TINUBU’s TINKERING, CLAUDIUS NERO’s NEUROSIS: . . . the Malady of a Nation ruled by Emotions in Lamentation
By ‘Tunji Ajayi
In “BUHARI: THE NON-HISTRIONICS OF HISTORY – A Reticent President Working Hard Too Late” (see Ohio Wesleyan University Press, USA, Feb 27, 2022) I revealed how I came about loving history as a subject. Though “De minimis non curat lex”, so goes the Latin maxim because law doesn’t take account of trifles; but journalism does. Every seemingly little thing matters in journalism. It could form a newshound “scoop” or a fulcrum on which the central theme of a feature story eminently rests. The ravishing beauty and decency of the female teacher who taught me was sweeping! In my sophomore year she made me the class captain and I was so happy not because of the captainship but something else. In earlier years she and my disciplinarian school headmaster always flogged me; and I was perhaps one of the most flogged students in the non-elitist school. Both of them had in mind one exceptionally brilliant student. He was my super senior by two years, whom they felt I should have looked up to as an exemplary young student to emulate, rather than being engrossed playing football around and stealthily concealing portable cassette-recorder in my bag to school, playing Sunny Ade’s evocative music.
Since I wasn’t “emulating the brilliant ‘Sola” as the teachers always accused me of, even long after the egg-head had graduated from the school, the flogging continued as my History teacher and the hard-nosed Headmaster both concluded that I was stubborn. To them, I had the potentials to be a brilliant student. But they were unfair. Yes. How could I have successfully emulated and become like ‘Sola who, immediately after living a secondary (commercial) modern school, his shimmering brilliance was amazing such that, apart from taking first position throughout the 4-year program, he also taught many in his room, including one of our teachers to pass his O-Level (GCE) examinations, including Mathematics in a school that had and taught Arithmetic as a subject! . . . Bizarre? Yes. The same wiz kid later passed ACCA while in Part II OND class of the Polytechnic Ibadan, even while thousands of university graduates including masters degree holders were struggling to pass the initial stage of the ever tough professional examinations. Oh! . . . Bizarre story? Apparently. So, why were my fastidious teachers setting seemingly unreachable goal for me to achieve? Hence the ceaseless flogging never ended. Every man has historical past antecedents; his noble or ignoble past. That was mine.
It was inexplicable why my History teacher later made me the class captain, for which I was so excited; thinking the frequent flogging would end. As the class captain, one of my most herculean and painful tasks was to clean the blackboard on which every teacher wrote their notes for us to copy at the end of each lesson. Miss Mary Aloba had the most decent computer Calibri-like handwriting I ever came across. Thus, it was an excruciatingly difficult task for me to rub off from the blackboard her History subject notes. My anecdote depicts the naturally decent and eminent status of History as a subject, and whose contents are literally often so indelible. Historical facts are permanent. History is honest. Even when falsified, History recognizes her true”default setting” and rectifies the falsification of every distorted information about her person. Thus, those who often attempt to falsify or re-write history are merely engaging in wild goose chase. It is for nothing that a foolish man sets a net in the starry sky for anything owning wings. Whatever a man does haunts or lives after him.
In their argumentum ad fidem - an appeal to pious testimony to assert the truth of a proposition rather than reasons, I often listen with disgust to those arguing that the APC presidential candidate Chief Bola Hammed Tinubu, the Jagaban or Borgu, is a great philanthropist. The same toga is also being worn on Chief Abubakar Atiku, the Turaki of Adamawa apparently to buttress the claim that he could make a better president for the beleaguered country to which multifarious problems the duo both contributed from their respective power corridors at one time or the other. Peter Obi’s adversaries argued that he is miserly; and a stingy man of his type could never be a good choice. Many went further arguing that Tinubu fought hard during the military days to rescue Nigeria from the jackboot and iron fist of the military rulers, adding that he needed a payback time. Emotions often submerge reasons in our clime. Politicking in Nigeria had been enmeshed in con-artistry in recent years. Many had in 2015 been swayed by Buhari’s theatrics and became sympathetic to the dramatist’s cause having wept so profusely and in-consolably for losing three elections in succession; the incessant lachrymal tear flows were mistaken for passionate zeal to serve and bail Nigeria out of her woes. Nigerians now know better. Many hinge their choice of Tinubu on having built Lagos State from “from jungle to megacity” between 1999 and 2007 when he was the Lagos State governor. Blessed be our fallacious judgments in a country where polarity of opinions and unbridled emotions must be allowed to flow profusely for democracy to grow. Democracy itself thrives on the wishes of the people to enjoy legitimacy. The Nigeria’s pragmatic press often shows their preference too, albeit tactfully in disguise form now, apparently for fear of being branded partisan or accused of denigrating the ruling government and face sanctions. But perhaps unknown to the government, the press has freedom to own opinions especially through their periodic editorial comments as society’s environment surveillance organ like the communication scholar Frederick Whitney puts it.
