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OPINION: Lest China seize our President

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By Suyi Ayodele

“President Bola Tinubu will embark on a trip to France on Monday, August 19, departing from Abuja, the nation’s capital. The President will return to the country after his brief work stay in France.” I read this terse statement by Chief Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity), early Monday morning, and my heart skipped. Some people are bold! Why France of all places this time around?

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Has the presidency forgotten that it was in France that a Chinese company seized our presidential jets? Are those who planned the president’s trip not aware that also owe China itself a huge sum of money? Is this Efun (bewitchment), Èdì (spell) or Àsàsì (enchantment)? Are there no Yoruba among the president’s aides who planned the trip? Do they not know that the deity that seizes the home and the stream is also capable of taking over the farmland (Òòsà tó gba’lé, gba odò ó lè gba oko lówó Eni)? What if those in the Chinese Finance Ministry swallowed the wrong frog and decided to approach a French court to seek to attach the President and his entourage as collateral? How can we owe, and the number one citizen is travelling in the type of luxury his creditors cannot afford?

From time immemorial, the Yoruba traditional setting devised three methods of recovering debts from chronic debtors. These methods are employed only when the debtor becomes recalcitrant, arrogant and ostentatious. Nothing angers a Yoruba creditor more than to see his debtor eating gizzard. This is why the elders of the land warn: A kìí je iwe lójú olówó eni (You don’t eat gizzard in the presence of your creditor). The Gizzard is the most precious part of the chicken. It is reserved for the rich or the head of the family. In a case of ritual, where a chicken is used as the sacrificial object, the one on whose behalf the ritual is performed is the one that is permitted to eat the gizzard. Yet another saying confirms this assertion thus: Eni a bá torí è pa adìye níí je iwe (It is he on whose behalf the chicken is sacrificed that eats the gizzard). When a debtor is caught eating gizzard, the creditor goes for the kill and employs any of the three methods to recover his money depending on the amount of money involved, the period of the indebtedness and the antecedents of the debtor.

The first of such traditional method is known as Òsómàáló, commonly used by the Ijesha people of the present-day Osun State. Òsómàáló involves the creditor coming to the debtor’s house in the wee hours of the morning before the debtor rises from his bed, to squat while asking for his money. While in that squatting position, the creditor does all manners of things. He can, for instance, begin to drink water continuously from the gourd of water he brought along, or he begins to eat wraps of corn meal (agidi or eko) from the basket he carried to the debtor’s house. The implication of these acts is that the creditor can suffer a health challenge or die in the process. Should any of these happen, it becomes a bigger problem for the debtor and his family. To prevent such an eventuality, the moment an Òsómàáló, which means: this is how I will squat till I collect my money, shows up, the debtor’s family members rally round to raise and pay off the debt. An Òsómàáló, must not suffer any untoward consequence in the house of the debtor!

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The second method is more nauseating. It is known as Ológo or Ológodò. This method entails sending an invalid person, or someone who has infectious diseases to the house of the debtor. Lepers, people with tuberculosis, or other highly communicable infections are engaged in this case. What they simply do is that they begin to live with the debtor, eat his food without permission, use his household items freely and sleep on his bed and those of members of the debtor’s family. Again, neither the debtor nor members of his family are permitted under Yoruba tradition to chase away the Ológo or Ológodò. In some extreme cases, Ológo or Ológodò can also go violent by destroying items in the house of the debtor. The debtor’s neighbours and family members are not spared. The aim is to get the family members to pay up the debt.

The third method is the Ìwòfà system in which a relation of the debtor is pawned off to the creditor till the debt owed is paid. The one so pawned works for the creditor, while the creditor feeds him and accommodates him. But it is beyond just working for the creditor. An Ìwòfà suffers a lot in the hands of the creditors. There is no moment of respite for him; he must work continuously under the rain and scorching sun. This is why it is said that Olówó kii gelete, kí Ìwòfà na gelete (The creditor will not sit comfortably, and the pawn also sits comfortably).

