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As Fubara presses the nuclear button

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If Nyesom Wike had read the character portrait of the Ijaw man as sketched by Dr. Percy Amoury Talbot, an early 20th-century British historian and colonial administrator, he would most probably have thought twice before settling for Simnalaya Fubara as his third-term placeholder.

Wike was a two-term governor of Rivers State and today, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. In his highly authoritative 1926 book, Peoples of Southern Nigeria: a Sketch of their History, Ethnology, and Languages, with an Abstract of the 1921 Census, Talbot reserved an unflattering description for the no-nonsense Ijaw race. Hear him on page 333, “Up the various creeks and branches, the waters are infested by a wild piratical set who live almost entirely in their canoes, and who subsist by plundering traders while on their way to the markets, often adding murder to their other crimes.”

Talbot was, aside from his colonial brief, a British anthropologist and botanical collector. Born in 1877, he lived in the creeks for years to undertake his study and died in 1945. While in Nigeria, he was the Acting Resident of Benin Division in the 1920s. Aside from the frightening sketch of the Ijaw above, Talbot went on to say this of the race, “this strange people, (were) a survival from the dim past beyond the dawn of history, whose language and customs are distinct from those of their neighbours and without trace of any tradition of time before they were driven southwards into these regions of somber mangroves,” and in another context, said of them: “their (Ijaws) origin is wrapped in mystery. The people inhabit practically the whole Coast, some 250 miles in length, stretching between the Ibibio and Yoruba. The Niger Delta, therefore, is… occupied by this strange people.”

Many other scholars who studied this unique race couldn’t understand its abstruse origin and piratical ancestry. While a school of thought claimed that Ijaws had a Judo-Christian origin, another contended that their ancestors originated from Palestine. They base this argument on the assumed similarity between Ijaw’s initial name, Ijo, and one of the ancient cities in Palestine known as Ijon. In concluding on this similarity, the scholars drew a nexus between the cultural practices of the Ijaw which are noticeable, male circumcision, ritual laws, and abstinence from sex during menstruation, and Palestinians’ war-mongering and maniacal tendencies. They said that both races draw strength and resilience from their identical link with Zionism. This assumed connection is based on Palestine’s adherence to Mosaic laws, similar to those of the Ijaw people’s self-styled Creek freedom fighters. In the 1940s, amateur historiography also linked the Ijaws with the Benin, Ife, and Egypt and then to the mythological Oduduwa of the Yoruba peoples.

Ijaws were almost unconquerable to the British colonial government, especially the Western Ijaw, so much so that British officers hardly visited Ijaw clans. This was a result of the gruesome killing of the District Commissioner of Forcados in 1911 in the Ijaw communities of Benni and Adagbabiri. Even as late as 1926, there was a confession by British officers in Warri complaining about the ‘truculent Ijaws’ who they owned up they had not succeeded in conquering. Ijaw were also considered to be people of ‘bad manners’ by the colonial administrators because they refused to turn up at the coast to welcome visiting administrators.

In the nineteenth century, pirates gained the utmost notoriety by roaming the seas as sailors, attacking other ships, and stealing property from them. Thus, living true to Talbot’s character profiling, in an act similar to pirates’, Fubara, the governor of Rivers State, last Wednesday pressed the nuclear button. He did this by attacking the hallowed rendering of democratic ethos when he pulled down the state’s legislative chamber, the Assembly complex. Before this demolition, the complex, comprising about six buildings and a main chamber, constructed by the government of Dr Peter Odili, was an insignia of democracy. The Fubara government’s alibi for the demolition, as provided by the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Joseph Johnson, was that the complex had become unsafe for human habitation as a result of the explosion and fire that rocked it in October.

Since the pulling down of the complex, it is instructive that Wike hasn’t said a word. He must have been very proud of his political son who took after his father. Wike’s eight-year administration of Rivers was pockmarked by similar governmental intransigence. In April 2023, after losing his bid for the presidency, Wike ordered African Independent Television (AIT) out of its Port-Harcourt premises and demolished the sprawling building. His grouse was that the owner of AIT, Raymond Dokpesi, took sides with ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar. In May this year, he also demolished the Bayelsa State Government’s (BASG) property which was located in Akasa Street, Old Government Residential Area in Port Harcourt.

Rivers State had been quaking since the disagreement between Wike and Fubara, his protégé, came into the public glare. It became so messy to the point that four lawmakers, led by factional Speaker, Ehie Ogerenye Edison, who swore loyalty to Fubara, sacked 27 other members, led by factional Speaker, Martin Amaewhule, who had earlier defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC). It has gone even messier, with several resignations from commissioners believed to have been nominated by Wike and the dual sittings by the two factions of state legislators.

