with age. If that is true, no matter how “disgraced” Donald Trump says we are, East and West, Nigeria has pearls of ancestral wisdom. To our immediate East, we have Paul Biya of Cameroon; a little far west, there is Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire. They are the current champions. Our immediate western neighbour, Benin Republic, has just banned the main opposition candidate and his party from the next presidential poll. These and many more enjoy the nod of the lords who created these countries.

I have ‘data’ people, young persons around me. They flirt into my fort and speak grammar and literature. First, they talk “gerontocracy”; then I hear “heart-cutting paradox” of Africa being the world’s youngest continent by median age, “yet it is being governed by some of the oldest leaders on earth.” Talk is cheap. What do they know? What an elder sees while seated, a child in space can’t see.

Indeed, Africa, this moment, has the wisest gathering of aged priests of power ever assembled.

In the North, there sits Abdelmadjid Tebboune of Algeria (80), Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt (71), and Kais Saied of Tunisia (67 — just under seventy, but invested with self-made powers broad enough to last him till eternity).

In West Africa, the procession of patriarchs includes Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria (73), Joseph Boakai of Liberia (80), and Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire (83). Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of Ghana, now 81, bowed out, leaving the stage in January 2025 for his old rival, John Dramani Mahama, 66, to steer the ship once again.

In Central Africa, Mother Africa is still blessed with the grandest of elders: Paul Biya of Cameroon (92), Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea (83), and Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo (81).

In Eastern and Southern Africa, the grey reign continues: Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (81), Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea (79), Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe (83), and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa (73). Hage Geingob of Namibia passed away on 4 February 2024 at the age of 82. He was succeeded by 84-year-old Nangolo Mbumba, who served until the March 2025 election that brought Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, 73, to power — the country’s first female president.

Farther east, Djibouti’s parliament has just erased the age barrier that once capped presidential ambition, clearing the path for 77-year-old Ismaïl Omar Guelleh to seek a sixth term in 2026. And on the Ethiopian plateau, President Taye Atske Selassie will turn 70 next year.

We respect and value age; that is why Africa remains forever at the top. We are the continent where wisdom and endurance sit enthroned in power.

President Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire is 83. He has just clinched a fourth term with the ease of a man ordering breakfast. Cast your gaze eastward to Cameroon, 92-year-old Paul Biya is there. BBC last week described him as “the leader who never loses.” He has kindly agreed to remain in office after only 43 years of national service – or should I simply call his reign ‘uninterrupted power supply’? Forty-three years in some democracies would be called eternity; here in Africa, from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope, it is continuity.

Nigeria has so much to learn especially from Cameroon where grey hair rules completely and totally. Cameroon has a council of elders whose word is law. I searched the World Wide Web, asking the oracle for the secret of that country’s success. It is the bent gait of the leaders and the age of their ideas. It is difficult to believe, but it is true, the elders list is real: To President Biya’s right is the President of the Constitutional Council, Clément Atangana; he is 84 years old. Atangana it was who oversaw the recent election and announced the results that are being celebrated with stones and bullets in the streets of the country. There is also René Claude Meka, the 86-year-old Chief of Defence Staff. He guards the guards in the name of democracy. The president of the senate is Marcel Niat Njifenji, 91 years old. With Cavayé Yéguié Djibril, the 85-year-old Speaker of the National Assembly, Njifenji sees that laws are made for the good governance of the republic. They make laws, and when they finish minting the laws, they pass them to 83-year-old Laurent Esso, the indefatigable Minister of Justice. He executes the law and its convicts. The job of this council of elders is to keep the grandfather in power and tell the young to wait for their time.

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We have done well with democracy in Africa. It is no longer about freedom and welfare, and good living and life more abundant. It is about endurance – like dull, painful sex.

Latecomer Nigeria does not (yet) have its own official elders council as Cameroon. It should quietly be taking notes; that is what the wise do. We should envy Cameroon; Cameroon deserves our envy.

In Bénin, the constitutional court on 27 October, 2025, ruled to exclude the principal opposition party, Les Démocrates, from participating in the upcoming 2026 presidential election. The coast is clear for democracy in that country and for the incumbent. In East Africa, Tanzania’s presidential election was held on Wednesday last week. But the gods of polls had cracked the palm kernel of victory for the incumbent before the election day. President Samia Suluhu Hassan stood (and stands) on terra firma. She won before winning. Her opponents, candidates of the two primary opposition parties, were removed from the ballot by the gods of democracy. Their supporters are outside, burning tyres and getting buried.

Nigeria will do better than Benin and Tanzania. If those ones had appreciated better intelligence, they would not run into the quicksand of protests harrying their hills. Instead of shutting the gate against opponents and running against themselves, how about those opposition candidates simply defecting into the ruling party? If you check the physics of politics, you will understand why politicians are ferromagnetic beings; they respond to the magnet of money and power. In Nigeria, nobody will be disqualified in the next elections. The magnet in the ruling party sucks them into the vortex of power, and that ends it. Never mind what an Abuja court said on defection last Friday. The defected should forfeit their seats. Who does that? The higher courts will correct the abnormal orders.