The point of correction is that neither Bola Tinubu nor Atiku Abubakar is a philanthropist. No. Any man who gives in expectations of returns either in cash or kind from the recipients is not within the definition bracket of a philanthropist. To have a politician who truly is a philanthropist will be difficult like finding a needle lost inside the Atlantic Ocean. A politician’s gifts are often Greek gifts. They on quid-pro-quo philosophy; viz “I rub your back today when it hitches, and you rub mine later” which evidently has pivoted political god-fatherism in the polity snowballing into frequent upheavals between political mentors and their protégés, or between sponsors and their candidates in crass Machiavellianism - an ignoble politicking often marked by “cunning, duplicity or bad faith”.
I have a mentor whose entire lifetime has been premised on bountiful giving and support to the needy. He simply derives his joy in making others comfortable regardless of tribe, creed or religion. What he could not give to help others does not exist! Once he sees you and your children happy, he feels excited and fulfilled. Yet, he swore never to move close to any political office, adding that it often makes a “monster” of most hitherto kind partakers. He doesn’t look for returns for his good acts. That is a practical re-definition of philanthropism as opposed to Nigerian political parlance definition. When his business in which hundreds of Nigerians were employed nosedived due to the ravaging poor economy largely due to misgovernance by the rulership, I watched with utter shock, consternation and disbelief his palpable fears and obvious reluctance to rationalize by simply reducing his staff strength or close down totally! His major concern however, was how his teeming staff across the country and their innocent children would feed and survive. Surprisingly, he kept on bearing the excruciating pain of paying staff salaries, unable to take blunt decision of closing down. He just kept on paying staff who, even though had nothing to do any longer, while he was feasibly worried about “how will the staff and their children feed” until his deputy took the bull by the horn. In comparison, our political rulers had huge tons of foods gifted to the hungry masses of a stupendously-rich-but-made-poor nation mostly by the foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) during the last COVID-19 lock down. But most of our rulers across the states nocturnally hid them in warehouses across the country until the October 10, 2020 End-SARS agitating youths ran into the politicians warehouses and exposed the fraud. It was a sordid experience which I called in a piece “the bestiality in humanity”. Even while mother chickens often feed their own chicks before considering themselves, our politicians refuse to appreciate the need to care for their subjects.
Some business moguls would argue that my mentors’ action was quite “unbusinesslike.” He knows too. But he preferred bearing the huge burdens for that long to sending his staff into unemployment market and exposing their children to death-dealing starvation and untimely death. After his staff had to be unavoidable retrenched, the man who had option to go back to his closet and feed comfortably in the comfort of his house immediately felt emotionally sick and was only saved by God. That is a grand show of empathy. That is philanthropy at dizzying height. That is true love for humanity. Peter Obi the presidential candidate of the Labour Party is often accused of being miserly by his political opponents. Good. The truth is that Nigeria in her present dismal and economically decapitated state in huge debts doesn’t need profligacy, but a President in a toga of thriftiness and miserliness with human face. Yes. Obi’s not being a spendthrift may help a profligate nation whose each of her senate and lower house’s legislator reportedly earn humongous 13.5 million and 9.5 million as mere monthly allowances, aside from salaries respectively, while the teachers and professors who taught them in school languish in penury, and the statutory N30,000 national monthly minimum wage could not be paid. An economy may never grow where personal aids to government’s appointees are also duplicated to the detriment of a nation’s coffers. And where “Ministers of” and “Ministers for” with their personal aids and perquisites of office keep pauperizing the nations’ economy. Yet the leadership that preaches fiscal discipline has nothing to do to stem the tide of unbridled profligacy at least on patriotic and altruistic stand.
Politicians seek power for so many reasons, many of which are often hidden to the electorates but only known to the avaricious power seekers. Senator Bola Hammed Tinubu obviously had his hero in the then retired General Muhmmadu Buhari who earlier lost elections to his now exalted office three whopping times before he won the fourth time. Each time he lost he wept inconsolably. His weeping then must have been mistaken for gloating over not being given his most sought opportunity to transform Nigeria and bring her citizens out of the doldrums. He has repeatedly boasted that he had tried his best for Nigeria than he met it. He could be right because the word “best” is nebulous. He seems to have achieved his aims after winning his fourth election bid which brought him to power. Whatever anyone feels about him, the unbiased perspicacious Mr. History has chosen to record him up till May 29, 2023. His ally Bola Hammed Tinubu developed Lagos State to an enviable state, so his political adherents often argue, though he was also alleged to have developed his own pockets, and those of his acolytes and street boys. Thus, it remains unsafe to submit that a man motivated by “sèkàn kò mí, ko sèkan ko rà’re” syndrome, viz: “please yourself with one, and also get one for myself” is being truly driven by altruistic and philanthropic zeal to serve the needy and the famished. A typical Nigerian politician hardly gives back to his society or does anything for free.
