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OPINION: Nigeria’s Triangle Of Incest [Monday Lines]

By Lasisi Olagunju
“No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
– Gideon J. Tucker
A Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos would not vacate his seat for anyone appointed illegally from Abuja – or from anywhere. If the heavens wanted to fall, he would ask them to fall. He would not go hide somewhere in his wife’s handbag, and from the safety of his ghetto be issuing gutless press releases. If Abuja insisted on his suspension, he would mobilise the law and lawyers for eruptions of seismic proportions. He would ask the Supreme Court to determine whether the president could sack or suspend elected governors, appoint caretaker governors and take over the role of state Houses of Assembly. He would ask the apex court to reconcile this case with its earlier verdict which outlawed caretaker governments for one of our tiers of government. He would put everything he had into the mix; he would count the teeth of the tiger in Abuja. But Rivers is not Lagos, and Siminalayi Fubara is not Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The difference between both is the difference between courage and cowardice.
Until Saturday when he spoke on the Rivers State problem, ex-President Goodluck Jonathan walked the terrace of power with utmost carefulness. He avoided speaking truth to power the way the barefooted avoids walking a floor of broken glass. But on Saturday, he came out of his zone of reticence, and dared the dark, dangerous sherds of impunity. Jonathan spoke following President Bola Tinubu’s deployment of a Supreme Court judgment to meddle with and seize control of the nuts and bolts of our federation. In a fit of daring, calculative move for political advantage, Tinubu suspended democracy on a floor of the structure. And days after the act, without a whim of resistance, he got legislative approval for the mess. He left no one in doubt that all the powers and principalities of this realm are with him and that they work for him.
The three arms of government in Nigeria have become a triangular cult of iniquity. If the executive is after you, the other two quickly join in the clobbering. Jonathan identified the spring head of the problem. He saw: “a clear abuse of office, clear abuse of power, clear abuse of privileges, cutting across the three arms of government — from the executive through the parliament and to the judiciary.” Now, when those three institutions of democracy become citadels of abuse, what remains and what is next for us?
Yesterday, 23 March, 2025, was the 92nd anniversary of the enactment of Germany’s Enabling Act which gave Adolf Hitler the power to make laws without parliamentary approval.
Nazi Germany had a parliament known as the Reichstag. The decay and destruction of that institution started in very innocuous bits, very small. It took off by saying yes to everything the leader did or took before it. The parliament members, incrementally, thought the leader deserved not their check, but their cheeks. Reichstag began its descent and quickened its suicide by enacting laws without any real debate or opposition. Then it took many other self-destruct steps; the climax came on 23 March, 1933, when Reichstag passed the historic Enabling Act transferring its powers and functions to the head of the executive.
In this Rivers matter, the Supreme Court cast the foundation, the president laid the blocks, the legislature roofed the edifice of an emerging autocracy. Jonathan spoke on the executive dictating judgments to judges. He described Nigeria as a country where “government functionaries can dictate to judges what judgment they will give.” That was a huge one. We expect a reaction or denial from the judiciary now or never. The ex-president also spoke on the operatives of the three branches of government not giving a damn as the country burned. He said they were feigning sleep while a flood of badness swept through the land. What he spoke on was the treachery of the judiciary and the perfidy of the legislature, both of which act as palace courtiers, and as whores of benefit who have surrendered their functions, power and glory to the president.
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Checks and balances. How often do we ask what they are and why they are at the core of this democracy? Destruction of checks and balances creates excesses that take rest of mind away from the society. Absolute power creates all the antonyms of peace and stability. It makes the nation the ultimate sick man on a roller coaster. It was exactly so for Hitler and his Germany. The Nazi leader, on 23 March, 1933, got the powers to make laws. The ease with which he got it made him think it was time for further consolidation. Thus, on 7 April, 1933, the leader put officials of his political party in charge of all local governments. On 14 July, 1933, Reichstag became a one-party parliament. January 1934, the ruling party took over all state governments. On 19 August, 1934, the leader announced himself president, chancellor and head of the army. The Fuhrer was born!