Yoruba ancestors are great scientists. There is this Yoruba spell that pulls whoever it wants into its bossom:

Gerere,

Àwọ̀n maa wo won bo,

Gerere…

(Swiftly/ Net, drag them here/ Swiftly).

People of depth who massed in Akure last week know how this magnetic net is woven. It works in Yoruba’s Lagos – it is working in Nigeria. The Tanzanian lady should have come to learn here.

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I read online about children of protest dreaming of Tanzania in Nigeria. No. It won’t happen. Where is the main opposition party, the PDP? By the time we reach 2027, no opposition contraption will be well enough to stagger out of the ICU. After that feat, we will move to the next. What is next? Third term?

‘Third term’ is scandalous; we don’t want that chain for the neck of our Olajumoke. The respectable career goal is to be so good as to be begged to become king.

Let the children of anger keep punching their tired tabs and overused phones. Someone told me that when they finally look up from those chinko phones and ask, “Who’s that old man on the ballot again?” the answer will definitely be: “The same man you voted for when you were in primary school.”

Africa is proof that democracy is tired of term limits. The British blessed us with permanent secretaries; why not bless ourselves with permanent councils of elders complete with a permanent presidency. Imagine the elegance in that alliteration: “permanent presidency.” Pulsating.

Even in America where we copied this democracy nonsense, they are already building a throne for their king and sewing very regal royal robes. They have a king.

I read Thomas E. Cronin’s ‘On the Origins and Invention of the Presidency’ and laughed at the folly in the wisdom of the past. Cronin, by “presidency” meant American presidency.” He wrote: “In 1787 fifty-five of America’s best educated and most experienced men assembled in Philadelphia. Their average age was 42, most were lawyers or businessmen. Two-thirds had served in the Congress at one time or another; nearly twenty had served in the Continental army. Seven had been governors in their states. It was a convention of the well-bred, well-fed, well-read and well-wed.” These were the people, the 55 wise men who invented America’s presidential democracy, the one we copied like that poor student who Rank-xeroxed his mate’s exam script, name, matric number, all.

The mandate of the American wise men, according to Cronin, was “to devise an executive office that would also be effective and safe; strong enough to command respect, to help maintain order, to help conduct effective diplomatic affairs, to provide for more efficient administration, yet not so strong as to threaten civil liberties, or in any way aggrandize power contrary to the welfare of the general public.” They did what they had to do and for 229 years, they thought they got it right. They were wrong. Trump, holding Muhammadu Buhari’s toothpick, is at this moment, laughing at their wisdom.

A permanent presidency – a king – is being considered by those around America’s Trump. Or where were you last week when former White House chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, told The Economist that President Donald Trump would serve a third term? Stephen Bannon described a third term for Trump as essential to the nation’s future, a “vehicle of divine providence”, an “instrument of divine will” and “the will of the American people.” We were very unfair to President Olusegun Obasanjo, a successful third term for him would have been a valuable part of contemporary America’s literature review.

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This is the age of the aged. We should tell William Shakespeare that he lied; that the poet lied in his claim that “All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,…”

Shakespeare says the drama of life always comes to an end for actors and for spectators. It is not so in Africa. Go to Togo, don’t they have Faure Gnassingbé there after Gnassingbé Eyadéma? Gnassingbé served as the president of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005. Gnassingbé Eyadéma’s son, Faure, filled what would have been a gap immediately and has led Togo since then. What else is the meaning of immortality?

Nigeria can improve on this. One man can be president; his son governor; his brother minister; his grandchildren commissioners.

The president can even combine all those posts and positions if he wants. It will be answered prayers.

This is a satire, but sometimes words fail the satirist and his satire. Satire itself is a dangerous thing because sometimes it stops being seen for what it is. But on this, I double down and hiss on reason and good judgment. This is the age of wisdom, I cling to the tail of the elephant of the aged, he alone can take us up the mountain before us.

In ‘As You Like It’, Shakespeare’s Jaques delivers the locus classicus on the seven ages of man. Life, Shakespeare’s character says, unfolds in seven acts; he calls them “ages”. First comes the helpless infant, “mewling and puking” and crying in a nurse’s arms; then the reluctant schoolboy, weeping and creeping to class with a shining face. Next, the lover, scribbling and sighing over verses, love poems, to his beloved; followed by the fiery soldier, proud, quick to quarrel, chasing fleeting glory: “A soldier, / Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, / Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, / Seeking the bubble reputation /Even in the cannon’s mouth.” Then appears the wise judge, full of proverbs and dignity, his form rounded by comfort. Then age steals in, turning him into a thin, slippered old man, his once-bold voice now trembling and shrill. At last, the curtain falls on all, a return to infancy, “second childishness” and forgetfulness, bereft of sight, sound, taste, and self:

“Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

For all enemies of age, I render, in modern English, the last stage in the passage above, Act II, Scene VII:

“The final stage of life

that ends this strange and eventful journey

is a return to childishness and complete forgetfulness;

without teeth, without eyes, without taste, without anything at all.”

The Shakespearean last stage is the age of nothing and nothingness. That is the age of our leaders. In nothing, nothing is bad. We love our own old age, we want it as long as it is Idi Bebere, the voluptuous, supple waist of Olajumoke.