The Fubara-ordered demolition of the House of Assembly was blood-curdling. Never had this democratic governance witnessed such massive propitiation of a collective monument to the god of personal political survival. This act reminds people of Qin Shi Huang, the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Also known by the sobriquet Qin Shihuangdi, he ordered the killing of Chinese scholars because he disagreed with their ideas. He was also renowned for ordering the burning of books he saw as critical to him. While he reigned, Qin ordered the construction of a great wall which was perceived as a prequel to the modern Great Wall of China, as well as an enormous mausoleum that had over 6,000 life-size terra-cotta soldier figures. He conscripted thousands of people who worked on the wall and eventually died in the process of building the Wall. He also ordered the killing of workers building the Chinese mausoleum for the preservation of the secrecy of the tomb. Whenever Qin captured foreign hostages, he ordered them castrated as a mark to delineate them as slaves. When the blood-curdling acts are considered, they seem like a higher version of the destruction of legislative memory than the demolition of the Rivers House of Assembly appears to be. This is so when you bear in mind that all the documents, memories, and codified acts of the Rivers legislature are today buried in ruins to keep Fubara in office and keep him at bay from the fangs and incisors of his Dracula nemesis, Wike.

In an earlier piece I did on the Wike-Fubara tango (Why was Wike admiring Adedibu’s bust? November 5, 2023), I sketched how Nigeria’s Fourth Republic had been replete with outgoing governors planting their puppets as successors and how this puppeteering had boomeranged colossally against them. It is only in Lagos and Bornu State (between Kashim Shettima and Babagana Umara Zulum are predecessor and successor) where a veneer of amity between godfather and godson is being maintained. In virtually all the states where this godfatherism is practiced, immediately the hands of these assumed puppets, in the words of a Yoruba aphorism, firmly clutch the handle of the sword, they get emboldened enough to stand up to their puppeteers and ask upsetting questions.

The last 23 years of godfather politics in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic have also been sustained by a clone of Niccolo Machiavelli’s political theory, which is in effect a theory of autocratic governance. Machiavelli, an Italian historian, and political philosopher, is notorious for his treatise on governance and statescraft through his 1532 book, The Prince. The book advocated cunningness and craftiness as weapons of political power and legitimized deceptive means as a ladder to climb to attain and retain power. Machiavelli taught that to attain and sustain political leadership, irrationality, and immorality are two major weapons to be deployed. Anything other than this for the ‘Prince’, says Machiavelli, is a catastrophe.

The Wike-Fubara episode however promises to brim with weeping, wailing, mourning, blood, and gnashing of the teeth. Since the advent of the Fourth Republic, Rivers has oscillated dangerously on the governorship curve, reflecting an uptick from the sublime to the outright deadly. Beginning with Odili, a medical doctor who is generally perceived to wear the visage of a gentleman, successful occupants of the governorship stool after him have mirrored the anti-feminist, patently patriarchal Yoruba saying that, rather than the woman perceived to be a witch being weaned of her witchcraft, she has kept giving birth to female children, who are potential witches as well. While Rotimi Amaechi appeared a deadly and no-nonsense politician, he was an apprentice when placed by the side of Wike, a pesky, authoritarian totalitarian who brooks no dissenting voice. Like all governors of Nigeria from 1999 who installed their puppets to prevent roaches in their cupboards from peering out for the world to see, Wike’s place-holding rulership of Rivers State, using his former Accountant General, Fubara has hit a deadly rock and violence is being deployed for its sustenance.

As said earlier, if Wike came to Fubara’s choice as the one to carry his piss-can simply on account of his pliable, gentlemanly demeanor, he must by now be reaping the fruits of his narrow-minded judgment. What Fubara lacks in not wearing a bellicose visage, he makes up for in his piratical meanness, a reincarnation of a sort of Qin. In Fubara is the first time the Ijaw are occupying the Brick House, apart from Alfred Papapreye Diete-Spiff, an Ijaw who was the first military governor of Rivers State after it was created from part of the old Eastern Region Eastern Region. Diete-Spiff held office from May 1967 to July 1975 in the military administration of General Yakubu Gowon.

