Columns
Dangote fuel: Nigeria will get mercy when they deserve it!
By Sunny Igboanugo
Dangote, NNPC: Too early to cry, too late to beg Tinubu
Greed is one of the most debilitating diseases a man could suffer, if not the most devastating. Now, let me tell you about greed. In fact, let me cite an example of how destructive the demon of greed could be both to the person that becomes a victim by coming under its grips and the society that shares as a victim.
Did you know about Pablo Escobar? Full name: Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria! He was not only the most notorious drug baron in Columbia, if not world history, but the richest criminal of global reckon, amassing, before his death in 1993, more than $30billion from the production and sale of hard drugs. In today’s rating, the raking of the infamous drug-lord, founder of the Medellin Cartel, has been put at well over $70billion.
Now, imagine if he were still alive. His earnings must have hit trillions of dollars. But never doubt that he would not only have remained in that business, but would have continued to accumulate more, regardless the havoc of his wicked enterprise. Why? Simple – the spirit of money. Irrespective the amount of money he must have amassed, he would still be in it. After all, he was, until he was finally caged by the law and died as a result.
In fact, one account quoted Roberto Escobar, accountant to the late kingpin, as saying the gang spent $2,500 a month for buying rubber bands to wrap his stacks of cash alone. Just imagine that. You’re talking about more than N5million in today’s equivalent. Mind you, we’re not talking about electronics or garments – those tiny rubber used in binding money – $2,500 worth monthly. Damn! That must be truckloads of bags of the stuff. Just to bind money! Yet, he never stopped. That is the disease of greed.
It is as contagions as the substance Escobar and his gang sold – more intoxicating than the hardest liquor – more deleterious than cancer – and more dangerous than the worst crime. It steals the soul from the victim and replaces it with stone or something more innate and more lifeless. It turns human beings into monsters – merciless beasts that kill and destroy without pity.
Now, take a sample of how beastly Escobar was. I’ll start with what he did to those who opposed him. A judge, was said to have given a judgement against him in court. Guess what he did? The judge was kidnapped by his henchmen and brought before him. After the personal encounter, the unfortunate jurist, one in many of his victims, was taken into a helicopter and flown high enough and let off in the middle of the city, head-first, so that when he crashed on the hard ground, the mess made by the brain that splashed on the ground, decorated the road like a paint. That was to teach others to be more prudent with their ideas.
That was just one part. There were other more blood-chilling stories. Though an outlaw himself, he was said to be merciless against those who went against the rules, particularly pinching his money. Ordinarily, you became stupendously rich by working in his well-knit organisation. But that was until you got itchy fingers. Then, you were taught a practical lesson of the difference in his diametrically opposing world – of maximum pleasure and agonising pains.
For it was said of him that stealing from his vast wealth was the greatest sin in his empire. The consequences, was in fact, worse than attempting to double-cross him. You could picture what such punishment would be! Horrible death! Hanging could the most merciful. Otherwise, you could be fed alive to one of his pet pythons, thrown into the crocodile-infested ponds to be feasted upon, fried in a drum of boiling oil or simply burnt alive on a stake.
Now, does it offend your sensibilities to situate or comprehend that such a man could be so brutal against those who tried to pay him back in his own coins – the same measure he was using in cheating the system and destroying the society? An irony and contradiction in terms, you might say!
Then I say, my compatriots – that is the same way you cannot make sense of what is happening in your country, Nigeria today. It made no sense to you yesterday, it is not making sense today and it will not make sense tomorrow. That, of course is because you don’t belong to their world – a dusky world, where everything is conducted in pitch-black darkness – a soulless world controlled by the demon of greed.
So, this Monday morning, September 16, 2024, when Rufai Oseni, a popular voice on national affairs and one of the anchors of The Morning Show, a breakfast programme on Arise News Television, after doing what he knows how to do best – dissecting the issue of Nigeria in the clearest terms – for the umpteenth time, concluded by appealing to the conscience of the powers that be in Nigeria – those responsible for the current excruciating suffering in the country – to soften their legs on the pedal, reduce the speed and slow down the galloping vehicle with which they are driving the collective fate of Nigerians down the slopy hill, the question, I asked myself was, did he understand?
