By Festus Adedayo
Power politics in the animal kingdom could be as intense, deceptive and selfish as it is in the human kingdom. An ancient African allegory whose patent cannot be credited to a particular tradition, illustrates this. It is the fable of an old forest warhorse, the lion. After years of feasting on animals, his mane soaked in their innocent blood, Old Lion became too senescent to haunt for games. Stricken with old age, diverse infirmities and unable to put food on his own table, the King decided to get food by subterfuge and trickery. Always by himself and soaked in myriad thoughts and stratagems for many nights and days, one day a thought sidled into his mind. He would pretend to be so infirm that he could not hunt and thus court ‘get well’ visits of other animals. He then got emissaries to broadcast his infirmity round and about the forest. As the message got to them, the animals debated the prospect of visiting him after the debilitating havoc he had wrecked on their peers and forebears. The majority of opinions supported paying the king of the jungle get-well-quick visits.
Thus, one after the other, animals of various kinds paid the King visits in his supposed infirmary. As each sauntered in, the King made barbecue of their fleshes. However, Tortoise, the wily Trickster animal, according to the Yoruba version of that fable, burst the King’s bubble. Some other African climes’ account say it was not Tortoise but the Red Fox. So, the animal came to the conclusion that, though he would satisfy the majority’s decision to pay the King obeisance, he would be a whiff careful and wiser. So Fox/Tortoise devised a trick. He presented himself at a respectable distance from a cave by the hill that led to the King’s lair. From there, he shouted at the top of his voice to the aged King Lion to announce his presence. On hearing his voice, the King peered out queasily and bade him come into the lair. Like an Apirọrọ, one who feigns sleep, who must be atop the mastery of the theatrics of their game, the Lion dragged his response with great effort and said, “I am not so well…But, my friend, why do you stand without? Pray, come in and wish me well”. The Fox/Tortoise, in a sarcasm that mocked the Lion’s theatrics said: “No, thank you, Your Majesty. But, I noticed that there are many prints of feet entering your cave, but I see no trace of any returning”.
Last Friday, ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Nasir El-Rufai, Rotimi Amaechi and their co-travelers inside the Nigerian National Coalition Group (NNCG) coach arrived at a significant juncture in their bid to send President Bola Tinubu back to Lagos in 2027. On that day, the NNCG formally applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for registration as the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) party. As far as formality goes, the dramatis personae on this journey have many reasons to clink champagne glasses. In semiotic representation, which is the study of signs, symbols, their use and representation, ADA would seem to be the greatest weapon in the NNCG’s hands to skewer the heart of the Broom, symbol of the reigning All Progressives Congress (APC). In Yoruba, Ada as a semiotic representation, could be the machete that will sunder the ruling party. In Igbo, its rendering as Ada, the one that would play such a significant role that will endear it among Nigerian political parties, will make the political party the matronly daughter the Nigerian electorate have been waiting for. However, as I will demonstrate presently, ADA may have, even before the blowing of the whistle, suffered the fate of the senescent Lion in the above allegory. By this, the political party may yet suffer the shock and disappointment of the King of the jungle.
Like the old wily Lion, virtually all the political characters on the two aisles of the divide – opposition and in government – suffer similar fates in the estimation of Nigerians today. In relationship calculus, Yoruba advise a younger one burying the elder in the presence of the younger sibling to be mindful of the depth of the grave they dig because same fate awaits them. At the joint sitting of the National Assembly on Democracy Day, Tinubu literally gloated about the walnut-pod-seeds schism and discord that characterize Nigeria’s opposition parties. “Political parties fearful of members leaving may be better served by examining their internal processes and affairs rather than fearfully conjuring up demons that do not exist,” he mocked. “For me, I would say, try your best to put your house in order. I will not help you do so. It is, indeed, a pleasure to witness you in such disarray”.