Machiavelli’s Prince and the cruelty of the theory have since been occupying Rivers’ Bricks House. For the rulers of Machiavelli’s theory, the governor is a ruler and he must act contrary to truth, charity, and humanity. The religious exposition of meekness should have no place in his dictionary. To stay continually in power, so counsels Machiavelli, the ruler should act like a ‘man’ or ‘animal’. When you look at the demolition of the Rivers Assembly complex last week, you can judge by yourself who out of Machiavelli’s man or beast had the audacity and temerity to do so. This is because, for the Prince to rule, it is even not enough to act like an ordinary animal. Machiavelli recommends that he is to act like the beast, the fox, and the lion because he must imitate the ferocity of wild animals. There is nothing like the rule of law but anti-people acts in Machiavelli’s leadership conjuration.
Nevertheless, as dangerous and unexampled as the Fubara meanness in destroying the House of Assembly complex appears to be, Fubara deserves to vanquish Wike as a lesson to future gubernatorial godfathers that they can fool some people sometimes but cannot fool all the people all the time. The resignation galore from the Rivers State government by key commissioners in the cabinet has also revealed the palpable danger in and cruelty of gubernatorial godfathers. While Wike unabashedly told the world that he collected forms of expression of interest for all the state elected representatives, the resignations have confirmed the claim that he appointed the bulk of special advisers and commissioners in the Fubara government.

How Wike will wriggle out of this trap he entered into is a million-dollar question. Already, his fight against Fubara has been weaponized as an ethnic war against the marginalized goose that lays the golden egg of Nigeria’s oil hub, the Ijaw. If the age-long creek prowess of the Ijaw, their unanimity in construing the Wike fight as a war against the Ijaw people, will drill a huge hole in the barge of the fight. Arguably Nigeria’s fourth largest ethnic group who live in the coastal fringes, the Ijaw still maintain their pre-colonial kingdoms of Opobo, Kalabiri, Nembe, Brass, and Bonny which is now elongated to the creeks of Ondo State.

In the pre-colonial time, Ijaws said to have existed over 700 years ago, were reputed to have had early contacts with Europe and were by that very fact more prosperous than their hinterland neighbors. They were however marginalized in the states where they live. The exception is Bayelsa which is largely an Ijaw state. The activism of Ijaw youths who began their revolt against the Nigerian state in the 1990s showed their capacity to fight a war of any hue. This fight yielded fruits when President Umaru Yar’Adua granted them amnesty. The revolting youths had earlier formed pan-ethnic youth organizations like the Movement for the Survival of Ijaw Ethnic Nationality (MOSIEN), the Movement for Reparations to Ogbia (MORETO) and the Ijaw Youth Council (IJW). They also had the Egbesu Boys of Africa and FNDIC. It will be recalled that the Egbesu Boys gained public notoriety when a military onslaught was launched against them during the Kaiama Declaration. It was there that the perception of invincibility of its members grew, with tales of the inability of bullets to penetrate the warring boys, all thanks to the Egbesu deity, Ijaw’s god of war. Ijaws have frightful but notable sons like High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, Mujahid Asari Dokubo, president of IYC who established the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, (NDPVF), and Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo, known more by his sobriquet Tompolo, ex-MEND militant commander and chief priest of Egbesu.

Unlike the choleric Wike who overtly advertises his anger, Fubara is calm, hiding his Ijaw ancestral prowess under the veneer of this calmness. He still projects his underdog stand in the fight while allowing Wike to bark out his bad temper and be seen by the whole world as an unpretentious totalitarian.

How long this fight will endure is difficult to determine. Despite Fubara’s mean demolition of the State Assembly Complex, the general mood is tilted against Wike. Many are glad that he has finally met his comeuppance and the arrogant quills of his turtle dove have been lowered. Where the presidency’s sympathy lies in this whole fight, especially the political implication of government making enmity of the Ijaw, is also unclear. What is however clear is that, like the Yoruba say of one who has met their equal, the pigmy Wike has elected to buy his corn meal kept in a raffia palm-made basket that is far higher than him, where his hands and eyes could not select for him.

 

 

Dr. Festus Adedayo writes from Ibadan, Oyo state.

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El-Rufai’s SDP Gambit: A Political ‘Harakiri’ | By Adeniyi Olowofela

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Former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, is a restless and courageous politician. However, he ought to have learned political patience from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who spent years building a viable political alternative to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when its stalwarts boasted that they would rule Nigeria for 64 years.

Cleverly, Tinubu abandoned the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to establish another political platform, the Action Congress (AC), which later metamorphosed into the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

In collaboration with other political groups—including the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and some elements of the PDP—the All Progressives Congress (APC) was born, with El-Rufai as one of its foundation members. Ultimately, the APC wrestled power from the PDP, truncating its 64-year dominance plan.

For El-Rufai to abandon the APC now is nothing short of political suicide, as Tinubu is strategically positioned to secure a second term with an array of both seen and unseen political foot soldiers.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP), as a political entity, effectively died with the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola. Any attempt to resurrect it is an exercise in futility.

For the sake of argument, let’s consider a hypothetical scenario: Suppose another southern politician is fielded in 2027 and wins the election. Even if he signs an agreement to serve only one term, political realities could shift, and he may seek another four years.