Our National Assembly would act Reichstag if it had not done so already. It spent the whole of last weekend denying taking bribes to approve the president’s illegal suspension of democracy in Rivers State. Our multi party Senate has 109 members; the House of Representatives has 360, elected from various parties. Yet, on a very critical day last week, members of the parliament collapsed their structures into a single party; they endorsed illegality with a single voice. The president suspended democracy, appointed and swore in a viceroy to serve as governor. He declared a state of emergency without parliament’s prior approval. He usurped the powers of the legislators and the legislators endorsed the usurpation without following the law. They used voice votes to announce that he was right!
Treachery has no other definition. What does it cost a leader to be told the truth? President Bola Tinubu himself called for truth two weeks ago. He told Catholic Bishops who paid him a visit that they should tell him the truth whenever he was missing the way: “I’m here open to you, ready to listen…I won’t shut my door,” he said. But he made that request to the wrong audience. The right audience for that demand is the National Assembly, a conglomerate of dank agents. They are his enemy. He also acts his own enemy, redacting his own records of resistance and activism.
Abuse of any power will happen where there are no checks. With the help of the legislature and the judiciary, Prime Minister Balewa abused the emergency law of his time. Olusegun Obasanjo did same. And, despite all the political and legal repercussions of what Balewa and Obasanjo did, Tinubu learnt nothing and has also done it. He now sits back, watches and smiles as we fret.
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The president and all who cheer him would remember that this presidential democracy is not our creation. We copied it from America. And if they agree that we copied this system from the US, have they ever found out why an American president has never tried to suspend or remove a state governor under any pretext, including under emergencies which are provided for under their own laws? It is because US governors are not boys of the president, and both sides know this to be legally and historically correct.
Where the law is allowed to work, there are always consequences for aberrant behaviour. Whatever is happening in Donald Trump’s America today, the fact is that the US Congress had historically managed to contain the excesses of presidents who thought they were king. I cite an example:
President Andrew Johnson took over as US president following the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln. But Johnson does not enjoy as much favours of history as Lincoln does. Why?
President Johnson ran into problems because of his Kabiyesi stance on procedural and constitutional issues. On August 5, 1867, Johnson asked Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton to resign because the secretary disagreed with him over Reconstruction plans. The man refused to resign. The president gave him a week of grace, the man remained recalcitrant; then the president suspended him on August 12 without the approval of the Congress.
Four months after that act (December 12), the president submitted his reasons for suspending Secretary Stanton to the Senate. On January 13, 1868, Senate refused to approve Johnson’s suspension of Stanton. The following day, the man who had been acting as Interim Secretary of War, Ulysses S. Grant, informed President Johnson that in view of Senate’s decision, he was vacating his post for the rightful owner, Stanton. He left.
Stubborn President Johnson, on February 21, 1868 in gross violation of the Tenure of Office Act, formally removed Stanton and gave the control of the War Department to General Lorenzo Thomas. With the law behind him, sacked Stanton glared down President Johnson’s decision. For the next two months, he stayed put, he slept and woke up (holed up) in his cabinet office, barricading himself in there.
The US Congress watched with consternation as the president usurped its powers. It saw what the president did as a blatant violation of the Tenure of Office Act. It proceeded to commence an impeachment process against the Commander-in-Chief. On February 24, 1868, the House of Representatives voted 126-47 to impeach Johnson.
On March 5, 1868, the Senate began its impeachment trial with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presiding. On May 16, 1868, the Senate voted 35-19 to convict President Johnson. The figure was, however, one vote short of the necessary two-third majority to get the man sacked. On May 26, 1868, the Senate gave the president a reprieve, it voted to acquit the president on two of the charges. It then adjourned and never voted on the remaining eight articles of impeachment.
Johnson escaped sack but the damage had been done. It was effectively the ‘end’ of Johnson as president. He never recovered.