A few days later, the demon came out of its seclusion. The deodorant the APC had been spraying over its messy internal power struggles expired and the putrid smell hit the nose with the bang of an Iraqi missile. The party’s Northeast leaders’ meeting for the adoption of Tinubu for a second term exposed vultures gathering round the APC in an ominous exclusion plan against Kashim Shettima. The game is to spike Shettima’s name from the 2027 presidential ballot. What we thought was a Duchenne smile of intimate relationship which Tinubu and Shettima treated us to in public, immediately turned out to be plastic smile after all. Duchenne smile, named after French neurologist, Guillaume Duchenne, is a genuine smile which involves and revolves round the mouth and muscles of the eyes. Reggae music legendary combo, the Black Uhuru, also explained “Plastic smile” in the track so named. Singing that calamity awaits a plastic smile, the musical group upbraided an unknown two-faced mistress not to “show I yuh teeth, plastic smile can’t work,” because “I’m not a clown that laughs and jokes/While my structure in smoke.”
Today, APC’s power apparatchik is running helter-skelter. The task is to paper over a grisly crack, an implosion tornado that may erupt in the Shettima exclusion gambit. It is a throwback into a historic Tinubu total power holding tendency, a total frown at and intolerance for sharing power with anyone. As Lagos governor, Tinubu dispensed with deputies as a junky changes syringes. All of a sudden, erstwhile good governance poster-boy, Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum, a Shettima boy, has become the proverbial Èlúùlù, a Yoruba-named brown-feathered Wood Dove bird whose cry is reputed to possess the mystical power of drawing rains from the heavens. The belief is that Èlúùlú’s rain could cause everyone to scamper out for alternative shield. As Zulum chirps like Èlúùlù, either on the insecure security in his state, against the Tinubu government’s dissonant narrative of peace in Borno, or even over other matters, power watchers see an internal power disruption in the APC. Zulum’s Èlúùlù may be foreshadowing a bitter rain that will pour in the APC over Shettima’s exclusion from a second term. This cry may also be a reminder of a Kowéè, another mystic bird which Yoruba mythological belief says whenever it chirps, a lurking danger of death is imminent.
The Shettima travails may point to a saying that the whiplash used to trounce the older wife is kept for the younger one on the rafter. It was this same Shettima who, on a Channels Television interview, mocked the totalitarian system of Nigerian presidency which sidelined Yemi Osinbajo under Muhammadu Buhari. Shettima had said, “Osinbajo is a good man; he’s a nice man. But nice men do not make good leaders, because nice men tend to be nasty. Nice men should be selling popcorn, ice cream.” Today, Shettima sells a medley of ice cream and popcorn under a nasty and grim presidential power play.
Then, there is intense hunger and anger in the land which government is obviously too lame to tame. Statistics have become ballistics which the Tinubu government’s mind-doctor evangelists bombard Nigerians with. The latest ballistic is that inflation figure has decreased. Yet, the spinners of these figures are unable to explain the fit of sulks Nigerians relapse into when they confront skyrocketing foods and goods in the market. Neither is anyone responding to the people’s groan at their ebbing purchasing power which the twin policies of subsidy withdrawal and Naira flotation have birthed. It is obvious that, as Nigerians walk into the electioneering years, government will have no balm to apply on the people’s aches.
Then, there is the gale of insecurity in the country. Unbeknown to Nigerians, the Tandi of the Buhari government which they thought was dance-shy, cannot even stand the Tandi Tandi of the Tinubu government which does not have a waist to wag to any danceable tune. Northeast terrorists dance to celebratory songs as they hijack Nigerian local governments as their spoils of war. Same terrorists drink palm-wine with dead Nigerians’ skulls as gourds. In the Northwest, bandits kill Nigerians en-masse as you trample on cockroaches. Benue and Plateau States are poster-boys of government’s helplessness in the face of superior herders’ brains, weapons and strategies. Nigerians in those states bury their dead in silence as federal government regurgitates obituaries, condolence messages as press releases which mask its cowardice. The recent Benue massacre is an example.
All the above is a cake of federal government’s incapacity which is garnished with an icing of arrogance and missteps. Yes, the president did well visiting Benue where a conservative figure of 300 people were murdered. However, some optics of that visit show that the dead were mere statistics. Who goes to the land of the bereaved wearing a celebratory apparel? Agbada, the cloth the president wore to Makurdi, is an elite garment. It is flaunted by the rich and powerful in traditional African society. It shuts out the less-privileged and celebrates power. When you mourn as the president tended to do in Makurdi last week, or you are at a funeral or memorial, wearing black attire primarily symbolizes respect for the deceased; it demonstrates sobriety, surrender to a higher force of death. A black garment does this in an un-celebrating manner. It is why black, through much of history, has always been the colour mostly associated with mourning. This is because it contrasts with the brightness and vibrancy of life which other colours exhibit. In Africa and many Western cultures, black attire signifies grief, loss and sombre. It allows mourners to outwardly express their sorrow and solidarity with the bereaved. So, when that establishment lickspittle, Reno Omokri, attempted to justify Tinubu’s fluffy, celebratory coloured Agbada dress whilst the blood of the murdered is yet to congeal, he was obviously speaking from his depth of naivety.
