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OPINION: Rivers, Where Is My Own 5,000 Dollars For Sallah?

By Suyi Ayodele
Democracy is sweet, especially when jeun soke is the doctrinal philosophy that undergirds it. Read this: “The chairman of the House Committee on FCT, Mukhata Aliyu Betara, has clarified to me that he only shared $5,000 to each member of his committee as ‘Sallah Gesture’ not an inducement to support emergency rule in Rivers State. According to him, he maintains the tradition-like Santa Claus – every year. As we say in Hausa, nothing but hind leg.”
The credit of the above quote goes to Jaafar Jaafar. Jafaar Jaafar, the founder and publisher of Daily Nigeria, you will recall, broke the news about the Abdullahi Ganduje dollar bribe story, when the current All Progressive Congress (APC) National Chairman was the governor of Kano State.
At the official rate of N1,600 to a dollar, $5,000 equals N8 million. If we agree that this is just for one committee, how many other committees have distributed their own dollars? How many more will distribute? How much is the Speaker of the House of Representatives giving from his throne to his subject colleagues?
And if Reps in a committee get $5,000 each for ‘Sallah Gesture’, how much did their counterparts in the Senate get? Or what is the volume of ‘prayers’ sent to their mailboxes? They should talk too. Where is my own share? Where is yours? Or is equitable sharing of benefits no longer the meaning of democracy?
The dollar they are sharing is not fiction. What you have above are the results of last week’s state of emergency declared by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Rivers State. The declaration was on Tuesday. The Senate and the House of Representatives endorsed the proclamation on Thursday. Thereafter, rumours broke out that the legislators were bribed to do so. The denial by one of the representatives, Betera, is what Jaafar Jaafar published as quoted above.
Let us, for the purpose of this discourse, take it that Betera shared $5,000 each to his committee members for ‘Sallah’, may we ask the ‘honourable’ Reps member which ‘Sallah’ was in celebration in the middle of March 2025? Can we also ask him why his witch cried at night and the precious baby of the family died in the morning? Again, how and where did he get an average of N8 million to give to his committee members as ‘Sallah Gesture’?
While settling that, can we ask ourselves this: Do we have a validly declared state of emergency in Rivers State? Or do we have a legally appointed administrator in the oil-rich state? I do not think so. And I am not alone in this regard.
Former governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, now represents Sokoto South Senatorial District in the Senate. Before becoming the governor of Sokoto State, Tambuwal was Speaker of the House of Representatives. He understands the workings of the National Assembly. He does not believe that President Tinubu’s state of emergency in Rivers State meets the requirements of the constitution. The Senate, Tambuwal lamented, did not meet the two-thirds majority to approve Tinubu’s proclamation of state of emergency.
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His argument is valid. Tambuwal stressed that Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) mandates that two-thirds of all senate members must endorse the proclamation before it can become effective. The Senate is made up of 109 members. Elementary arithmetic gives two-third of 109 as 73 members. Senate president Godswill Akpabio knows that. The sensible thing to do to get a clear two-third majority is to do head count. Nay, Akpabio would not do that. Rather, the Senate President subjected the exercise to a ‘voice vote’ and then hit the gravel, declaring “the yea have it!” Think of perfidy, think of Akpabio’s voice vote. His counterpart in the House of representatives did the same thing. What followed was the $5,000 ‘Sallah’ gift to committee members in the House! Allahu akbar. God is great!
Tambuwal is not alone in his condemnation of the impropriety of the Tinubu’s state of emergency. Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan also spoke against the action. Jonathan warned Nigeria of the danger ahead with the way the other two arms of government, the legislature and the judiciary, have become appendages of the executive! Unfortunately, this is exactly what Tinubu needs to turn into a full-blown terror! Will he get it? I answer in the affirmative and I make no bones about that!
Jonathan spoke from experience because he also declared a state of emergency in more than four states in the past. On December 31, 2011, he declared a state of emergency in Plateau, Borno, Niger and Yobe States. That was his response to the activities of Boko Haram in those states. But he sacked no governor, he disbanded no legislature!