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On 11 July, 2024, Nigeria’s Supreme Court declared that state governors had no power to sack elected local government chairmen and councilors and constitute caretaker committees to run the local governments. The court further declared that a local government council was only recognisable with a democratically elected government.
“A democratically elected local government is sacrosanct and non-negotiable,’’ the apex court declared.
The Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who was the plaintiff in that case saluted the Supreme Court for delivering justice. He said the judgment had effectively ended the practice of governors replacing democracy with autocracy by wantonly sacking elected council bosses and replacing them with unelected caretaker committees.
On Wednesday, 19 March, 2025, the same Fagbemi addressed a press conference in Abuja endorsing President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of a caretaker governor for Rivers State and the suspension of democratic structures there. “A lawyer’s truth is not the truth” (David Henry Thoreau).
Fagbemi is supposed to know (and he knows) that there is nothing like ‘suspension’ of governor or ‘suspension’ of the legislature in our constitution which governs all other laws and everything about our democracy. But he went further to threaten other governors with the fate of Fubara. He hinted them not to dare dare his boss: “It is Rivers State’s turn today, it can be anybody’s turn tomorrow, let the signal be clearly sent to those who want to foment trouble, who want to make the practice of democracy and the enjoyment of dividends of democracy a mirage to think twice.” In other words, when you slaughter a goat in the presence of another goat, the living will be sober; it will behave well.
But wait. If the emergency rule is declared by the president over the whole country, will he appoint himself sole administrator and suspend the National Assembly? Or who rules?
To Nigeria’s chief law officer, under an emergency rule, the president can become the electorate deciding who governs and who ceases to govern. He can also be the people of any or all the states; voters in INEC registers would become Shakespeare’s “blocks, stones …worse than senseless things.”
From the courts to the president’s office to the office of the Attorney-General, to the parliament, we could see the futility in hoping for acting right and talking straight. An incestuous triangle of the three arms or what David Wyatt called a “tyrannizing unity” of the powers, reigns.
Their ways remind us of a favourite passage in Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’: “You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator. That laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.”
Emergency rule started in Rome around the 3rd century BC. The Romans used the law to create what they called ‘office of the dictator’ to solve specific public (safety) problems. They had two main categories of such. The first they named the dictatura rei gerundae causa (dictatorship for getting things done). The second was dictatura seditionis sedandae causa (dictatorship for suppressing civil insurrection). The Romans did not, however, create the emergency rules and laws for free roamers to exploit. They limited the dictators’ term to six months. They also struggled to contain abuse of their powers. But, apparently because of abuses such as we saw last week in Nigeria, the Roman senate took direct control of resolving crises. It replaced the office of dictator with what was called ‘Ultimate Decree of the Senate’ (senatus consultum ultimum). The present controversy presents us an opportunity to also rethink our emergency law and everything connected with it.
Strong, uncontrollable leaders always put their nations in trouble. Keeping quiet, excusing their excesses or enabling their illegality put everyone in danger. Where big men reign above the law and below decency, people pay for what they did not buy. Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini was created and nurtured by a culture of acquisence. His appointment as Prime Minister in 1922 was approved despite his party holding only 35 seats out of 535 in the parliament. With intimidation and harassment of voters, his party pushed up its figure to 374 seats in the April 1924 election. In January 1925, Mussolini, right inside the parliament, declared himself dictator. The legislators heard him and applauded him. They proceeded to grant him more powers. They passed laws that dissolved opposition parties and shut down free press. Mussolini dismantledp democratic institutions that won’t let him breathe and emit fire. He got the constitutionally recognised Chamber of Deputies, Italy’s equivalent of our House of Representatives, replaced by something called the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations, a body controlled by his Fascist Party. He made the parliament in his image transforming it for his use in outlawing the opposition and the law.
The National Assembly that sat last week in Abuja may go that way unless Kabiyesi, our president, does not want it to.
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JUST IN: Okpehbolo Appoints New VC For AAU

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.
“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’

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?”
“Hungry and cold.”
“How do you live now?”
“Hungry, cold, and with a feeling of deep gratitude.”
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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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