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There is no one among these three methods that is palatable. The best option is for one to stay out of debt. And if it is inevitable that one must owe, the debtor should refrain from eating gizzard, especially, where his creditor can easily see him. This piece of traditional advice does not hold any value in today’s Nigeria. Nigeria owes many foreign creditors, yet the country’s leader displays uncommon affluence to the chagrin of the nation’s creditors!

The last one week has not been good enough for our dear country. The international embarrassment the nation suffered at the hands of a Chinese investment company, Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Ltd, leading to the seizure of three of our presidential aircraft is something that should give us all concern. In all honesty, if there is any time President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has my faint sympathy, it is over this international embarrassment. I said faintly because I have read a lot by some people who believed that the Tinubu team stage-managed the ‘seizures’ so that Mr. President could bring home his N150 billion newly acquired luxury Airbus A330. As much as one is tempted not to believe that storyline in the face of the embarrassing situation we found ourselves, the fact that the new aircraft is the one the Chinese firm graciously released to President Tinubu to travel to France, speaks volume. I cannot, indeed, beat my chest for Tinubu’s presidency over this, especially when his government has turned out to be like the Àjàntálá child that is full of mischief. We may come to this later if space permits.

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The issue of Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment and the seizure of our presidential fleet should not have happened at all but for the dearth of good leadership in the country. I have read all the explanations given by the Federal Government, the Ogun State Government, and former Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state over the matter. The only message I got is that there is an acute absence of sincere leadership, especially on the part of the Ogun State Government. The contract, whatever it was or is, between the Chinese firm and the Ogun State Government, went bad 14 years ago! If it has taken the state government 14 solid years to prepare for madness, may we ask them in Ogun State when exactly would enter the market in full-blown madness? Everything that has happened in this matter is part of the lethargic system we run where no one is made accountable for anything. It is a collective shame that an ordinary company could get our sovereign assets seized just because a contractual agreement between it and a state government went bad! This is so when there is no evidence to show that those seized items were used as collateral for the agreement! But this does not exonerate the Federal Government completely.

Elementary Government teaches us that the Federal Government enters into agreements or treaties with foreign countries. It is after the Federal Government might have established a contact (bilateral) with another country that the states can begin to draw from the goodwill. This then confers the responsibility of close monitoring of any agreement by any state in the Federation with any foreign company or country, on the one entity who signed the initial bilateral agreement. So, at what point did our Federal Government get to know about the dispute? What did it do to ensure that the nation was not subjected to this kind of international ridicule? But we are in Nigeria. The responses from Abuja have always been too much grammar. Nobody will be punished. We have had Ministers of Trades and Industries in the last 14 years; nobody will ask them what they did or did not do. In a matter of days, especially now that President Tinubu has his new jet to use, this matter will be forgotten like others before it. We may not come to it until something bigger happens. And I see that happening. If a firm could seize our presidential jets over a trade dispute, China may be emboldened by that to seize our president! Alarmed?

I believe that China can seize President Tinubu as a collateral for our indebtedness to the Chinese Government because of the lifestyle of our leaders. Nigeria is behaving like the proverbial chronic debtor who eats gizzard in the presence of his creditor. The records by the Debt Management Office (DMO) showed that Nigeria owes China $5.04 billion as of March 31, 2024. That is well over N6 trillion! The same country that owes so much is the one that could afford to buy a N150 billion aircraft for the use of the president. In addition, the President now rides a Cadillac Escalade SUV that is almost N1 billion. How do we convince our numerous creditors that we are a poor country? In the face of all this profligacy by the one-wristwatch-wearing President, how do we justify our continuous borrowing like the chronic debtor-wife of Oshin?

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Have we forgotten that as far back as 2020, there has been the rumour that Nigeria has been ‘colonised’ by China due to the nation’s indebtedness to Beijing? The rumour then was that Nigeria pledged its assets as collateral for the loans it took from China, such that China can come at any time to take over those assets. Rotimi Amaechi, who was the Minister of Transport, said in August 2020 that Nigeria had waived immunity on one of the loans. The simple implication is that with that waiver, China might not have to go to arbitration before the take-over. Amaechi, while dismissing the rumour, however said: “We must learn to pay our debts and we are paying, and once you are paying, nobody will come and take any of your assets.” How much have we paid back? How much do we still owe? If China were to take over our assets today, which asset is the biggest in Nigeria? We should also not forget that we took loans from France, Japan, India and Germany.