If anyone doubts this, they should ask former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan. The simple implication of this is that President Tinubu remains the best candidate for northern politicians seeking a power shift back to the North in 2031—at which point El-Rufai could have been one of the credible northern contenders for the presidency.

When Ebenezer Babatope (Ebino Topsy), a staunch Awoist, chose to serve in General Sani Abacha’s regime, he later reflected on his decision, saying: “I have eaten the forbidden fruit, and it will haunt me till the end of my life.”

By abandoning the APC for another political party, El-Rufai has also eaten the forbidden fruit. Only time will tell if it will haunt him or not.

However, for some of the political leaders already contacted from the South West, supporting any party against President Tinubu would be akin to Judas Iscariot’s betrayal—a reputation no serious South West politician would want to bear.

El-Rufai’s departure from the APC to SDP is nothing short of a suicidal political move, reminiscent of Harakiri.

Prof. Adeniyi Olowofela, a former Oyo State Commissioner for Education, Science, and Technology and the Commissioner representing Oyo State at the Federal Character Commission (FCC), sent this piece from Abuja, the nation’s capital.

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Akpabio vs. Natasha: Too Many Wrongs Don’t Make A Right

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For most of last week, Senate President Godswill Akpabio was in the eye of the storm as his traducer, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, who represents Kogi Central, was relentless in getting her voice hear loud and clear.

Though the matter eventually culminated in the suspension of the Kogi senator for six months on Thursday, it is clear that the drama has not ended yet. The whole saga, as we have seen in the last few weeks, smacks many wrongs and few rights. The Senate scored some rights and some wrongs, the same for the Kogi senator. But in apportioning the rights and the wrongs, we have to distinguish between emotions and the rules.

Recall that in July of 2024, Senator Akpabio had compared the conduct of Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan to that of someone in a nightclub. That statement incensed the Kogi Central senator, the womenfolk, and a number of other senators. Days later, Akpabio, having sensed the mood of the Senate, spoke from his chair and said: “I will not intentionally denigrate any woman and always pray the God will uplift women, Distinguished Senator Natasha, I want to apologise to you.” That was expected of him and by that statement, Akpabio brought some calm into the relationship between him and the Kogi senator, but as we are to discover in the last two weeks, still waters do run fast under the surface.

The latest scene of the drama started with what looked like an innocuous development on the Senate floor. The Senate president, in exercise of the power conferred on him by the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Senate Rule book, made adjustments to the seats in the minority wing of the chamber and relocated Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan. The excuse was that following the defection of some senators from the minority side, seat adjustments had to be effected. That was within Akpabio’s power. Remember that the Senate Rule book does not only empower the Senate president to allocate seats, but he can also change the seats occasionally. So, Akpabio was right with that action. But perhaps Akpoti-Uduaghan, based on family relationships with the Akpabios, expected that she would have been alerted of the impending seat change. And on getting to the floor of the Senate to discover the seat switch, she got alarmed. Was she right to flare up? No, that is the answer. Apart from the powers of the Senate president to change seats allocated to senators, the rule book also says that every senator must speak from the seat allocated. The implication is that anything a senator says outside the allocated seat will not go into the Senate records. The Senate, or any parliament for that matter, is a regulated environment. The Hansards take records of every word and action made on the floor of the chamber. And so, it is incumbent on every senator to follow the rules.

So, on Thursday, February 20, when Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan raised hell over her seat relocation and engaged Senator Akpabio in a shouting match, she was on the wrong side of the Senate Rule book. No Senator is expected to be unruly. In fact, unruly conduct can be summarily punished by the presiding officer. It is important to note that the rules of the Senate treat the occupier of the chair of Senate President like a golden egg. The President of the Senate is the number three citizen in the country, even though he was elected to represent a constituency like his colleagues. He is first among equals, but the numero uno position comes with a lot of difference.

A legislative expert once told me that the Chair of the President of the Senate must be revered at all times and that infractions to the rules are heavily punished unless the offender shows penitence. The rule says the President of the Senate must be heard in silence; Senators must avoid naming (being called out for unruly conduct); and that any situation that compels the President of the Senate to rise up to hit the gavel in trying to restore order could earn the culprit (any named senator) summary dismissal. Those are the powers of the President of the Senate, which Madam Natasha was trying for size. I think it is important that Senators are taken through inductions on the rules and regulations, whether they got in mid-term or at the beginning of the session.

Rules are very key to operations in a big club like the Senate or the House of Representatives. But as we will later discover on this page, the number of years spent on the floor does not necessarily guarantee a clear understanding of the rules.