For emphasis, he had tried logic, remonstrating that the money they were amassing today, would be useless to them at death and behind them. He emphasised that their children would squander the same accumulated wealth by wasting them on mundane fancies, only for things to return to the basics. Yes! The same children would be left groping for survival, simply because they made no meaningful contributions in creating the wealth. Touching and convincing argument to make, you’d suppose.
His words: “Have mercy! Have mercy on Nigerians. Stop the stealing, reduce the corruption. The hardship is too much. Nigerians are dying of poverty, hunger and disease.” With a glint in his eyes, he pled again: “Have mercy! Stop killing Nigerians!” Who was he addressing? That was the question I asked myself.
It was akin to that scene in the court of Venice in Shakespeare’s epic – The Merchant of Venice – where Portia pleaded with Shylock, the Jewish merchant to have mercy and spare the life of Antonio, but which was ignored because he (Shylock), wanted nothing outside having his pound of flesh, to satisfy his urge for vengeance for past wrongdoing for which he bore years of grudge.
In the same TV show on Monday, Ojy Okpe, the face of What’s Trending, a segment of the programme, played a trending video in the social media of a Nigerian mother going by the tag – the _victorious_chisom, passionately begging President Bola Tinubu and wife, Oluremi, to have mercy on her and her children.
“Dear President,” she began, “the hardship is telling on us, especially we, widows, like me. I’m a widow of two children who are still toddlers. I became a widow, Your Excellency Sir, because of the insecurity in Nigeria. My late husband was kidnapped in 2022 and was killed, despite paying ransom. Your Excellency, I’m law-abiding, I’m hardworking. And despite being a widow whose children were made fatherless due to insecurity, I still keep pushing. I still live in Nigeria. I still stay and live in Nigeria.
“My dear President, please I’m begging, the hardship is too much, the hardship is telling on us. Many young widows are suffering. Please pity us. Have mercy on us. Dear First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, please, you’re a mother and you’re a wife and I know and I believe you know what we are going through, especially young widows like us.”
Then, the clincher: “At this point, I’m fed up. I’m tired. I can’t take it any longer!” That was how she ended. The rest of her sad story was told by tiny droplets of tears lurking at the corners of both eyes, refusing to flow down. Who knows how long she had been crying for the tears to have become that tiny that you’d have to look hard enough to observe them?
If you had watched as I did, I’m sure you heard clearly, when Reuben Abati, another anchor in the programme, stated the obvious in his concluding comments. “She spoke for the rest of us,” he had said. No! She didn’t! She rather spoke for the millions of voiceless families that are worse than her – mothers dying in silence, who have no access to phones, not to talk about data or media space to post the littlest snippets of their anguish.
She spoke for families who have buried one or two of their children due to lack of money to buy cheap medicines to treat common malaria – millions of others who go to bed with empty stomachs and have done so for days and weeks on end and millions more who are waiting to be swallowed up by the elements.
If I were close to that woman, I would have asked her to save her breath, wipe her tears and wait for the appropriate time, because that moment is coming when she would need them. Surely, by that time, nobody would need to tell her it is time to cry. But not now that petrol is still selling at N1,000. No! After all, it is still cheaper than the price in Togo and Benin Republic. Didn’t IMF say so? Aren’t they the masters we listen to? They said Nigeria is still selling cheaper than other countries. Why? Why should it be cheaper when we need all the money to keep the Villa comfortable? Or don’t they know that in there is where we have “Thinking People” – whose brains are sharper than Socrates and Aristotle put together – the reason they’re taking such BOLD decisions to redeem years of mess? These Nigerians self! Did they think that deep thinking is conducted under inclement weather? No! Such thinking need the coziest environments such as diamond-encrusted chairs and ornamental beds inside the bellies of N5billion yachts to conduct.