Despite all these loans, President Tinubu still, presumptuously, went ahead to purchase a N150 billion aircraft using the ignoble Service Wide Vote, a euphemism for spending without the permission of the National Assembly! How cruel can our leaders be? How unfeeling can those lording over us be? For his personal comfort alone in 15 months, President Tinubu has expended over N160 billion! Yet, his government is asking Nigerians to keep hope alive and to continue to bear with the government. From a N5 billion Presidential Yacht to the state-of-the art Cadillac Escalade SUV and now the N150 billion jet, Tinubu lives larger than life amid poverty, hunger and inflation ravaging the country. It is this same man that his deputy, Kashim Shettima, wants us to believe is modest and poor, using only one wristwatch almost his entire life!

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The most embarrassing aspect of this Chinese company’s saga is the fact that President Tinubu chose to travel in the new Airbus A330 aircraft that Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Ltd said it released to the president on “goodwill.” If the president must travel, couldn’t he have used another means? How will the president convince us that the whole seizure saga is indeed not an arrangee for him to bring the luxurious Airbus A330 aircraft home? How coincidental is the arrival of the new presidential jet on Sunday evening and the president jetting out in it on Monday? My major concern is that none of our foreign creditors will get the funny idea of taking human collateral for our various debts! Festus Adedayo in his Sunday, August 18, 2024, Flickers column published by the Sunday Tribune under the headline, “Nigeria as shock-horror skits”, concludes by saying: “Nigeria is a joke!” We are indeed a theatre of comedy!

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NCAA Grounds Rano Air Aircraft After Mid-flight Engine Failure

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The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has grounded a Rano Air aircraft with registration number 5N-BZY following an in-flight engine failure during a flight from Kano to Sokoto.

In a statement released on Monday, the NCAA confirmed that the flight made an emergency air return after the crew reported the incident to the Air Traffic Control.

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Passengers and crew were thrown into panic after smoke was observed in both the cabin and the flight deck mid-air.

According to the Directorate of Airworthiness, led by Victor Foyea, oxygen masks were deployed and standard safety procedures were immediately activated to facilitate a safe landing.

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The Rano aircraft 5N-BZY experienced a failure on its engine 1. Smoke was noticed in the cabin and flight deck. Oxygen masks were donned. The appropriate safety protocols were initiated on the ground for landing. Smoke dissipated. The pilot safely landed the aircraft without incident,” the NCAA stated.

The regulatory authority confirmed that no immediate casualties or injuries were recorded, and the aircraft landed safely at the Kano airport where emergency services had been placed on standby.

As a precautionary measure, the NCAA ordered the grounding of the aircraft pending a thorough investigation into the cause of the malfunction.

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The aircraft was also scheduled to operate a Sokoto-bound flight, which has since been cancelled.

As of the time of reporting, the aircraft remains grounded, with engineers working on diagnostics and repairs.

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The NCAA reiterated its commitment to passenger safety and emphasized that precautionary measures, including flight cancellations, are necessary whenever there is a hint of mechanical irregularity.

“Even more advanced countries experience air incidents. But in Nigeria, flights are grounded or cancelled at the slightest indication of safety concerns. Safety remains our top priority,” the statement added.

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JUST IN: Court Grants Natasha Bail On Self-recognition

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The Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday granted the suspended Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District, Natasha Akpoti-Udauaghan bail on self-recognition.

Akpoti-Udauaghan was arraigned on a six-count charge bordering on alleged cybercrime.

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After the charges were read to her, she pleaded not guilty to all.

The senator allegedly made false and damaging statements against Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Kogi State’s former governor, Yahaya Bello.

According to the charge, Akpoti-Udauaghan was alleged to have said, “Akpabio told Yahaya Bello… that he should make sure that killing me does not happen in Abuja, it should be done in Kogi, so it will seem as if it is the people that killed me.”

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Days later, during an appearance on Channels TV’s Politics Today, she reiterated the allegations, asserting: “It was part of the meeting, the discussions that Akpabio had with Yahaya Bello that night… to eliminate me.”