Well, as we saw it, Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan raised hell by protesting the decision of the Senate to relocate her seat. She was out of order, and her colleagues noted the same. With another presiding officer, she could have been suspended right there. But Akpabio didn’t do that. Then, the Kogi Central senator opened another flank, this time, outside of the Senate chamber. She granted an interview to Arise television, claiming that she had been sexually harassed by Akpabio. Here, too, Senator Natasha was on the wrong side of the Senate rules. Yes, she has a right of freedom of speech, but if the right must be meaningfully exercised, she must do so in compliance with the rules of the club she belongs-the Senate. This is expressly so because she is covered by Order 10 of the Senate Rule Book, which permits her to raise issues of privilege without previously notifying the President of the Senate or the presiding officer. The elders and the holy books also say that when you remove the log from the eyes, you show it to the eyes. As a club, the senate detests the washing of its dirty linen in the public. Such conduct led to the suspension of the late Senators Arthur Nzeribe and Joseph Waku, as well as Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, Senator Ali Ndume and even Senator Abdul Ningi in recent past.

Rather than go to the court of public opinion to accuse Akpabio of sexual harassment, Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan should have quietly assumed the seat allocated to her, raise her complaints through Order 10 and at the same time tender details of her sexual harassment allegation against Akpabio and seek Senate’s intervention. If she had done that, she would have been on the right side of Senate Rules and had Akpabio by the balls. As much as the Senate rules forbid a senator from submitting a petition he or she personally signed, the Senate does not forbid any lawmaker from raising allegations that affect either their rights or privileges on the floor. Several newspaper editors have been summoned before the Ethics Committee to answer questions of alleged breach of the privilege of senators. I recall that as correspondents in the chamber, senators were always unhappy each time we scooped a story or blow open a report they were about to submit. Such senators didn’t need to write a petition. They would only come to the floor and raise points of order on privilege. Senator Akpoti- Uduaghan failed to do that.

But the conduct of the Senate President and some of the principal officers on Wednesday, March 5, left so much to be desired of the Senate. I was shocked to see Senator Akpabio rule Senator Natasha in order; he also ruled Senator Mohammed Monguno in order as well as Senator Opeyemi Bamidele. How do you have three right rulings on one issue? First, he allowed Senator Natasha to lay a defective petition on the Senate table. That’s expressly out of order. In the days of Senate Presidents David Mark, Bukola Saraki, and Ahmad Lawan, we saw how such scenes were handled. A David Mark would simply ask the senator, ‘Distinguished Senator, please open to Order 40(4) and read’. By the time the senator finished reading the order and seeing the order had negatived his or her motion, he would only be begging to withdraw that motion. That was not the case with Akpabio. And to make matters worse, the clerks at the table were also looking lost. They could not guide the presiding officer in any way. That tells a bit about human resource capacity in the assembly. But then the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele and the Chief Whip, Mohammed Monguno, who have spent quite a long time in the National Assembly, should know better. Their interventions did more damage to Akpabio’s Senate. Once the President of the Senate had ruled Senator Natasha in order to submit a petition she personally signed, (against the rules of the Senate which forbids such), and the Kogi Central senator had approached the chair and laid the petition on the table, the matter in a way becomes sub judice, to borrow the language of the law. The Senate Rule Book classifies such an action as “Matters Not open to Debate.” So at that point, the matter was no longer open to debate. Since the gavel has been hit and the action has been taken, no senator has the right to reopen the case. It was wrong of Senator Bamidele and Monguno to immediately start to revisit a closed matter, and that’s illegal. It is wrong for Akpabio to allow it.

I recall an incident in the 6th Senate when President Umaru Yar’Adua was bedridden in Saudi Arabia. Some senators moved a motion, seeking the Senate to constitute a panel to visit Saudi and ascertain the health status of the president. Somehow, when the motion was finally passed on a day, Senator Ike Ekweremadu presided, it turned out that the motion only mandated the Federal Executive Council to do the assignment. The original proponents of the motion were enraged, but they were not allowed to reopen the matter. They had to go into lobbying and eventually secured signatures of two-thirds of the Senate to re-table the matter and that paved the way for the adoption of the famous “Doctrine of Necessity.” That’s how serious the matter should be handled, but it was trivialized by Akpabio, the Senate Leader and Senate Whip. That’s on the wrong side of the rule.

Now that Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan has been suspended, many would say she was being silenced. That is far from the truth. Her suspension was on the basis of what the senate perceived as unruly behavior on the floor. We are yet to hear the details of her sexual harassment allegations, and I believe that she has avenues to ventilate that. Nigerians earnestly await these details, which should be salacious enough to help us cool off some heat.

 

 

 

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Now that Natasha has made Akpabio happy

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In South Africa under the presidency of Jacob Zuma, any analysis of government and governance without factoring sex into the mix was tame and lame. Zuma was a notorious polygamist who had six official wives as president, many more by unofficial account and 22 children from the liaisons.