That said, she should therefore await the time she can no longer afford data or must have sold her phone and other belongings and found a space with her children in the cold streets, if not a worse situation. The road she is currently trodding would surely lead her to her destination where she would find the right corners to cry at the appropriate time, assuming she could muster the strength to shed tears at that point. Of course, she would not be alone there. That’s for sure. She would have company – plenty!
As for her appeal to Tinubu, what mercy does she want the President and family to show? Is Tinubu the cause of her situation? Didn’t he meet a bad economy, inherited from Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor? Come to think of it, didn’t he alert the nation early enough that he would continue Buhari’s “legacies,” where he stopped? If Buhari flogged them with koboko and he’s now flogging them with snakes and scorpions, what crime did he commit? Isn’t that the idea of promise kept?
These Nigerians self! Didn’t the woman hear him tell his China host that he’s a “reformer?” How else are reforms conducted? What else is reform than spending money like it is going out of fashion – buying new Presidential planes, acquiring new yachts, exotic cars for himself, renovating mansions and putting other facilities in place for pleasuring himself and those now “serving” the country? Didn’t she hear him say subsidy is gone? Did he have water in his mouth when he said so last year or was his voice not audible enough?
Coming to the issue everyone is complaining about, was he the one that employed the people at the NNPCL or did they see him around Dangote? Why should he demand anything from them? Do they want to knock his head together with those voracious, avaricious and powerful members of the Vested Interest Club that have dared his predecessors to move against them?
Is it this Presidency that he crossed seven rivers and seven forest to get, confronting all the elements in the wilderness to boot, that these troublesome Nigerians now want him to fritter away by leading him to confront such monstrous behemoth with bare hands. Ko le wek! E no go work for them! If the woman wants mercy, let her direct her tears to the appropriate quarters. Why does she want to stain his clothes with her tears? Why should anyone blame him for the pervading greed that has been there even when he was still hustling in Chicago – whose origin is as old as Nigeria itself?
Even the legendary Fela sang about it – the N2.8billion, missing oil money! What was the verdict of Justice Ayo Irikefe? Didn’t he look into his crystal ball and declare that no oil money was missing. So, kini big deal? If the problem was not dealt with in 1979, how could he, Tinubu fix it now? In fact, why should he?
Besides, how many times and for how long would he continue to sing it like a song that Nigeria under him is like a woman in labour who must bear the pangs of it no matter how long it lasts? What’s with Nigeria about impatience? Even if the woman dies, what about it? She wouldn’t be the first. Many other women have died and many others waiting to die. Right now, even when some are reeling under the pangs of childbirth, many are at this minute enjoying the pleasure – and asking for more – that would make them visit the labour room tomorrow to bear the same pain.
Come to think of it, what did they contribute to his road to the Villa? Didn’t they hear him recount how he snatched, grabbed and ran with power? Did they think he would go through all that and not enjoy his prize to the fullest?
Did they think a world-class accountant with enough sharp memories to be able to last him a lifetime – that goes to bed with figures, forgets easily? Did they think he didn’t hear the trolls and catcalls during those days of Bala-blu-bulaba? They were laughing then and calling him names. Who’s laughing now?
What were they thinking he alluded to when on the night of March 1, 2023, after Mahmoud Yakubu, the INEC chairman declared him winner of the presidential election he told them – I hear you! Loud and clear?! This is surely payback time to them for their move through their “votes” or lack of it. O! How they would – in full!
Did they think that his memory is so short as to forget the favours – such as losing Lagos and Abuja? What if the courts had not come to his rescue? What if those judges had believed Peter Obi that 25 per cent votes in Abuja is like the Use of English in JAMB – a compulsory subject each student must pass or Atiku Abubakar, who insisted he was nowhere near Chicago State University, not to talk about possessing their certificate?
