All the world is a stage and all the men and women
are merely players. (As you like it, 2:7). In
2006, I opened a ‘file’ for those who experienced their tomorrow, or ‘the day after’; when things
that were, stopped being; when the
status quo antebellum(big grammar!) evaporated so suddenly. The tomorrow of interest to me is that period when
somebody concludes a tour of duty and returns to ordinariness, when the wind blows and we behold the dirty, ‘nyash’ of the fowl hitherto covered by feathers, when people find themselves in the wrong
side of the law or simply, when things are no longer the way they were. On the 1st and 8th of
March, 2006, I wrote a two-part treatise in that regard titled ‘Tomorrow
will surely come’. Then, I had
recalled the cases of Mbadinuju who was mocked by pensioners whose lives he
made miserable as a governor, Ladoja who refused to swear in a validly elected
LG Chairman but later found himself begging the court to save him from Akala
and the G18 (in Igbo-Ukwu, we have G17!), the all-powerful Tafa Balogun,
a law onto himself who was later given the ‘kill-and-go’
treatment by people who were not qualified to be his orderlies, Captain Rasheed Raji, a former Milad evicted
from his official residence by the
Airforce, Baimayi and Mustapha, Abacha’s henchmen who ended up in detention, Bizmungu,
Rwandan ex-president jailed for 15 years, as well as the sad cases of Saddam
Hussien and Idi-Amin . I also discussed
the FINAL tomorrow, which we must all face whenever we died and have to stand
before the judgment throne of the just but merciful God (2Cor,5:10), when we
are only remembered for what we have done or failed to do!
FINAL Tomorrow!
Since
then, I have written two other related articles and have also inundated my book of records with several
such cases. The country was awash with them when Buhari, the Saint came on board in 2015 and when people were forced to answer for their
past by a government which eventually became the worst in all dimensions,
including ‘Phariseesm’ and ‘lootocracy’. Most of
these were politically motivated, (just as they are happening now): Olisa Matu
was handcuffed, Dasuki was imprisoned and the key thrown away, Namadi Sambo’s
office was ransacked, Nduka Obaigbena was arrested while Mrs Design Madueke was on trial, in good health and in
sickness. It also happened in other lands: Former Israeli PMs. Moshe Katzav and Ehud Olmert were imprisoned, (for sexual assault and bribery). They had
many ‘comrades in prison’
including Ivo Sanadar (Croatia, corruption); Adrian Nastase(Romania,
Corruption); Albert Fujumori(Peru, corruption and human rights abuses), Alfonso
Portillo & Otto Perez( Guatemala, money laundering and fraud), Hissene
Habre(Chad) and Morsi(Egypt).
Zuma, from President to Prisoner; From Presidential Adviser to Pauper
We all remember the muiti-wifed Jacob Zuma who was jailed, released and re-jailed for ordinary contempt of court, Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner jailed for 6 years ( corruption), Ndambi Guebuza, son of Mozambique’s ex-president jailed 12 years(corruption), Siqokoqela Mphoko, son of former Zimbabwean Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko, jailed for 20years ( sexual misdemeanour). And just the other day (29/6/23) the son and daughter-in-law of a former President of Zambia, Edgar Lungu were arrested for money laundering to the tune of $5 million. The son owns 69 vehicles! Ex-Malaysian first lady, Rosmah Mansor joined her husband in prison after being jailed for 10 years for influence peddling( soliciting and receiving bribes during her husband’s administration, a common thing in Nigeria!) Ahmed Abdallah Sambi ,Ex President of Comoros had a life jail for high treason and corruptio; ex Chinese Justice Minister Fu Zhenghua was sentenced to death for $16m bribery(he led numerous campaigns against Corruption), S.Korean former President Lee Myung-bak, is enjoying 17 years in prison for corruption while Peru’s former president Alan Garcia committed suicide rather than face arrest and trial for corruption. You see, corruption is not an indigene of Nigeria but the only difference is that in other countries, people pay for corruption; in Nigeria, people are promoted to higher offices and responsibilities for corruption. A former political adviser to Mobutu Seseseku has also turned a beggar on the streets of Zaire and from the world of sports, 32-year-old Jacob Mellis, whom Chelsea signed for £1m in 2009 is now homeless after an embarrassing dip in his fortunes.