He was a kingpin of lechery. On May 8, 2006, a South African court under Judge van der Merwe acquitted him of rape of Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo, an HIV-positive AIDS activist, who was the daughter of his friend, Judson Kuzwayo. During trial, Zuma pleaded that the sex was consensual but admitted that he had unprotected sex with the lady. He then stunned the world with his bizarre claim that he had “showered afterwards to cut the risk of contracting the infection.”

 

In the process of studying power relations in Nigeria, sex as a phenomenon is often understudied or underrated. In other words, while power relations are known to be shaped by a complex interplay of factors that range from the economic, political, social, to the cultural, including individual characteristics and relationship dynamics, hardly are gender and sex reckoned with.

 

In my piece of March 6, 2022 with the title, Buhari’s Serial Rape Of Nigeria’s Lady Justice, I doubled down on a sub-theme of the powerful role sex plays in national politics. To do justice to this, I recalled a September 7, 2008 cartoon sketched by Jonathan Shapiro, award-winning cartoonist with the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times whose cartoon identity was Zapiro. I illustrated the piece with a submission that though political cartooning may look harmless, it can be nerve-racking, provoking the bile of political office holders and triggering a huge political umbrage in the process. This cartoon triggered a huge ball of fire in South Africa. Named ‘Rape of Lady Justice’, in it, Zuma, who was then leader of the African National Congress (ANC), and later to become president, was seen loosening his trousers’ zippers for a sexual romp. On his head was a shower cap. Before him, flung on the bare floor, was a blindfolded lady with a lapel inscribed, “Justice System” hung on her chest.

 

Four hefty and menacing-looking men knelt by the Lady Justice’s side, holding down the “wench”, whose skirt was half peeled off. They were political surrogates of Zuma in the ANC, which included Julius Malema, then leader of the ANC Youth League. The scale of justice had fallen down beside the Lady Justice, with one of the men smilingly beckoning on Zuma to clamber her, muttering, “Go for it, boss!”

 

That cartoon shot Zuma into a fit. Indeed, he immediately sued Zapiro for the sum of £700,000. Massive reactions followed it, ranging from the condemnatory to the laudatory. The ANC, SACP and ANC Youth League pilloried it as “hate speech,” “disgusting” and “bordering on defamation of character” and then petitioned the South African Human Rights Commission for redress.

 

I went into all these dogo turenchi, just as I did in another piece I wrote on February 6, 2022, to ask that we must not underrate the power of sex in high places. In that February piece, I borrowed a line from Irish poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde, who said, “everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power”. With it, I submitted that the Wilde theory should tell us that there is an intersection between gender, sexual power and political power. This was further escalated by renowned scholar, Prof Wale Adebanwi, in one of his journal articles, where he submitted that “the African man of power must display or exhibit his virility – particularly sexual virility.” In the same vein, Zimbabwean journalist and blogger, Fungai Machirori, urged us to study the sexual histories of our men in power because, from the rhythm of their silently dangling penises, we may find a compass to their politics.

 

Last Thursday, the ghost of the spat between Senate President, Godswill Akpabio and senator representing Kogi West, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, will seem to have rested. In the relations of power in the senate, on that day, Akpabio, it will seem, had succeeded in showing Akpoti-Uduaghan that, as bland-looking as the old Nigerian pence looked, it was not a currency to be trifled with by the Kobo coin (Bí tọrọ ṣe yọ to, kíì s’ẹgbẹ Kọbọ). Not only was she suspended for six months for violating senate rules and bringing the senate “to public opprobrium”, her salary and security details were withdrawn while her office would be locked during the pendency of the suspension.

 

If you watched the senate proceedings leading to Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension, you would be sorry for Nigeria. Then, African-American Sterling Brown would come to your mind, just as you visualize Jonathan Shapiro’s cartoon in Akpabio figuratively loosening his trousers’ zippers for a forceful sexual romp with the Lady Justice. With same lens, you would see Majority Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, Adenigba Fadahunsi and other fawning senators holding down the “wench”, smilingly beckoning Akpabio to “Go for it, boss!”

 

Like Africans, African-Americans grew to know the wisdom which teaches that injustice is a furnace that burns and destroys. The life of Sterling Brown, professor at America’s Howard University, folklorist, poet and literary critic, was chiefly dedicated to studying black culture. In one of his poems entitled “Old Lem,” Brown wrote about mob violence and injustice which black people suffered in the hands of the American criminal justice system. American writer and civil rights activist, James Baldwin’s ‘The Fire Next Time’ also speaks to this theme. In the America of the time, black parents, aware of the danger of their blackness and the violence and death they could suffer, deployed folklore to cushion them, even as they told stories that depicted their skewed realities.