The Federal Government stated that these statements, widely disseminated through digital platforms, were knowingly false and intended to incite unrest.

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The FG further contended that the remarks violate “Section 24(2)(c)” of the Cybercrimes Act, which criminalises the intentional spread of false information to damage reputations or provoke public disorder.

While applying for bail, Akpoti-Udauaghan’s legal team, led by Professor Roland Otaru (SAN), requested that she be granted bail on self-recognition being a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and a senior member of the bar.

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He added that there is no counter-affidavit from the prosecution, challenging the bail application.

Justice Mohammed Umar proceeded to grant the request of the defence counsel and granted the senator bail on self-recognition.

The court adjourned until September 22, for the commencement of trial.

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OPINION: For Ganduje And Kabiyesi

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By Lasisi Olagunju

Useful Abdullahi Ganduje kissed the canvas on Friday. Many more will go his way. His fall was the wish of his maker, the king: cold, calculating, ruthless.

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Ganduje said he resigned as APC National Chairman to take care of his failing health. APC governors, deities that they are, assisted him with a different reason. They held a meeting in Benin at the weekend and said the man’s exit aligned with internal reforms and ongoing efforts to strengthen their party. “His Excellency, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje’s resignation is in tandem with the party’s continued evolution,” the governors said. How could someone’s sickness be part of a party’s reforms?

If the voice of an elder does not sprout yams that are good for pounding, it will sprout yams good for planting (Ohùn àgbà, bí kò ta isu gígún, á ta èèbù). The president is the elder here; nothing he utters or orders goes unheeded. We have since learnt that Ganduje had to go because the president needed a clearer view of the future. The president is busy weeding the field and mounting the stakes to the applause of the indentured. The whole country is behind the one who hires and fires; like the old lion, all walks lead into his tent.

The stage President Bola Tinubu is today was the stage Zulu king, Emperor Shaka, was at the peak of his glory. From 1816 to 1828, from River Pongola to the Tugela River, Shaka conquered this enemy and defeated that foe. In deft, strategic moves, he allied with all rivals around, massed for himself a vast empire of 200km-wide area, north of the present-day city of Durban, South Africa. He built an empire of marvel that has been difficult for history to ignore. Shaka moved from king to emperor; he dominated, ruled, developed and plundered as he wished. Then, one day, God said “enough!” The man suffered the final loss, but his reign left ugly scars.

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Emperor Shaka did no wrong no matter how gross the things he did were. Everything he did was right and was worthy of his people’s applause, and the people applauded him. Even when the emperor treated and called his subjects dogs in their presence, the subjects clapped and said they were blessed. In 1824, Shaka was visited by Henry Franics Fynn, an Englishman on official duty. A fascinating exchange, which ensued between them, was carefully kept in a diary by the white man:

Shaka: “I hear you have come from umGeorge, is it so ? Is he as great a king as I am?”

Fynn: “Yes; King George is one of the greatest kings in the world.”

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Shaka: “I am very angry with you.” (He said while putting on a severe countenance). “I shall send a messenger to umGeorge and request him to kill you. He sent you to me, he did not send you to give medicine to my dogs.”

All present immediately applauded what Shaka had said. (They were the ones he called dogs, and they knew).

Shaka: “Why did you give my dogs medicine?” (in allusion to the woman I was said to have brought back to life after death).

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Fynn: “It is a practice of our country to help those who are in need, if able to do so.”

Shaka: “Are you then the doctor of dogs? You were sent here to be my doctor.”

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Fynn: “I am not a doctor and not considered by my countrymen to be one.”

Shaka: “Have you medicine by you?”

Fynn: “Yes.”

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Shaka: “Then cure me, or I will have you sent to umGeorge to have you killed.”

Fynn: “What is the matter with you ?”

Shaka: “That is your business to find out.”

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Fynn: “Stand up and let me see your person.”

Shaka: “Why should I stand up?”

Fynn: “That I may see if I can find out what ails you.”