Next time they should know how to cast their votes. You get mercy when you deserve it. Yes! Nyesom Wike, his henchman in the FCT has promised Abuja will never happen again. Lagos, was an error too that the MC Oluomo and other leg-men have since corrected! Maybe when these people learn to cooperate and stop voting nonsense! May be then, “Sister Mercy” might have returned from the market! But for now, she’s still on her journey yet. Her heading home would either be in 2027 or 2031. That is a long time to start shedding tears now!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice
By Sunny Igboanugo
The kite swooped on the herd of sheep and picked a lamb, soared above the skies onto its nest. The father asked one question – what did the parent say when you took their child. The kite replied – nothing father – they were just gazing at me in silence. Then the kites father made an order – return it immediately. Any parent that keeps mute when its child is in danger, has a more sinister intention hidden in his heart. The kite obeyed and returned the lamb.
The next day, the same kite swooped on a brood of chickens and picked one of them. Then the mother went hysterical flying from pillar to post in frenzied movements. On return, the father again put the same question. This time, the kite presented a different picture, describing the shrieking cries of the mother-hen and how it tried to attack and failure to retrieve its chick, went into a frenzy.
Let’s have dinner, the father quipped excitedly. Danger is over. The parent has displayed every weapon in its arsenal. That is the reason chicks remain the main dish of kites till date. My father told me this story decades ago, which of course is one of the anecdotes that is as old as minds could picture. My father probably picked it from his own father.
Yet, the implication in terms of central message has never lost its texture, despite its longevity. Rather, it has become truer with time – be careful of that man with few words – refrain from attacking a man that has not offended you – never bear false witnesses. These are standard cautionary and globally accepted natural edicts, which when observed in breaches, could result in highly disastrous consequences.
Is it not intriguing how this reality has stung Omoyele Sowore like those wicked agbisi – only those who sat on the bare floors would relate with the brain-twisting, sharp and excruciating pains those black ants delivered through the bare buttocks of children – in our mother’s kitchens in those days?
Have you been watching Vincent Otse, alias Very Dark Man, recently? What do you make of the multiple arrows he has been aiming at the heart of the Revolution Now exponent? I have my people and both the optics and the import derivable therefrom could only taper towards a central reality – cow wey no get tail na God dey drive am fly!
It was a song, sung by the popular Prince Nico Mbaga – that legend of the 1980s, whose epic – Sweet Mother – still resonates centrally in the Nigerian music history even till date, long after he was gone. I think it was the flipside of that legendary outing that dominated the airwaves at the time.
Never had that song, which you heard in those days blasting from the record shops at Achapo Street – in Ajegunle – the popular centre for music records business or through the windows of privileged homes in the face me I face you compounds in the days when even the poor afforded stockfish – now a delicacy you could only enjoy the aroma from a distance if your income is not in six figures – days when even the local women looked at ice fish with disdain and derisively related it with the “poor” as Ozu Nwada. O! What memories! But I digress!
But before I walked too far and disappeared into those days when me, as a child sleeping on a mat at a one-room apartment at Number 14 Uzor Street, but still ate lavish meals which I must now struggle to offer my wards, I return to today’s reality to ask myself why this is happening before my eyes. Why must it be VDM that is now waging a war against Sowore – with whom he was only too cozy – just yesterday!
For months now, this selfsame Sowore, had launched a massive blitzkrieg against Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), in the 2023 presidential election. In what is more of a cocktail of bits and pieces, odds and ends set of drivels rather than any form of articulated reasoning based on facts and figures, this same man, actually came out with what has now become his catchphrase – Obi is a packaged fraud!
Don’t bother to ask him for facts supporting his conclusion. The only one he supplied was that the former Governor of Anambra State, was hobnobbing with supposed thieves and brigands responsible for Nigerian woes.
Yet, this selfsame Sowore, conveniently left out his central role, and incestuous relationship with the same people at an auspicious period, which ended up in watering the ground for what he now complains about from the rooftops. Were it not for Sowore, there might not have been a President Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu as APC governments – the worst era Nigeria has ever endured and currently cursed with!
Videos even showed him being celebrated nationally for this singular role. Yet, this is the same man, assailing Obi for keeping bad company! But that is what happens with the purveyors of anti-Obi sentiments. They inevitably meet a drought and are left with nothing more to rely on but contrivances. Where the well is dry, they import water tankers to try a rescue.