Oh! . . . Has Tinubu really acted of recent like Emperor Claudius Caesar Nero of old? The fifth Roman Emperor Nero, born in 37 AD and ruled Rome between 54 and 68 AD was recorded by impartial History as an infamous leader, not only because of his alleged compulsive nature and corruption but especially for watching and failing to act decisively while “Rome was burning.” History recorded him as having “fiddled” in ecstatic mood from the tower of Maecenas on the Esculine Hill singing and dancing “while Rome burns.” In IGBOHO’S UNBRIDDLED ALTRUISM: Filling the Void in Lethargic Governance (see Ohio Wesleyan University Press, USA, Jan 30, 2021) I gave an anecdote of what true patriotism and leadership traits should be. Sunday Adeyemo Igboho, the acclaimed human right activists had all what it takes to recline and sleep in the comfort zone of any of his eye-popping aristocratic mansions. With all his children studying overseas away from Nigeria’s crises-ridden space, he had not much to worry about. But having been miffed by the incessant killings of his kinsmen across Yoruba land by the wild herdsmen while the government latched on subterfuge rather than act, Igboho’s love for his people incited him to act. In anger, he left his comfort zone, his exotic properties and aristocratic perquisites and chose to girdle up his loin to hunt and drive away his people’s tormentors and assailants; while suffering harsh conditions in the thick bushes. He lost most of his priced properties to states’ assaults. Later again, the harm of the law caught up with him while en route Germany, and has since July 2021 when he was first incarcerated been living a fugitive life in the Benin Republic. Sunday Igboho’s love for his Yoruba brothers and sisters is unimaginable; and he chose to sacrifice his personal comfort in their defense. I don’t know any true leader that would keep mute and appear comfortable while his men were being hounded, wounded and massacred. Like Emperor Claudius Nero stood unperturbed watching while Rome burned, Tinubu muted his voice throughout apparently to please his political associates, gladiators and power brokers. For the sake of his political ambition and primordial interests, he had no clear cut position but sat on the fence. But those who often stand in the middle of the road vacillating in taking a bold and clear-cut position when it matters often get run over. While Igboho took a bold war-generalissimo action to save his people, Tinubu kept mute then. But he is now seeing the hungry Nigerians electorates at the heels of his presidential electioneering campaign, promising to defend all Nigerians. If he couldn’t rise up to defend his immediate kinsmen from deadly assaults, how does he now protect the over 250 million Nigerians? “A wrong man is not always one who has done something wrong, but also a man who has left something undone” so says the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. A true leader must have definite position on key national problems and not latching on ambivalence or subterfuge. Tinubu now wears his thick-lense concave eye glasses to mitigate the effects of his short-sightedness. He can see the needy now far away; especially the teeming talakawas and alumajiris in the far northern part of Nigeria who need food and good living conditions to survive. That is the craftiness of a Nigerian politician who has love for IGR that has bailed out his Lagos State in the past years. He is now poised to bail out Nigeria apparently via many ways, including a timely Internally Revenue Generation (IGR) program whose ingenious creation and initial source he would never acknowledge.
Everything thrives on good health; and the effective management of the delicate affairs of any nation is not exempted. Despite his obvious failing health, the emotionalists argue in their “argumentum ad consequentiam” toga of: “Omo-eni-ò-sèdí bèbère ka f’ileke si t’omo elomiran”. Hmm! . . . Of what use is adorning the waist of your daughter with your precious ornamental beads, when you already know it is not befitting her over-bloated bum-bum which could even snap the beads apart and make the priced ornament become useless? They argue that Peter Obi is the best choice. Perhaps. But the horror this nation has witnessed under the neurosis called APC and PDP - the two-fingers of a leprous hand, like the cerebral late Chief Bola Ige would say, in the last 16 years are enough to teach common sense that the two accursed political parties be excused from the nation’s management for now to go and ponder and become remorseful in their solitude. Otherwise, Nigeria may forever remain a country of “anything goes” that keeps rewarding abysmal failures and “weak-in-all-subjects” students. But whatever happens, I strongly believe in the veracity of that Yoruba adage that if an old man dies and the infirmed is installed as his successor, lamentation and ululation will continue to pervade the stool unabated. Yes. “Arúgbó kú. A tún f’olókùnrùn j’oyè. Ariwo kù léhìn ariwo. Verbum Satis Sapienti.
*Tunji Ajayi, a creative writer, author and documentary producer writes from Lagos, Nigeria.(+2349020007004; +2348033203115)
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