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(Source: Stuart and Malcolm, ‘Diary of Fynn, 83-5’, in ‘Tshaka and the British traders, 1824-1828’ by Felix N. C. Okoye, 1972).

If Shaka were Yoruba, he would be worshipped as Kabiyesi, an emperor, the one no one queries. “To be truly imperial, one must have an empire to govern.” Harold Larrabee wrote that in his review of Arthur Schlesinger’s ‘The Imperial Presidency.’ Larrabee was right. I add to what he said: To have an empire, you must fight and conquer all enemies, and “eat up” friendly neighbours. Shaka did that in Zululand. That is the point our ‘democracy’ is at present in Nigeria. Kabiyesi has removed all gloves, he is on a strategic offensive, building a pan-Nigeria empire.

Dutifully daily, Tinubu signs appointments, he instigates rebellion in enemy camps and inspires defections; he whispers resignations. His Imperial Majesty does unimaginable things and gets away with them with uncommon success. Yet we say Nigeria will defeat him in 2027. From the first shot in 1999, the man was clear what he wanted to do with the farm put in his hand. He has since grown strong to become a master of confounding abstraction: positioning, counter-positioning. Sometimes he fights in calculated silence. You remember that saying about the dude whose soup plate is a buffet of lamb and ram parts; the man who eats his pounded yam with relish, mounts his horse in daytime and his woman at night. Yet they say we should ignore him because he is not well. Who is not well? What he does is not a definition of insanity. That is not stupidity; it is cold steeze. His sneeze is a chill jitter. To defeat him, you need extra, extra work – and a surfeit of ‘sense’.

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Let us examine this: Rauf Aregbesola plays his politics with plenty, plenty songs of battle (orin ote). Sometimes he sings the songs and his fans dance; some other time, you see his followers take the lead while he follows with electrifying dance steps. Such a lively politician. There is a particular song from his talking drummers that I hold to: “Ení máa bá e s’òsèlú o, á ní sense t’ó pé…(anyone who wants to engage you in politics must have very good, adequate sense).” I take that song as not an ordinary blab of the bard. I take it to heart as both a warning and a war cry. ‘Sense’ in that song should be read as wile and guile varnished with mountains of money and might. Every politician from Lagos School of Politics lives by that song and is certificated in its foundational philosophy. Yet, all of them, including Rauf Aregbesola, are mere students. The school principal is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the pilot of our imperial presidency.

The Sage of Chelsea, Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. Thomas Carlyle saw the world of politics as a chess board with “councillors of state sitting, plotting, and playing their high chess-game, whereof the pawns are men.” Tinubu, today, plays out that allegory with chilling clarity. In just two years of his imperial presidency, he has recreated the political arena, rebuilding it from what it should be, a place of ideals to a chessboard where every defection is a ‘rook’ captured, every resignation a ‘bishop’ displaced, and every silence from the Villa a move made under the cover of strategy.

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Almost all reports that announced the exit of Dr Ganduje as the national chairman of the APC said he was forced to quit by the president. I have no problem with Ganduje leaving the buffet table for another to hop there and eat. Literally, there is no issue in the use and flush of the expendable. What I find intriguing is the normality and the ease with which the ‘democratic’ system opens its door for imperial presidential invasion while we all shout “Hail Caesar”!

Chess is an Indian invention, imported into the Middle East, and exported to Europe by the Arabs. In ‘Chessmen and Chess’ by Charles Wilkinson published in May, 1943, we read of Masudi, a tenth-century Arab writer, who tells us of the various uses of the chessboard, especially “how it served for studying the strategy of war…” It is on the chessboard that you meet the ‘king’ dominated by the stately ‘queen’. “If there is trouble on the board” look for the sly old fox called ‘bishop’. There is also the most eccentric ‘knight’ “who loves a bloody fight”; and then the ‘rook’ who “will beat the ‘bishop’ any time.” There is also there the weak, expendable pawn. I am not a chess player, never played the game. I read all those in ‘Chess Pieces’ authored by David Solway. I found it good for my meditation.