Many other cases of people ‘who were’ and then
treated as if they were not. Uche Ogah, a former Federal Minister was convicted for
forgery, Laz Anyanwu, former Imo
commissioner under Rochas, was just jailed for 3 years over N180m
theft, while innocent Rochas, his boss survived an attack
by Eze Ilomuanya ( Fmr Chair Imo & SouthEast Council of Ndi-Eze)onboard an
Air-Peace flight and his arrest by the
Imo State Police and still went on the
vie for Presidency. A whole Rochas under arrest? Who would have
dreamt of this the day before? Alhaji Ikra Aliyu Bilbis, a former Minister of
Information and a PDP senatorial candidate in Zamfara, was detained
for disturbing public peace and the former supper-cop, Abba Kyari, the
hunter eventual became a prey and is
still in for large-scale, seamless multitasking! We also recall
the declaration of GMB that the only solution to political uncertainty
caused by Yaradua’s sickness was for the
National Assembly to impeach the ailing
President. Then, it became his turn and he held and still holds the record as
the sickest President in Nigeria who spent on one occasion, more
than 3 months on ‘medical tourism’…and he was the one who campaigned vigorously
against medical tourism!
Magu of
EFCC was feared by ALL because of his immense power as he could turn the
innocent to guilty and the guilty to innocent. He was the longest serving
‘actor’ in Nigeria public-service space because PMB refused to replace him
despite the statutory objection by
NASS. Then one day, just one day, his tomorrow came and he was given the dish he has been serving others. He was
arrested in a gestapo style, denied bail and subjected to trial by media, which
was his specialty. Bawa has just been served the same dish!
In all
these instances, I was not and I am not, jeering at those who fell out of
favour or whom had an awful change of status and residential addresses the morning after.
Far be it from me to celebrate others peoples’
predicaments, because I believe strongly that the bell tolls for all of us.
My intention was and still is, to
advise all of us ( including myself) to take things easy when the gods
have broken our palm-kernels for us because one day, the come may come to
become, when the Persian rug is rudely
pulled off, while we are sitting on it or when we leave the rugged office in the ‘normal course of business’.
Ekwerenmadu: From a
Royal Guest to a Royal Captive and… the
question paper!
Ike
Ekweremadu had everything going for him. He was an ‘indigene’ of
the National Assembly( a friend has just described himself as an indigene of
government, having been a top-notch government operative for years), where he rose to the
rank of DSP( Deputy Senate President) and Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament. He was
even a visiting Professor to one foreign University. He was one of the greatest movers and
shakers in Enugu state, where he had wanted to become the governor. He was
indeed, an institution. Then one morning, parental duty called; he needed to
acquire an organ for his sick daughter and that was how everything scattered.
Father and mother were thrown under the bus by an unfortunate combination of
circumstances, and in a foreign country were everybody was and is equal before
the law. This is a country where they
almost sent a serving Prime Minister to the gallows for merely attending an
ordinary private party during the Coro Era. In Nigeria, they were
having well-publicised wild parties, junketing around the globe with private
jets and indulging in criminal entrepreneurship with our covid palliatives.
(See Ik Muo: Elite Irresponsibility, Adult Delinquency and the Rampaging
Pandemic[11/2/21]; Oga Coro: the good, the bad the ugly and the
messy’ 2022): So, from ‘see
me when I return from UK’,
Ekwerenmadu became a prisoner. He would
never have expected this, even if all the native doctors in his village had
conspired against him! People berated him for doing the wrong thing knowingly
since he is a lawyer; for believing literarily in the Biblical declaration that
money answereth all things (Ecclesiastes,10:19), for failing to use his
NASS-position to improve healthcare in Nigeria,
for forgetting that all the swagger and larger than life
image were limited to Nigeria,
for forgetting his awful experience when he went to eat roasted yam
in Germany and for failing to learn from the
experiences of Alemesiagha and Ibori who saw pepper
overseas. It was and is a sad scenario, especially with the daughter still
under the weather. Things got so bad
that a one wicked lecturer
at UNILORIN made his case a compulsory question for CSS311( Interrogation,
Confession & Testimony) and embarrassingly
on the same page with one uncouth fellow named Portable! I have not had
any interaction with him and I do not have any ‘book of records’
on him( not because he is a saint). When
I saw him in court, where he acquired the residency of His Majesty’s
prisons for the next couple of years, with his wife, the thing tire me;
I weak! I feel for him and his family. But that is life for us. All in
all, his tomorrow is NOW!
Emefiele
(whose name literarily means ‘do not transgress’) became the
governor of CBN after the tempestuous
reign of Sanusi. He lacked the professor-ness
of Soludo and the brashness of Sanusi but true to his name, he tried not to ‘commit’, taking
things a little to the right and a little to the left. However, it became obvious that he was
captured, first by his erstwhile colleagues
and ultimately by the president,
the presidency or the cooks in the Rocky kitchen. He replaced commitment to the
nation and profession, with total obedience to the president/presidency
believed that everything was right and proper once ‘they’ were satisfied with him. He became the first
governor in the whole wide world to aspire to the presidency and even went to
the court to enforce his right to do so.