Again, on May 14, 2013, Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States because of the level of insecurity in those states. All he said was that the military would “take all necessary actions to “put an end to the impunity of insurgents and terrorists” in the affected states. Incidentally, the same Tinubu of today was the one who came after Jonathan to argue that the President then had no powers to declare a state of emergency!
In the hands of President Tinubu, democracy is dead! This sounds waspish, right? I concur! It can’t be otherwise. We have gotten to that stage that we just must call Tinubu who he is – just as our sister, Ushie Rita Ugamaye, the Lagos serving corps member called him: ‘a terrible president!’
Indeed, Tinubu is more than being a ‘terrible President’. His dictator, a tyrant without equallity, at least since the beginning of this political dispensation. He would make the Owu retired General, Olusegun Obasanjo, to go green with envy. Not even the tooth-picking General Muhammadu Buhari, was this passionate about power and its coercive properties in his eight years of presidential enjoyment!
Since President Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State and got the like-putty-in-your-hands Godswill Akpabio-led National Assembly to endorse the same, I have devoted most of the week reading the literature of tyranny and dictatorship. Tinubu’s ways fit in, perfectly, to every portraiture of dictators in sight.
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I can’t vouch for Tinubu’s appreciation of literature. But I suspect that a few of his aides do. I used to have on my bookshelf, a copy of Augusto Roa Basto’s novel, titled ‘I, the Supreme’ (Yo el Supremo). The 1974 novel was translated from its original Spanish to English by Helen Lane in 1986.
‘I, the Supreme’ falls under the dictator novel genre of Latin American Literature which challenges the roles of dictators in that clime. The synopsis of the novel, a fiction, is about the imaginary Paraguayan dictator, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, simply “Dr. Francia.” He is so powerful that he declares: “I don’t write history. I make it. I can remake it as I please, adjusting, stressing, enriching its meaning and truth.” Dr Francia makes the declaration because he believes that he is above all power, history and any other institution of State of his epoch.
Nothing mirrors Nigeria’s Tinubu of 2025 more than the protagonist of that novel! Tinubu, last week, practically rewrote the letters, the spirit and intendments of section 305 of the 199 Constitution (as amended).
The Nigerian president has no power whatsoever to suspend an elected official; we all know, not even a councillor of a ward! But like Francia, who has the power to ‘adjust, stress, enrich’ the ‘meaning and truth’ of our constitution, the president did not just suspend Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Odu, he added the legislature to boot and cleaned off the fluid of his rape with the appointment of a sole administrator. Only ‘the Supreme’ has such powers!
There are other novels in that genre (dictator novel). One of them is The Feast of the Goat (Spanish: La Fiesta del Chivo, 2000), by the Mario Vargas Liosa, the Nobel Prize in Literature Laureate from Peru. There is yet another one, ‘D The Autumn of the Patriarch’ (El otoño del patriarca, 1975), by Gabriel García Márquez, which the reviewer describes as a “poem on the solitude of power…” I read their synopsis. They fit here.
I also read the reviews of Gabriel García Márquez’s The General in His Labyrinth (El general en su laberinto, 1989),; Enrique Lafourcade’s King Ahab’s Feast (La Fiesta del rey Acab, 1959); Jorge Zalamea, El gran Burundún Burundá ha Muerto (“The Great Burundún Burundá is Dead”, 1951), and of course, Miguel Ángel Asturias’s El Señor Presidente 1(946), which the review says: “…was inspired by the 1898–1920 presidency of Manuel Estrada Cabrera for his title character,…and “explores the nature of political dictatorship and its effects on society, and is an overtly political novel in which Asturias denounces Latin American dictators.” In all these, Tinubu can easily replace all the reprehensible characters in the novels!
