I don tire for this country o! In fact, I am really, really fed up! Was it not Emilokan that I sighted at the burial ceremony of Nasir el-Rufai’s mother or was I seeing double?”
“O-ti o! You were seeing triple! Mr President was there live and direct! He landed there gidigba and full ground berekete, as they say! They even gave him a chair to sit on!”
“I am disappointed! What a shame!”
“I can’t understand your fury, anger, and anguish. What has the president done wrong?”
“Are you asking me? You must be one of those people who don’t understand what is called propriety – what is proper and what is not proper. Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey sang ‘Oun ti o daa o daa’. What is not good is not good!”
“Yes, I remember that song: ‘Oun ti o daa o daa/Ma gba’yawo ore o/Ma gb’oko l’owo ore e/ Oju lo fi n tini/Oun bani je l’awujo ore.’ The Yoruba also completes that saying with ‘Okun orun o ye adie.’ No sane person ties a rope around a chicken’s neck. But why was it improper for Mr President to have witnessed the burial of el-Rufai’s mother?”
“Plenty reasons…”
“Number one…”
“Is this not the same man that has sworn to do all in his power to deny Emilokan a second term of office?”
“Yes, he is but Mr President knows that his second term is beyond the man’s scope and capacity. He knows the short-man devil is only puffing and smarting for his failure to become a minister…”
“Emilokan is playing with fire! He is using the head of a cobra to tickle his nostrils. As petite as he is, el-Rufai has an oversized dose of unforgiving spirit.”
“Whether he forgives or not is his own funeral. An enraged he-goat that scratches the ground before its owner, my people ask what it can do to its owner? If care is not taken, the owner will command that the errant goat be slaughtered for dinner before nightfall!”
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“You are under-rating this man…”
“You are the one overrating him! A man who was temporarily released from detention to breathe fresh air – what if they hadn’t released him? Couldn’t you see how gentle he had become?”
“I understand he has even been returned to prison…”
“Oh-ohoo!”
“But I am surprised you are not making a thing of the threats and noise this man was making all over the place! Someone who was bold enough to disclose that they bugged the phone lines of the National Security Adviser…”
“And see where it has landed him! Which of his newfound political associates are facing the same ordeal as him now?”
“Reports said he rejected the offer of a presidential jet to fly his dead mother from Egypt. That snub was enough excuse for the president to have boycotted the burial…”
“But that would have been childish! When you spank a child, you also must not deny him the right to cry. Only a wicked elder does both at the same time.”
“But we have had presidents who did so in the past. Babangida did. Buhari, also”
“I don’t understand…”
“I heard the story that when Buhari was about to be bypassed for promotion and juicy posting as GOC during the presidency of Shehu Shagari, he cried to some influential persons who took his case to Shagari…”
“And Shagari turned them down?”
“No! Shagari listened and gave Buhari all his dues. Not long after, Shagari was toppled in a coup that produced the same Buhari as military Head of State…”
“They say one good turn deserves another! Why was it the same Buhari that toppled Shagari?”
“Some reports said Buhari was just the beneficiary of that coup; that he actually wasn’t its leader…”
“I see! But he became Head of State all the same…”
“Yes, and Shagari was put under house arrest. An elder brother of Shagari, who was receiving treatment at the State House clinic, was unceremoniously thrown out of his sickbed and hauled to Sokoto. The man reportedly died the next day…”
“And was Buhari aware?”
“Listen now! The men who had taken Buhari’s case to Shagari now approached Buhari to allow them to see Shagari to break the sad news of his brother’s death to him and also for them to see how well the ousted president was faring in detention. Buhari reportedly refused!”
“Na lie! No man can be that wicked!”
“Na truth! Emissaries after emissaries approached Buhari with the same request but he turned all of them down. That was what I heard! But karma cannot be cheated…”
“En-hen! What happened?”
“Buhari himself was overthrown in August 1985 and was clamped into detention and Babangida took over. Buhari’s mother died in December 1988 and whether Babangida did not release Buhari or it was Buhari who refused the offer…”
“So Buhari did not attend his own mother’s burial?”
“Reportedly, he did not!”
“No wonder the unresolved animosity between both men! They will settle in heaven! Buhari is already there waiting for him!”
“They said Babangida was angry that after himself and his men had put their lives on the line to topple Shagari, Buhari took Tunde Idiagbon as his Number Two man and both of them began to sideline Babangida and his boys…”
“I see! The same spirit of ingratitude and vindictiveness…”
“Not only that, the story is also told that Buhari and Idiagbon began to investigate certain things against the fingers that fed them and those ones played them a joker…”
“Joker? What joker?”
“They got an influential Arab royalty to extend a special invitation to Idiagbon to visit Mecca and once Idiagbon left the shores of Nigeria, the coast was clear for Babangida to just pick Buhari like a lame duck”
“Oh my God! Was that the Mecca Idiagbon took his 14-year-old son, which violated their own laws?”
“Yes! History is a useful lesson. Can I also tell you something?”
“Please, do!”