He maintained multiple exchange rates where ‘those who were’
fed fat on the yawning gap between the rates (arbitraging, roundtripping) and
printed as much Naira (ways and means) as the cabal wanted,
ignoring the DIRE economic and legal consequences. I think he
suffered from the invincibility syndrome or else, why he did not
run away the day before May 29, especially given his running battle with the DSS, which is under
the President but battled continuously with the Presidents men! Did he forgt that the president he did
everything to please was no longer on seat? Did he forget that BAT had accused
him pointedly of sabotaging his emilokan agenda? Why did he not follow his Oga to Kastina and
from there to Niger Republic where Buhari’s cousins would have gladly welcomed him ? Rather,
he waited till it was TOO late; his own
last_minute model. Sadly, he had replaced service and loyalty to the nation
with service and loyalty to the President; a tendency that Justice Oputa called
obeisance to the cult of the head of state. Anyway, it happened
and his tomorrow came, not surprisingly. And he was led like a lamb
to the slaughter( Acts,8:32) but
this time, I believe that he will open his mouth. When I saw a whole Emefiele dressed like
one of them (But he is NOT one of them) being escorted as a ‘criminal’
to that plane, the son of man wept. I saw a video the other day
of his sprawling mansion at Agbor. But I reminded them that he was the MD of
Zenith Bank and that 10% of his annual dividends could underwrite that edifice.
Some people also brought ethnic dimensions to the matter. Beyond not knowing if
he saw himself as an onye-Igbo, this is a normal development in
Nigerian politics. In any case, he rode on the tigers back carelessly and has
ended up inside the tiger’s belly.
Earlier
this year, I warned Wike that he would not be on top ad infinitum because the
lion does not roar forever. Specifically, I reminded him that Life is short; power
is ephemeral… everyone who lives long will become vulnerable at some point…most
importantly never forget that we will leave the stage one day. (
Ik Muo: This Wike Sef; A special Tribute to Governor Wike, January 27,
2023). Today, Wike, the law unto himself, is just a ‘former governor’; his own tomorrow has
come! The other day, he appeared with a
misbuttoned suite; an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction that one of his numerous PAs
could have prevented a few days
ago. Fubara, his beloved son, has revoked the contract for the Andoni section of
the Ogoni-Andoni-Opobo-Nkoro Unity Road project (100% mobilised!) and
reopened some of the businesses of Wike’s political enemies, which he imperially closed without regard to the law
of the land. Of course, he was the law!
The businesses reopened include a fuel station owned by Chinyere Igwe and hotels owned by James Ogbonda and
Ikechi Chinda.
Emefiele for President A lamb led to the slaughter Roars NO more
The Appeal Court has also quashed the warrant of
arrest against Amaechi, Cole et al berating the High-Court (under the vicelike grip of Wike),
for preceding with a matter that had
been legally challenged. This was seen
as a rectification of some of the wrongs done by Wike. The same for Aminu
Tambuwal, whose successor on the first day at work, dethroned 14 monarchs and
axed 38 Perm-Secs and DGs; Matawale whose house was invaded by security people who used to doballe
for him a few days earlier, and 1001 cars impounded. He is alleged to have spent N2.8bn on vehicles
but left none for the new government to start with. Ganduje’s successor started
by demolishing physical and bureaucratic
structures he had erected and reinstating the Kano anti-Corruption boss, Muhyi Rimingado whom Ganduje had fired. He also suspended
the salary of 10,000 workers whom Ganduje employed as he was on the departure
longue of the Government house. 10,000
workers? Before long, these current
governors will also become EXs
but they will not learn from the experiences of their predecessors
There
is one Igbo song that counsels that “ugwu olu-oyibo” (the allure, the
prestige, the accoutrements, the power and influence of public service)
should be “worn”-like ornaments- at the back, so that when it falls off, the
person would go on with life. This contrasts with the person who wears his own
at the forehead, who shows off his power and influence everywhere and every
time, who would not let a minute pass without showing you by words and action,
that he is a mover and shaker. For such a person, when the “ugwu olu
oyibo” falls off, readjustment becomes embarrassingly difficult. This
song can be seen as a cousin to the elementary adage that no condition is
permanent or the Shakespearean quotation that the world is a stage. We always
use this phrase to comfort people who are afflicted. But we forget to apply it
to those who are having the best of a given moment, to remind them that their
sun would not always continue to shine and to bear that in mind in whatever
they do or say. We should never forget that power, and life itself is
transient
In 1979, when I was a ‘young youth’,
(final year at UI) William Onyeabor released the record, Tomorrow(
after the successful Atomic Bomb). He told us that: ‘I have come
from far away to say hello to this world
and I have come to realise for certain that no one knows tomorrow. He consequently advised us to do well, anything we wanted to do! And just the
other day(28/6/23), Mary Njoku reminded
her follow Social media made celebrities
that no one stays on top forever. She asked: What happens when stardom
ends? Remember no one stays at the top forever. What happens when your
celebrity status expires? Do you have a REAL life to fall back to? Or you have
‘burnt down’ your REAL life,”! By the way, it is now
one of the ironies of Nigeria society that celebrity, just like slay-queen, is
now a career!
