The shameful exit of a despot
“Kingdoms rise and wane” is an expression that has stood the test of time. All through the ages, many so-called powerful leaders, who ruled their people with an iron fist and made themselves a tin-god, have come and gone.
Some of them fell when they least expected it. King Belshazzar of the old Babylonian Empire, who ruled as though there was no God, was humbled just in one day after he had been weighed in God’s own balance and found wanting.
His iniquities were so many that God sent a strange hand to do some scary writing on the wall as a mark of a no-confidence vote.
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The hand wrote – ‘mene, mene, tekel, upharsin’ (Aramaic: numbered, numbered, weighed, divided) His actions were weighed, numbered and found wanting; his kingdom was divided and his reign finished).
Last week, a despot in Zimbabwe was shown the way out of office after a fiendish occupation of power stool for 37 years! Robert Mugabe is his name. The Zimbabweans went through excruciating pain. They experienced barefaced corruption and all manner of rights abuses.
At 93, and with a failing health, Mugabe’s shadows cast dangerously on every part of his country. He dealt with members of the opposition in such a shrewd way that some of them will never forget all through the remaining years of their lives. He turned Zimbabwe into a fiefdom of sorts. The old fox had made a succession plan that favoured Grace, his wife. But this did not go down well with certain people in Zimbabwe, who now determined to end the satanic regime. In what the Zimbabwean military described as “bloodless correction,” Mugabe and his wife were last Thursday taken into custody after a night of mutiny. Today, despite his brashness and larger-than-life disposition, he has just discovered that the Zimbabweans were merely tolerating him.
This is a lesson for all other “brothers” of Mugabe across the continent of Africa, who have held down the levers of growth and development in their various countries through their despotic manifestation. One bad fruit has fallen, so shall all others that are no longer useful on the tree hit the ground soonest.
We are watching.
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Oh, Apapa, Apapa!
In 2013 when our head office was relocated to the Apapa area of Lagos State, we celebrated. The celebration was because, unlike the accommodation we left in Amuwo Odofin area, the Apapa office is a complete world-class edifice that elevated our business. Although there were signs of a traffic snarl on the road leading to Apapa at that time, none of us imagined that the city would get to the sorry state it is currently.
At that time, for some of us who live in Surulere, it was a matter of 10 to 15 minutes drive, we were in the office.
But gradually, Apapa lost its innocence and became a hell of a place. For some of us, it is no longer a matter of working in a conducive office, but the thought of getting to the office is a constant nightmare. A movement from Surulere to Apapa that used to last a matter of 15 minutes maximum is now taking two hours or more. Today, driving to the office in Apapa is like going to the purgatory. The commercial bus drivers are not finding it easy either. Now, we only access Apapa easily on commercial motorcyclists at a huge cost and risk. You know why? From Ojuelegba, where Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has chased away bus drivers to plant flowers under the bridge, a cyclist charges between N500 to N700 to ferry you to Apapa.
These cyclists move on the opposite side of the road, facing upcoming heavy-duty vehicles- tankers, trailers, and all manner of rickety automobiles that still ply the roads. Although the ride is usually fraught with huge risk, people whose means of livelihood are still located there have no option than to find any means to get there.
Originally, Apapa was a well-planned city and was meant for Nigerian, Indian Lebanese and British settlers. Apapa has banks and other financial institutions in abundance, there are huge manufacturing firms, assembly plants and hordes of import-export logistics companies clearing and forwarding agents. It also boasts of several hotels and hospitability facilitates. All these have been imperilled by the traffic snarl occasioned by an increasing number of heavy-duty vehicles moving in and out to lift imported goods from the ports or the tankers going in and out to lift refined petrol from the ubiquitous tank farms that have taken over Apapa. The saddest thing of all is that government appears helpless as various meetings and consultations by all layers of government to find a lasting solution appear to have yielded no fruit and hope for a respite is not even in sight.
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Finally, Buhari visits the neglected zone
Like play, like play, President Muhammadu Buhari touched the soil of South-East geopolitical zone two years and ten months after he took the oath of office. Before now, the President had been branded a hater of the Igbo through his utterances and body language, his actions and inactions also.
Shortly after he was elected into office, he was quoted as saying that he would not treat all the sections of the country equally, specifically referring to the South-East where he claimed he received only 5 per cent votes.
He began to put his threat into action by sideling the zone in important appointments. This obvious moral equivalence of war cast him in the mould of number one enemy of the people. For this reason, the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo cried foul; members if the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) became more vehement in its agitation for secession, arguing that the South East had no reason remaining in a country where they were hated with a passion. For the obvious neglect of the S/East, Olisa Agbakoba had, on two occasions, dragged the Federal Government to court over the infrastructure deficit in the zone, particularly the dilapidated state of the Niger Bridge that provides a link between South-East and South-South.
The senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) also dragged the Buhari administration to court over its refusal to appoint someone from the South-East into the NNPC Board. Agbakoba viewed these calculated neglect as clear evidence that there must be a deliberate policy to keep the Igbo of the South East perpetually down in political considerations.
The Operation Python Dance (Egwu Eke), which the military, at the instance of the President declared in Abia State a few months ago that claimed lives of many youths of the South-East extraction, also raised the bar of resentment for Abuja.
Last Tuesday, Buhari braced it and visited Ebonyi State through Enugu State. There he was given all manner of names and other recognitions. The five governours of the zone rallied the traditional, religious institutions and others to give the President a rousing welcome.
Before the visit, some people thought that Buhari should not be allowed to step his foot into the zone on account of the perceived hatred for the South-East. But what the Igbo political, traditional and religious leaderships have done by welcoming and accepting him was just a message in love. It would be unthinkable if the South East rejected the president. What they simply did was a case of “Ana achu aja, ikpa anama ndi nmuo.” They have pushed the ball to him. They want the President to use his tongue and count his teeth.
Thank goodness, he promised a ‘better deal” for S/East. Now that he has been branded the “Enyioma I” of Ebonyi; only time will tell if he will really prove himself a good friend, not just of Ebonyi, but of the entire South-East.
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Not yet uhuru for PDP
After two years of acrimony and leadership tussle that left the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in tatters; it appears the umbrella organisation did not learn anything from its past ordeal.
When some months ago the law court resolved the impasse, many Nigerians thought it was now time for the PDP to play its role as the main opposition party in the land. It appears that the race for the chairmanship position has presented a fresh crisis for the party. It began with the initial zoning of the chairmanship slot to the South West. But after some individuals such as Olabode George and Gbenga Daniel had begun an intensive campaign for the post; the national office of the party began to stammer, saying the slot was never zoned to the South West.
They now adopted “open race” clause, while some favour South-South for the position. This is likely to further tear the party apart from as those who may feel cheated and hard-done-by could decide to dump the PDP. It was also alleged that Ahmed Makarfi, the interim chairman, was planning to impose someone on the party as chairman. The earlier the PDP resolves this imbroglio, the better for it. And time is not on their side.
Zebulon Agomuo