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If I am allowed to bring chess into political commentary, I would set Nigeria down as a board, take the forced resignation of Ganduje, the wave of defections into the APC, and steady-handed President Bola Tinubu as the master chess player behind it all. The man plays chess, not dice; he does not place his hope on luck. What he plays is a game of precision, deep foresight, and ruthless elegance. That is unmistakable chess. With some other blocs, Tinubu created the APC years ago. The party started as a company of many directors. Now, the man is possessing it wholly. He is fast becoming the sole inheritor of not just the party, but the Nigerian state and its blessings. With his ingenuity, he is excising competition, those who may not be happy that he is recreating the party and the country in his own image.

If you don’t play chess as I don’t, watch those who do, or ask them for directions. Ganduje’s fall was a perfect act of the master moving a knight to expose a king. There are many more movements to make, going forward. Check this president’s records since Lagos; his skill at neutralising kings before they rise is topnotch and legendary. And he has not started. The man is just showing us the faint head of the bird in his pocket.

Elephant’s hide that confounds the cobbler (awo erin tíí dààmú onísònà). That is what Tinubu has become. He plants corn of trouble (àgbàdo òràn) in his neighbour’s garden; he sits back and watches if they will dare harvest the corn. When a PDP governor defects to the president’s party today, a senator yesterday, and a whole state House of Assembly follows tomorrow, we all know these for what they are. The defections are not patriotic or spontaneous acts of conviction; neither are they movements of love for the god they worship. The deity also has no feelings for them. They are what chess players would dub precise recruitments for battle; pawns, bishops, and sometimes whole castles brought to the side of the reigning monarch. If you like, keep murmuring or shouting betrayal. That is your headache. My chess teacher tells me all this is Tinubu repositioning the board ahead of 2027, removing weak links and replacing them with loyal sentinels. The APC governors said almost the same thing in their communique on Saturday: The ill health that sacked their chairman is the health of their party.

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It would have been excellent if half of the energy and brilliance we see in all these political actions and movements are seen in the management of the affairs of our country. We don’t see the captain maximally at work; he is, instead, busy playing politics with everything. The nation tanks; businesses, big and small, reel in pains, and the people suffer not lightly. Over 130 million Nigerians still live in extreme, multidimensional poverty. Bandits lock fingers with terrorists and are on the prowl, unrestrained, unrestrainable. Yet, all we see is politics being played with one-hundred percent of attention and resources. Democracy has failed here.

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Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Adebayo Adewole, in a recent comment scored Tinubu A1 in politics and F9 in governance. “That is a problem because the A1 in politics only means that he knows the political class very well; he knows what moves and motivates them as well as how to recruit them. He sometimes retrenches them, retires them and reengages them because he knows what they want. But I wish he knew what the Nigerian people want, which are basic services, economic stability and security. If he cannot save lives in Benue, Plateau and many parts of the country, then he has failed.” Adewole stressed and added that the only skill Tinubu has in the management of the economy “is the economisation of truth, which basically is what they do rather than manage the economy.”

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Well, I won’t comment on the failure score which the SDP man gave the president – because I want to be safe. But A1 in politics I also score the grandmaster of Nigeria. I salute him.

Thomas Henry Huxley, prominent 19th-century biologist and agnostic, once described the world as a chessboard governed by hidden rules and unseen players. Well, what we have happening before our very eyes in Nigeria is not a game of hidden rules and unseen players. They do not play with masks here. The players on all sides are known and very well too. Huxley said the player on the other side “never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.” The president is the player on the other side. He has rewritten the rules; his fingers are seen probing every hole. He does not bend and break the rules: the rules bow, bend and break before His Imperial Majesty. And he does not care if the whole world says he is wrong. He must win every game.

On Friday, it was with heavy heart that the house of Ganduje saw their master leave the APC board. The once-useful ‘bishop’ was yanked off the board for the master’s greater control and sweeter win. The Kano man, like all expendable pawns, is out, but the game continues. And the real player is still seated, still calculating, moving the pieces. He is Tinubu, cold blooded like Emperor Shaka, the eagle, watching, calculating while his enemies counter-calculate. The grimmer the play, the more pleasurable to watch. That is where the good news is for watchers like me, and for popcorn makers. The board is resetting for 2027. Be attentive. I am.

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