Some two or three decades ago, there were certain news we heard or saw over the television from other lands and we shrugged and said such things would never happen in Nigeria. How wrong we were! Today, worst things are happening before our own very eyes. The Ozubulu massacre last Sunday was purely alien to us some years back. We have lost our sense of morality and have made nonsense of our value system; sanctity has been vulgarised. The erosion of our once-cherished values started with a craving for unmerited relevance and mindless acquisition of money- the worship of mammon. The political system in the country has given impetus to this; those who aspire to political offices in Nigeria have at the back of their minds, the craving to amass wealth through that avenue. They see such offices as avenues to loot and pauperise the very people they are supposed to serve. This politics-as-huge-business syndrome was amplified in Anambra State some years back, when some young men whose sources of stupendous wealth were unknown, determined who contested and who won electoral offices. At a point in Anambra State, all the political office holders- from the local government to the National Assembly were installed by a clique who determined how allocations from Abuja were shared. It was also before our own very eyes that Chris Ngige, the then governor of the state, was nearly killed as a result of his refusal to acquiesce to continuous rape of the state by his godfathers. In Anambra, money is the language; its source notwithstanding. Drug barons rule like lords and many individuals and organisations, including the church, look the other way as they accept huge gifts and donations from crooks. The sad episode at Ozubulu mirrored the extent to which some people can go to express their anger over some misunderstanding with others. It also showed the value some people place on money and other ephemeral things. Some critics are now wondering if the man at the centre of the episode- Aloysius alias Bishop- was not the secret financier of Willie Obiano’s election in 2013? The church that should lead people to righteousness is accepting the type of gifts that ‘blind the eyes.”Today, some priests in Anambra worship money and moneybags; they take delight in frolicking with questionable characters in their domain. In Igboland, it is not usual for a young man of 36 years to have made the kind of money being associated with ‘Bishop’. Reason being that many of the youths in Igboland are not born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouth, they labour to eke out a living. So, it is not usual to see many under 40 as stupendously rich as the likes of Aloysius. We have descended so low into the abyss of immorality and loss of value that no one asks anyone how he/she came about his/her intimidating wealth. A good number of those boys are into various occult groups where they have mortgaged their souls for money; they do human sacrifices apart from the drug businesses they engage in. But if we say we have governments, part of their duties should be to identify evil people in society and declare a war against them. It appears that even those in government are also in such bloody business. They interact with their subjects in the day, but at night, they meet in their covens where they take higher decisions to keep the people perpetually in bondage. One thing is sure, all vain acquisition of power and money follows no one beyond this shore. They are all vanities.
Reward for evil?
It’s shocking to read that those who abducted the pupils of the Lagos State Model School would be deployed into securing pipelines. The Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Brigadier-General Paul Boroh announced that the kidnappers had been included in the Amnesty Programme as a condition for the release of the children, and would be deployed to secure the nations’ pipelines. The arrangement may have been born out of genuine intention to rehabilitate the bad boys, but the fear is that such a gesture could be misunderstood and may encourage other youths to go into kidnapping. There are many idle hands roaming the streets and this kind of announcement could spur them into nursing evil thoughts. While we want to wean bad youths out of crime, we must be very careful not to entice others into it!
Fayose and the burden of leadership
Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti State, has been seen to be controversial. In his first coming as a governor, he had a problem with the then president, Olusegun Obasanjo and he was sacked from his seat. Fayose returned to the seat following a wide gap which Kayode Fayemi, a former governor refused to fill. Fayemi essentially lost his return bid to the power stool in Ekiti following widespread allegations that his administration was elitist, while the masses were neglected. He was also accused of only speaking “fine English” in the midst of wants in his domain. So, when Fayose dangled what looked like populist ideology and pretended to be pro-people, he was adored and elected as governor in 2014. With the stomach infrastructure gambit which he used as a bait, he won the gubernatorial election clean and square. Then, with the mass-appeal disposition, he arrogated to himself the status of a “messiah” and the defender of the masses. During the trying moments of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), when it appeared the opposition had lost its voice, Fayose provided one. He jammed propaganda and falsehood to sell his message. When he discovered that some Nigerians loved his vituperations against the ruling party and the person of President Buhari, he increased the tempo. At a press conference he addressed in the month of June, the governor insisted that the president was brain dead and on life support. He claimed that Buhari would never have the mental capacity to further preside over the Nigeria nation as president. He challenged anyone that had any proof to the contrary to put a lie to his claims. He so spoke convincingly that many people were taken in. At every opportunity he had at that time, he seized it to rehash the tune of the president being in a vegetable condition, health-wise. But the visits by some group of Nigerians to London to see the president may have proven him to be economical with words. Some critics have since branded his incessant outburst against Abuja as “rabble-rousing”. This, unfortunately, is not good coming from a state governor who is supposed to be a role model to children and youths in his domain. This has also put a question mark on the quality of “leaders” Nigeria is producing nowadays.
Middle Belt youths and belated quit notice on herdsmen
This is a season of quit notices. Everybody is busy issuing quit notice. It began with the experiment by the Northern coalition of Arewa youths on the Igbo living in their domain. In the month of June also, the Niger Delta militants under the aegis of Coalition of Niger Delta agitators and youth leaders across the Niger Delta issued an ultimatum to all northerners living in the Niger Delta to vacate the area within three-months. Last Tuesday, a coalition of Middle Belt Youths asked herdsmen to vacate the region beforeOctober 1. The coalition operating under the umbrella of Middle Belt Renaissance Forum believes that the region will no longer stomach the senseless massacres that had taken place in the area in the last few months. Although the position is welcome, SKETCHES thinks it is coming a little bit late when the damage had been done. The middle Belt has borne the brunt of Fulani herdsmen’s attack. Benue and Taraba States have suffered terribly in the hands of the blood-tasty vampires. Repeatedly, many communities of Benue State have been mercilessly attacked by the herdsmen. Recall that the state House of Assembly recently voted against the anti-grazing bill. It is believed that had this quit notice come earlier, the number of casualties recorded in the attacks by the Fulani herdsmen would not have been as alarming as it is now.
Obasanjo, Atiku going back to the PDP?
In politics, it is said that there is no permanent friend or foe, but permanent interest. If this is true, it is not impossible for the likes of Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar, a former president and vice president, respectively, to return to the People’s Democratic Party. Obasanjo, it would be recalled, dumped the PDP, a party that gave him the presidential ticket in 1999 shortly after he was released from the Abacha gulag. He made a show of it by tearing his membership card before television cameras. That was at the peak of his misunderstanding with former President Goodluck Jonathan. But, Obasanjo may have thought that he would work very closely with President Muhammadu Buhari and that may not be playing out. So, if anybody is saying that he may eat the humble apple by returning to the umbrella party, such a one may not be saying jargon, particularly when Sule Lamido may be aspiring to contest the presidency in 2019 on that platform. For Atiku Abubakar, the Adamawa State-born politician who has oscillated from one party to the other since he left office in 2007, and who felt hard-done-by by the All Progressives Congress (APC), which after fleecing him during the presidential primaries of the party held inside the main bowl of Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos, dumped him for Buhari, he may not think twice jumping ship again. But whether he will join the PDP is not easy to determine now for the simple reason that he would have the likes of Lamido to contend with. But the truth is that the body language of the Turaki Adamawa does not indicate he would stay in the APC any longer than next year. The man appears pissed off by the way the party is being run and the shenanigans playing out from there. He may just be bidding his time there.
Zebulon Agomuo