 

There was this famous folklore told to African-American children while growing up. Entitled “Old Sis Goose,” it goes thus, as I reproduce it verbatim: One day, “while swimming across a pond, Sis Goose got caught by Brer Fox. Sis gets pissed off because she believes that she has a perfect right to swim in the pond. She decides to sue Brer Fox. But when the case gets to court, Sis Goose looks around and sees that besides the Sheriff who is a fox, the judge is a fox, the prosecuting and defence attorneys are ones too and even the jury is comprised entirely of foxes. Sis Goose doesn’t like her chances. Sure enough at the end of the trial, Sis Goose is convicted and summarily executed. Soon, the jury, judge, Sheriff and the attorneys are picking on her bones.”

 

The morals of this old anecdote are two. One, as encapsulated in one of the lines of Apala musician, Ayinla Omowura’s track, is that, if you do not have a representative in a council where your matter will be decided, even if you are right, you would be adjudged guilty. The second moral is that, if the courthouse is filled with foxes and you are an ordinary, lonely goose, there will be no justice for you.

 

In the senate last week, Akpoti-Uduaghan was Sis Goose who looked around and saw that, beside the judge, Akpabio who is a fox, the prosecuting and defence attorneys were all foxes, too. Even the jury is comprised entirely of foxes. Though they appeared as unbiased umpire senators, they were flesh-starved foxes baying for blood of the hapless little Goose. And Sis Goose was summarily executed.

 

First, we must realize that, just like other Nigerian institutions, the power, glory, graft and corruption at the beck and call of Akpabio’s senate presidency is breathtakingly awesome and humongous. Don’t mind his suffocation of these agencies in his most times nauseating jokes, Akpabio has the power to literally turn anyone’s night into day. If you enter his senate as a pauper and find favour in his ego, you could upstage Mansa Musa, ninth Mansa of the Mali empire’s wealth. Owing to this largesse in his hands, as ants gravitate towards the pee of a diabetic, the senate president has the pleasure of a humongous number of solicited and unsolicited fawners and senatorial Oraisa (praise-singers) and hangers-on latching to his apron strings. It is a tactic to have a bite of the corruptive mountain of pies in the hands of the titular. This need to grovel by the feet of power was affirmed by Senator Opeyemi Bamidele. Akpoti-Uduaghan had alleged that, in a midnight call he made to her, he had threatened that, if Akpabio went down, she, too (ostensibly meaning a huge mound of free wealth) would similarly go into the incinerator.

 

As I recalled last week, immediately Akpoti-Uduaghan leveled allegations of sexual harassment against Akpabio on Arise TV, a build-up began to salvage Akpabio, the King Fox and prevent the largesse empire from falling. First came Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, senator representing Ebonyi North. Nwaebonyi’s fawning is nauseating. On a television show, he acknowledged Akpabio, a first among equals senator, as “our father” and had to be rebuked like an erring kindergarten pupil by the anchor of the programme. Nwaebonyi later came back to attack Akpoti-Uduaghan in the unkindest manner as a serial philanderer. Thereafter came Ireti Kingibe and Neda Imasuen. While Kingibe, who claimed to have driven herself to the television station, struggled frenetically to make her female senator colleague the victimizer, she deodorized King Fox as her victim. Imasuen, chairman senate committee on ethics, even before his committee sat on the alleged infraction of Akpoti-Uduaghan, told the world on another television interview that Akpabio shared same beatification qualities with Angel Gabriel. The question then is, if Nwaebonyi, Kingibe, Yemi Adaramodu and Imasuen could externalize an issue on television and not the parliament, what criminalizes, in the so-called senate rules, Akpoti-Uduaghan doing same?

 

At the televised senate hearing, King Fox, in defiance of the rules of equity and justice, was judge, jury and accused who sat in judgment over his own case. Second, it was obvious that the foxes had gathered for Akpoti-Uduaghan’s legislative obsequies. It was also apparent that the executioners had been carefully selected for the job. One by one, the senators assembled arsenal with which to shed the Kogi senator’s blood. Chief Whip Mohammed Monguno clinically prepared the guillotine. Spears, axes, knives and swords were readied. Monguno stood up and went into oblique narration of how Standing Order 55(1) had been violated. Now, like an objectionable character, a meddlesome interloper who Yoruba call Karambani, Kogi West Senator, Sunday Karimi, acting like all fawners at the feet of power, admitted he put Akpabio in “this problem” because he pleaded with King Fox to allot chairmanship position to Akpoti-Uduaghan.