“Buhari as civilian president also denied Sambo Dasuki, President Goodluck Jonathan’s ‘arms bazaar’ National Security Officer, the opportunity to bury his father, the Sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Dasuki…”
“Yes, yes, yes! Sambo was in detention over the arms bazaar matter when his father died. Northerners are not used to treating one another that way…”
“The issues involved must have caused it. The story is told that Sambo led the coup plotters that arrested Buhari…”
“I see! Buhari, too, must have had a knack for hard-heartedness. See the way he repaid Shagari’s favours, for instance.”
“He might have thought he had already done Shagari enough favours by putting him under house arrest while the vice-president, Dr Alex Ekwueme, was hauled into detention.”
“That’s favouritism, ethnicity, religious bigotry, name it…”
“Should Nigerians have elected such a man as president in 2015? I understand he came out of detention and sent his wife packing because she went to beg Babangida for his release. Can you also believe that when Shagari died in December 2018, Buhari as civilian president did not accord him a full state burial. He merely declared a three-day flying of the national flag at half-mast and sent emissaries to the burial. He did not personally attend.”
“Waooh! But Emilokan accorded the same Buhari full state burial and personally attended. We should never have touched such a man like Buhari with a ten-foot pole. Emilokan, then, had enough precedents to have denied el-Rufai the temporary reprieve of attending his mother’s burial…”
“But are you aware that such things are not new? When Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s first son, Olusegun Awolowo Snr., died in 1963 in a car accident on his way from Ibadan to Lagos to defend his father who was standing trial on charges of treason, Awo applied to be allowed to leave custody to attend the burial but the Federal Government of President Nnamdi Azikiwe and Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa refused to grant the request.”
“I am lost for words!”
“By the way, how are we sure Mr President was the one who granted el-Rufai his temporary reprieve?”
“Who could have done that? The matter was too sensitive to have been handled outside the purview of the presidency.”
“Don’t be too sure! Some people can decide to play the cards of ethnicity and religion and box the president into a corner.”
“I don’t understand!”
“El-Rufai was in custody at the instance of the ICPC, which is headed by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. Are you telling me the man does not know the law?”
“We are still saying the same thing! They must have twisted his hands to do what he did. And who could have done that if not the presidency?”
“You are making a big mistake. The presidency is not the only centre of power and authority in this country. For those who value their ethnic base more than Nigeria, they will ignore presidential directives and take orders elsewhere. The same goes for those who will do anything for their religious sentiments…”
“Are you by any means suggesting sabotage?”
“I suspect so! Why is it that it was the DSS that later surfaced to re-arrest the man? Even laymen know that once a person is detained on the orders of a court, such an order can only be varied by the same court or by a superior court.”
“But they were pressed for time…”
“Then they could as well have met the judge in chambers! Maybe they did that. If they did, it will be okay, but if not, what they did is travesty of justice. Even though I am not opposed to el-Rufai’s temporary release on compassionate grounds, the route they took leaves much to be desired.”
“If Emilokan was not party to the decision, he would not have attended…”
“He would still have attended! “Cunny man die, cunny man bury am!” Besides, all these guys are not enemies; they are political associates, personal friends, and business partners. Their quarrels are usually ephemeral. I will not be surprised if this same el-Rufai emerges as a minister in Tinubu’s second term…”
“God forbid!”
“Then you are a novice to our special brand of politics! The politicians appear to be fighting now because they are still struggling for the trophy. Once someone among them seizes the trophy, the next thing is settlement…”
“The defections into the ruling party confirm that…”
“Ah-aah! In all of these, what worries me most is that the day all our who’s who trooped to condole with Rufai, whose mother died at the old age of 96, was the same day 27 souls were wasted in a location in Jos, Plateau State, and the state governor went there hiding in an armoured tank while addressing the people!”
“Tufiakwa! This is a country of anything goes! In some other places, no one will listen to him…”
“Is that all? He will be stoned and chased away!”
“Imagine if all those who milled around el-Rufai had gathered to put heads together to tackle the insecurity problems ravaging the country!”
“It is not their problem; so why should they? I read that in times past, whenever disaster befell a people, the ruler would tear his clothes, sit in ashes and refuse to eat or drink…”
“You make me laugh! Here, once they dust up and issue rehashed press statements, offer bland condolences and make empty promises, they move on – until another disaster strikes and they repeat the same rituals again”
“Again and again! I have lost count…”
“On Sunday – Palm Sunday for that matter – scores of Nigerians were gunned down in cold blood. I expected everyone who had earlier in the day trooped to help el-Rufai bury his mother to also troop to the Presidential Villa to put heads together with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to help him find a solution to the country’s hydra-headed insecurity challenges…”
“And you think Emilokan would have welcomed them?”
“Why not? I even expect they would meet him in sackcloth covered with ashes as in the days of old…”
“You live on the Moon! I don’t think we have here rulers who can do what you are proposing…”
“It means, then, that solutions are not in sight. If the leaders will not move, and the people themselves are not ready to move them…”
“Did you hear the locals in Jos accuse the military of complicity in the Jos mayhem?”
“I did! What a hopelessly hopeless situation!”
“Not really! Only that the hour is yet to come!
•I wish my esteemed readers the full compliments of this season!!
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