Sure, no one knows tomorrow but tomorrow awaits all
of us. Some forms of tomorrow MUST come:
death, retirement, aging. We should prepare for those eventualities. Some forms
of tomorrow like the cases of Ekweremadu and Emefiele MAY come and it is good
for us to be conscious of that when we are on top. But whatever type, tomorrow
must surely come. Let us be humble, be
good to people, eschew do-you-know-whom-I-am
arrogance. Let us not abuse our offices, powers or privileges because one day,
we may leave the office, we may die or we may be thrown under the bus. Time and
circumstances change and at times, suddenly. When a bird is
alive, it feasts on ants; when the bird is dead, it becomes a delicacy for ants
For sure, NOBODY can be powerful forever!
IBB, who dribbled us for years, who founded and funded two government owned
parties (which were a little to the right to the left) is now a
mere observer from his Mina Hills, showing
face occasionally. I don’t know what he does with his 50bedroom Hiltop Mansion
today.OBJ, a first class narcist and militician, who was in command( if you
doubt it, see My Command), who moved
from prison to presidency, who levelled Odi, just like that,
turned the 2003 elections into a do or die affair, orchestrated
the first 3rd term agenda in Nigeria by a supposedly democratic
leader has now been reduced toa mere letter-writer, operating from another
hill-top mansion. Ribadu who was high-up, the fear of whom was the beginning of
wisdom for politicians then, who listed BAT et al as the most CORRUPT governors in Nigeria, went under
unceremoniously has just reappeared
at a higher pedestal, as an adviser to the same BAT. Orji Kalu who was a spokesman for CAIP(Coalition Against Igbo Presidency,)
who was turbaned in Kastina, who flaunted his friendship with BAT and took
leave of absence from prison to become a powerful contender to the Senate Presidency, had to weep( as a
chief whip?) and is now probably under
the bus. No condition is permanent!
And while we
are on top or when our sun is shining, as we have the opportunity, let us do
good to ALL people( Galatians. 6:10)
And let us not
forget the irony of it all: We come with nothing, fight for
everything and in the end leave everything and go with nothing!
Goodnight Hassan
As I was writing this, we had a special ASUU-Congress for one of our comrades, Hassan Adegbaye, an ebullient fellow whose tomorrow came suddenly when he succumbed to the demands of a terminal illness. He had done 90%+ of his PhD studies in Transport Management. Hassan was a young, friendly and lively young-man who never carried his affliction on his forehead.
He did his job, socialised and always wore a smiling face despite of all odds.And then on 13/5/23, the bell tolled for him at the age of 46. Just 46! His tomorrow came so suddenly. His death shocked me particularly because his cheerful visage never betrayed the excruciating health challenges he was passing through. The outpouring of positive emotions and kind tributes by all at the special congress was enough reason me (and others present) to ask: what will people say of me when my own tomorrow comes?
For Saburo & Caje-Pelle
And
then came the sorrowful departure of two
of my friends at St Josephs Secondary
School Awka-Etiti: Emma Okeke (Saburo) who had been facing some
health challenges for a while died on
26/7/23 and Cajetan Asuzu( Caje-Pele)
who died in an accident on 2/7/23.
Both of them were one year ahead of me at school. One of our mates
posted onwu bu ugwo(death
is an inescapable debt ) by Celestin Ukwu who had earlier on sang Onwu ama
Eze (Death does not respect anybody, including kings) and then This
world is not my home (Jim Reeves)!
Emma
Okeke( Saburo) Cajetan Asuzu(Caje-Pelle)
One of our friends recalled the discussions he
had with Caje-Pelle the day before it happened!
This reminds us that our trip to this world is short and
that nobody knows tomorrow. Their own tomorrow had just come. While we mourn
their demise, console their families and pray for their eternal rest, we await
our own FINAL tomorrow.
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Power is truly transient!
ReplyDeleteRIP Mr. Hassan Adegbaye. The news of hs death was truly shocking because he never betrayed what he was going through even at his Faculty Postfield Seminar presentation; which I attended.
May the souls of all the departed rest in peace. E ku ara fera ku!