Beyond the above characterisation, President Tinubu, has, in the last 22 months, exhibited all the ingredients of dictatorship if we all agree with the assertion that “Dictatorships are often characterised by some of the following: suspension of elections and civil liberties; proclamation of a state of emergency; rule by decree; repression of political opponents; not abiding by the procedures of the rule of law; and the existence of a cult of personality centered on the leader. Dictatorships are often one-party or dominant-party states.” See Papaioannou, Kostadis; vanZanden, Jan Luiten (2015) “The Dictator Effect: How long years in office affect economic development”, Journal of Institutional Economics. 11 (1): 111–139.
Tinubu needed just a fight between Governor Fubara and his overbearing godfather, Nyesom Wike, to go for the jugular of Rivers State. The irony is that the la-di-da Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Wike, who is at the centre of it all, retains his position in Tinubu’s cabinet! Which is easier to do; call Wike to order as the appointing authority, or to send an elected governor, his deputy and the entire legislature packing?
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President Tinubu is an old Yoruba man. It will be impudent of me to ask if he is familiar with the Yoruba concept of Àgbà òsìkà as embedded in the Yoruba jurisprudential system. Àgbà òsìkà is that elderly man or woman who shamelessly demonstrates partiality when the society expects fairness.
In Lawrence O. Bamikole’s “Agba (elder) as arbitrator: A Yoruba socio-political model for conflict resolution”, published in the Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution Vol. 1(3), pp. 060-067, August 2009, the author says: “The concept of Àgbàlagbà transcends mere chronological age; it encompasses a revered status earned through a lifetime of learning, service, and leadership within the community. Àgbàlagbà is a title of honor bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated exemplary character, integrity, and knowledge…” Does Tinubu’s identikit fit into this definition of Àgbàlagbà given his latest shenanigan in Rivers State?
That this democracy will die in the hands of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not a curse, it is the stark reality staring us in the face now. Those who borrowed the torn robe of a democrat and decked Tinubu in it may have to give us a new definition of a that word. With the effete National Assembly and the lickspittle Godswill Akpabio as the Senate President, Tinubu can declare a state of emergency in any state, or all states of the Federation and he would have the nod of the legislators. The judiciary will not also come to the rescue with the way the Supreme Court set the table for Tinubu to have a free meal in Rivers State!
The most unfortunate of the crisis is the justification by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN). Fagbemi is not just a senior lawyer. He is equally a prince of Ijagbo, Kwara State. He has seen both modern and traditional jurisprudence. But today, in a democracy, Fagbemi, SAN, is warning other state governors of similar fate should any of them dare Emperor Tinubu! I don’t know how proud those who taught Fagbemi law in the Law Faculty and the Nigerian Law School, are of the learned silk! With an AGF like Lateef Fagbemi, does Tinubu need any further prompt to transform to his congenital robe of a dictator! Pity our fatherland!
Nigeria is on the path to political perdition. Its democracy is threatened beyond imagination. The cord can snap anytime. This is the time for Nigerians to speak out, loudly and forcefully! We have a dirty hand at the helm of our affairs. President Tinubu and members of his household don’t see what we see; they don’t suffer what afflicts us.
This is why while we see pain, agony, hunger and poverty, Seyi Tinubu sees his father as the best president ever! If a child does not resemble the sòkòtò (trousers-father), he must resemble the kíjìpà (wrapper-mother). The most unfortunate thing about Seyi and his Adamawa verbiage is that both his sòkòtò and kíjìpà are of terrible linen. That is what the NYSC lady, Ushie Rita Ugamaye, saw and gave the right appellation to Tinubu; ‘terrible President.’
If you find this piece snarky, pardon my state of mind; I am scared, sincerely worried.
With the ferocious way Tinubu has raped this democracy in Rivers State, breaking the hymen, dislocating the waist and tearing the bedspread beyond repairs, If he got away with it, Tinubu’s dangling phallus will not spare the innocence of Osun State, his next target, or may be even his Lagos, for the optics. He will find other silly excuses to execute the same in other states considered too critical to his 2027 re-election bid but which are not playing ball. That is the way of dictators. The flight to the next polls promises bad weather. Fasten your seat belt, turbulence ahead.
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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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