Another anarchist was on the prowl last week. He threatened to deny peaceful Nigerians their fundamental and constitutional right to live in Kuje council area if they don’t vote for his preferred candidate in next year’s general election. His name is Samuel Shekwolo. He’s supposed to be the number one citizen of the council area, responsible to the residents and for their collective wellbeing, particularly security and safety.
But he proved himself irresponsible.
Hear him: “I have said in my area council, it’s either you are doing APC or leave the area council; I’m not hiding that. With confidence, I’m saying it. You know why, I cannot have President (Bola Tinubu) and Minister (Nyesom Wike) doing what they are doing (delivering dividends of democracy) and on the day of (presidential) election, you will want to match me. It’s either you are with us or you are out.”
The obnoxious pattern seems set and only leaders and members of Shekwolo’s party, (his name sounds like the Tegwolo cartoon character in a Nigerian sitcom) have been caught in the demented act since efforts began to give the Nigerian people alternative platforms to make leadership choices at state and federal levels.
So far, no one has been prosecuted though I have it on good authority that the senator representing me, Francis Fadahunsi (aka Fada), may soon be arraigned for his kill-and-go directive to his supporters against those on his opposing side during the just-concluded Osun off-cycle guber poll. We wait.
Under heavy pressure, my fellow Ijesa ate his words, pleading for forgiveness. Same way Shekwolo backtracked last Wednesday.
Both Fada and Shekwolo belong to the ruling party which constantly claims it has delivered to Nigerians. Truth is, you will only step on the proverbial wet (comforting) ground when the next ballot is cast if you have truly splashed water (to cool everywhere) in advance.
The Yoruba will say, “Oò ṣá igi lọ́gbẹ́, oò ta ògùrọ̀ lọ́fà, o dé ìdí ọ̀pẹ, o ńgbẹ́nu s’ókè, ṣé ọ̀fẹ́ ló máa ńro ni?”
The proverb simply means only sowers will reap.
My people also have an interesting translation of God’s rhetorical upbraiding of Cain in Genesis 4:7, moments before murdering his brother and sleep. The famous Yoruba line is “Bi iwọ ba ṣe rere, ara ki yio ha yá ọ?”
The English translation is “If you do well, will you not be accepted”?
The Kuje council boss, just like the motor garage touts who made similar threats before him, says it has to be his party winning in 2027 or nothing, meaning there would be no Nigeria again if his candidate loses, which is a possibility. Who do we then blame if we eventually lose this running republic; also a possibility?
Despite attempting to walk the hate speech back, Shekwolo had noted in his original veiled genocidal threat that he was speaking the real content of his heart, with “I’m not hiding it. With confidence I’m saying it.”
The Yoruba will say ohun to wa ninu eni ni oti n pa ni mo (the drunk speaks the content of his heart). The all-is-fair-in-politics demon spirit has possessed the anarchist chairman.
Nigerians and the international community should have him under close watch.
Shekwolo says his party and the president, also a candidate in the January 2027 poll, have done very well and should be appreciated with ballot boxes overflowing with votes to continue the good work.
That has been the campaign narrative since the electoral umpire signalled that the soapbox can be mounted for the coming poll. Claims and promises during the campaign are within any party’s right. Same way voters have the right of choice and even without threats, the president will still have millions voting for him, one way or another.
But you can’t corral people into so doing.
It’s either they are doing it willingly because their lives are better than the last three years thereabouts or they are making a one-off deal, selling their votes. Either way, it would still be by free will, not gagged or terrorised into giving it away.
If many Nigerians do not feel APC deserves to stay in power beyond May 29, 2027, it’s because they feel continuously robbed, which is what the twin policy of currency devaluation and petroleum subsidy removal by the current administration at inception simply translates to.
While not detracting from the performance claim of the APC administration, only the one with the pinching shoes can pinpoint the hurtful point on his feet and whatever looks like balm will surely excite.
That is why Atiku, with his opposing promise to bring some kind of mitigating ointment by reinstating the most-biting petroleum subsidy, if elected in January, is making his candidature look juicy again to the same electorate that had rejected him six times! Expectedly, the shift of interest from the benefits of economic reforms by the administration (including the assumed benefits of subsidy removal), to Atiku’s counter promise, has suddenly put the ruling party and government under pressure.
We have Wazirin Adamawa to thank for the frenetic pace governments at federal and state levels are now moving to make the no-subsidy and more-tax economy of the current administration make sense to the millions, freshly knocked under the extreme poverty baseline.