 

Then, Ade Fadahunsi, ex-Customs officer, representing Osun East, began his own gibber on the floor of the senate. While accepting that the senate was a consequential parliament and that its integrity(?) had gone down, Fadahunsi saw the allegation of sexual harassment against King Fox as “mere trivial matter” and admitted he didn’t “want to know what is the undercurrent.” In his parliamentary arrogance, Fadahunsi even saw it as “an insult” for “a radio we licensed” to invite a man alleged to have gone on a rampaging libido to come and explain what he saw inside the pot of soup that made him tilt his hands suggestively (t’ó rí l’obe t’ó fí gaaru ọwọ). Fadahunsi then lifted the bible to reify his doggerel, fawning over King Fox in the process.

 

Still during the executioners’ hearing aimed at taking Akpoti-Uduaghan through the gallows, Mohammed Dandutse, representing Katsina South senatorial district, stood up, his babanriga fluffing helplessly like the lame hand of an invalid. He waffled so pitiably that you would wonder what he was talking about. After him, Cyril Fasuyi, in his usual kowtow, did not fail to fawn. Even Senator Ita Giwa, on television, propounded a bizarre theory which argued that, once a woman had risen to become a senator, she was immune to sexual harassment. This pitiably suggested that a woman senator must have had enough of men to be moved by the typhoon of their harassment. Nigerians’ mouths were agape.

 

So many issues crop up from the Akpoti-Uduaghan travails. The first can be seen from Opeyemi Bamidele’s argument in favour of her suspension. During this executioners’ session, he argued that the Kogi senator must have been so execrable in behaviour that, all political parties, all genders and all age demographics were in alignment with King Fox against her. Opeyemi did not tell Nigerians that the executioner senators were only defending their esophaguses in the hands of King Fox.

 

As argued by many, the National Assembly is our modern day equivalent of the “I” as “We” thesis, the secrecy and single-purpose pursuit cult of the Yoruba Ogboni fraternity. Espoused by Peter Morton-Williams in his journal article entitled, “The Yoruba Ogboni Cult” (Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Oct., 1960, pp. 362-374) Morton-Williams didn’t follow Leo Frobenius’ earlier 1910 examination of the Ogboni cult in Ibadan, in the process of which he referred to its members as “mystery-mongering greybeards’.

 

Morton-Williams classified the Ogboni Cult into two grades membership – the Wé-Wé -Wé – ‘children’ of the cult, its junior grade Ologboni or Alawo (Owners of the Mystery or the Secret), and the the Olori Oluwo, ritual head of the Ogboni. The Nigerian senate is similarly classified, with the Senate President replicating the Oluwo. The senate chambers, which is akin to the Ilédì (lodge) of the Ogboni, is where secrets are lidded. In Ogboni cult, kolanuts are split and eaten as an act of reminder that the Ogboni members are bonded in secrecy. This act makes it very hard for any of the Ogboni to factionalize the fraternity and breaking the pod of secrecy that binds the cult. Any member who violates this code courts ritual sanction. As the Ẹdan Ogboni, a pair of brass/bronze figure that represents male/female, linked by a chain, is a symbol of membership and abidance by the rules, so is the Senate Order book. So, when Remi Tinubu, a woman who had also once been a victim of verbal sexual flagellation, also came out to reinforce the power of the secrecy of the Senate over an alleged debasement of womanhood, it only confirmed the fraternal solidarity of this modern senate cult.

 

The Akpoti-Uduaghan travails have so many symbolisms. One is gender, in which case, the Kogi senator is suffering the audacity of her femininity. In this patriarchal society, it is a crime for a woman to be beautiful, brainy and, on top of it, attempt to disrupt the status-quo. The penal sanction meted out to such disruptors is ostracism or death, as is in the Ogboni cult. Second is that, as the pigeon (eyele), the bird that eats and drinks with the house owner in time of plenty, the senate fraternity considers it sacrilegious for Akpoti-Uduaghan to repudiate the fraternity oath. The Ilédì, Senate chambers, a la Senator Ita Giwa, is home for the lascivious, the sleazy and the heart-wrenching. As the harvest for the seed of membership of Ogboni is prestige, wealth and societal honour, for the Nigerian senator, it is humongous cash. If Akpoti-Uduaghan is aquaphobic, not ready to face the ostracism that logically comes from fighting a fraternity’s status-quo of which she had been a member, she had no reason to jump inside the river.

 

For the man of power, sex is a conquest game, won either by shedding drops of a virile libido or the victory of ego over a woman traducer. It was what Adebanwi meant by his “the African man of power must display or exhibit his virility – particularly sexual virility.” As it stands now, Fox Akpabio has succeeded, according to Akpoti-Uduaghan’s unsubstantiated allegation, in being “made happy” through his summary execution of the Goose. For how long? Only time will tell.

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