Yet another misstep was obvious in Benue, either from Hyacinth Alia’s attempt to play sycophantic politics or the Tinubu government’s indiscretion of not rejecting Alia’s grovel. How do you line school children, bereaved children of the massacred, on the streets to receive someone coming to commiserate with you?
So many other missteps of the last two years line the dais. They are missteps which an opposition group or party could weaponize to win Nigerians’ hearts. Is it the Gilbert Chagoury-lization of the Nigerian economy? Or the lack of openness and accountability in the Lagos-Calabar 700km N15trillion road project which the president awarded to a man he openly admitted was his ally? Is it the Airbus A330 presidential aircraft which cost Nigeria $100million and which never passed the senate lens? Is it the flying rumour of mind-boggling corruption that has stuck to this government like a leech in two years? You do not have to scrape more than the surface to amass a shovelful.
To rehash what wily Trickster Tortoise told Lion, King of the jungle, those putting together the ADA as Nigeria’s opposition party also have Tinubu-type logs in their eyes. Nigerians see them as people who have “many prints of feet entering your cave, but (see) no trace of any returning”. Tinubu was right by claiming, as he did in Kaduna last week, that Uba Sani had transformed the State from a “toxic, uncontrollable environment”. Under El-Rufai, Kaduna was a horror scene. Though ranked comparatively higher than any other state in Nigeria by multilateral agencies on the scorecard of good governance and accountability, in eight years, El-Rufai’s Kaduna was a state of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. The peace in Southern Kaduna today is a departure from the toxicity of the El-Rufai era. When you now have the same character seeking to play leading role in bringing a let to the suffering of the people of Nigeria, it speaks volumes of the kind of leadership Nigerians should look forward to.
Then, Atiku Abubakar. The ex-VP’s politics is undoubtedly woven round self. Since 1993, he has been a presidential candidate and has failed on each occasion. It is obvious that the current ADA is again primed round him. When self is the issue as in this manner, Yoruba ask if the individual’s esophagus is the sole route to Oyo (Ọnà ọfun tiẹ nìkan ni wọn n’gba lọ s’Òyó ní?)
Amaechi is not any better. Having lost out in the power equation of the post-Tinubu era, this former Transport Minister has become an emergency critic, even being ludicrous enough to claim he is hungry. The trio and their co-travelers are united by anger and lust for power, rather than any meaningful attempt to rescue Nigeria from the vice grip of Tinubu. ADA is a huge log that has stayed afloat on and fed on the ecosystem of the murky and filthy river of Fourth Republic Nigerian politics for too long. It has stayed so long on the river that it is mistaking itself for an amphibian animal. And Yoruba say, no matter how long a log stays in the river, it will never become a crocodile.
Borrowing from Lasisi Olagunju, ADA and its minders are like mourners at their own funeral. They can never be a soothing counterpoise to the rot of the Tinubu government. Were it to be possible, the Ibrahim Babangida newbreed model would have been a perfect reply to this current order where, head or tail, Nigerians may lose.
The ADA crew, especially Atiku Abubakar, would need to learn some basic lessons that Tinubu taught Nigerian politics. Between 2007 when he left Lagos governorship and 2023 when he became president, Tinubu wore the strategic patience garment of the vulture. He waited patiently within this period, biding his time for Aso Rock. He could have put himself forth to be Nigeria’s president in 2015 but strategically supported Buhari. Conversely, at every election season, Atiku’s face thoughtlessly adorns presidential campaign posters like a boring epigram. It is obvious that he and his ADA are too mired in the problems and challenges of Nigeria to be a solution to them. Amaechi and El-Rufai are obviously in ADA out of anger and hungry for revenge against those who chucked them out of their birthright of being in government in perpetuity.
The little I know about anger is, when you are consumed by it, you wake up lost, and you will lose sight of everything. Including your sense.