There are things that do not make sense in Nigeria again. Pre-May 2023 was supposed to be the lowest the country and its people should go, in standard of living metric.
But the president came in and with a few minutes on the job, threw millions of lives upside down, making it one of the most disruptive, if not the most chaotic in modern history of inaugurations. Closest to it would be Trump’s first-term ban on travellers to the US from some Islamic countries. If Tinubu could do it on his first day in office, why can’t a successor do the reversal on his first day in office too? Interesting times ahead.
Do I believe Atiku Abubakar’s promise to undo Tinubu’s subsidy plague on his first day in office? Somehow I do, despite his resume not currently bearing enough evidence of being faithful to political promises, to give one a buoyant confidence.
I think the recent voters’ revolt in Osun is now giving politicians the jitters. Even those who used to see themselves as unshakable are now running helter-skelter to shalaye (street lingo for full disclosure and elaborate self-defence) what they have done with the billions ripped from the people by the current administration’s economic policies and reaped into the coffers of their excellencies.
No doubt, the Atiku subsidy promise is resonating and the president is holding the governors’ feet to the fire, to explain what they have done with the largesse he had hoed their way. I expect the under-pressure governors to go back home and light the fire under their council chairmen.
At least, for once, let’s follow the subsidy money.
The truth is that since the Tinubu windfall began raining on states and local governments, and not forgetting the federal government too, profligacy has developed a life of its own, bestriding the power corridor on two legs.
Anyone who promises to help tame it would be an instant hero and despite the bulldozing by the central government since he made the subsidy reinstatement promise, the Atiku momentum hasn’t derailed.
Suddenly he looks electable.
The Tinubu administration would need more than rhetoric to persuade traumatised Nigerians not to want a bit of their monies being monthly shipped to governors, back.
In removing the subsidy on petroleum products and electricity too, two main staples running the country’s economy, especially its humongous informal sector, the Tinubu administration performed no economic miracle by making more money. When you add the myriad of taxes unleashed on the people and their little little investments here and there, the government is just taking from the people to give those running government, particularly at the state level, which has seen almost all state governors lining behind the president’s re-election.
Then an unlikely hero is emerging for the people being ripped off. Ordinarily you would expect a Peter Obi in this populist corner but God can use anyone for His agenda.
For whatever it’s worth, He has used a very conservative Atiku to renew debates on an existential matter for millions of Nigerians.
Suddenly, nearly everybody is querying queueing behind the narrative of subsidy removal saving the country from collapsing, despite the best efforts of government to take the hot-button topic off the information highway.
Who says the Lord who has begun a thing isn’t able to finish it?
In Judges 14:1-4 Samson’s parents had no discernment his desire for a Philistine woman was God’s orchestration to end the domination of Philistines over Israel. Whoever God will use to end the current robbery of the masses in the name of subsidy removal, may His will be done. Iya yi to ge (enough of the suffering).
Postscript: Last week, it was double bereavement. First, my sister-in-law, Sunday morning, back from market, cooking rice for family, suffered a massive heart attack and was gone in minutes. She was DoA. While grappling with it, I woke up to Oga Dotun Oladipo’s passing. The whole thing just blunted my nerves. Alone, I just stared into space in my room. His last post to me on WhatsApp was 2.49PM of the same Tuesday of his shocking departure.
I couldn’t even bring myself to scrub the reports he sent me. His Eagle Online was my go-to for breaking news. So enamoured with his editing capacity, I once pleaded with him to take up a lecturing engagement at NIJ alongside his friend, Oga Dipo Kehinde. You can say the latter was made for investigative journalism.
Every Sunday in the past years since Oga Dotun graciously began giving this column more mileage by syndicating it alongside 11 other online platforms (also superbly grateful to Uncle Folu Olamiti, Elder Idowu Adelusi, ex-Governor Fayose’s spokesman, Buoda Sola Osunkeye, my beloved Ilesa Egbon, my brother since Abuja reportorial years; Mr. Sola Fabiyi, among others), he would mostly respond to my gratitude, often couched in Yoruba, with a meme of a police officer throwing a funny salute, to the merriment of us both.
Kai, death, you don do this one.
A musing moment captured in a few words by Oga Gabriel Akinadewo to me provided some solace. It reads, “Job 42:2 GOD, only YOU can explain your DECISION/ACTION. Dotun Oladipo, good night.” Hmmmmm.