Where deceit fails, they try illogic, then subterfuge, half-truths, outright lies and then mischief as they meet more frustrations. Imagine a Sowore saying that Obi packed Northerners in lorries and sent them back to their homes. In Nigeria? At what period? The same Obi who built his personal and state security architectures around northern people – Northern Aide De Camp (ADC) and Norther Commissioners of Police throughout his eight years?
To Sowore, nothing is good enough! He even mocks Obi for saying that he owns only one house in Nigeria – a development, which elsewhere defines absolute personal contentment. Elsewhere, the fact that Obi could prove this claim is demonstrable evidence of reduced propensity for induced stealing and absence of hunger for corruption and therefore a call for celebration. But what do you have here? Spite, mockery and contempt.
Now, it is not like Obi’s records – public and private are hidden. This was a man, who even as a university student, had become so successful in business that his chain of buildings were used as bank branches – that at a point was one of the 10 richest men in the UK – in fact, one of the 8.000 richest men in the world – so the source of his wealth is not suspect.
In office as governor, this was the same Obi who took schools in Anambra State from number 26 to number one, starting from his second year in office by sheer dint of visionary leadership anchored on self-denial – the only governor in history that left a whopping N75billion in the coffers – capping it all with emerging as the best in the implementation of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs).
Now, if a governor attains the first position in this globally-accepted measurement instrument – covering all indices of developmental – physical infrastructure and policy frameworks for human capital development, what else defines excellence in leadership? Yet, people like Sowore will never be persuaded.
Now you know why! VDM has supplied you with the answer. Sowore is in business. His activism is business – his Revolution Now – business – attacks on Tinubu – business – Obi is a packaged fraud – business – presidential ambition business.
Not that the world didn’t know this. But coming from familiar quarters – given the relationship between the two – both erstwhile friends – it is only gotten clearer and better. It is even moreso when the further and better particulars is not coming from Obi, but a more virulent voice!
Now, what is said about fate? What does the law of Karma say again? How does a tailless cow deal with flies again? Sowore has given us the lead and VDM has given you the answer.
But hear the philosopher! Beware of your thoughts, lest they become words; beware of your words, lest they become actions; beware of your actions, lest they become habits; beware of your habits, lest they become character; beware of your character, lest it becomes your destiny! Nigerians, think!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
His Excellency
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar (Waziri Adamawa),
Former Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria
Abuja, Nigeria
Your Excellency
Permit me, to use this medium to address you. I apologise most profusely for breaking protocols and not following proper and established channels. But I believe this is the best and ONLY way to reach you immediately because of the urgency of the matter at hand.
I had to write you quickly after watching the interview when you appeared as a guest on Prime Time, a public affairs programme on ARISE NEWS Television. I must confess being enthralled at your physical fitness, mental alertness, eloquence, articulacy and richness of ideas. You looked every bit presidential.
That you appeared superlatively healthy physically and mentally at the ripe age of 79 can only be a gift from Allah. God has indeed preserved you so well and I congratulate you, while praying that God will grant you more years here on earth to see Nigeria become a great nation that it is meant to be and that you will make fruitful contribution towards that outcome.
Now, this is where I want to anchor the essence of this letter – the blessing of God and His expectation of man. There is no doubt from what human eyes could see that you have enjoyed this blessing tremendously. Look behind you and see how far you have come.
How many of your colleagues in the Nigerian Customs, where you left as a Deputy Director (Deputy Controller) are still remembered today? How many of them could even unlace your shoes today in terms of national recognition. How many of the people you started business with got to half of where you reached as a business mogul? How many of the people you went into politics with got to your level. How many of them are still around today – even those that are younger than you?
Please, Waziri, take a look back and count the blessings of Allah on you. How many can you count? You were preparing for your inauguration as Governor of Adamawa State, when suddenly, you were spirited from a Governor-elect to contest for Vice President and for eight years you enjoyed that position. Was that not evidence of Allah’s hands in your affairs, when the same position others sought with everything in them was offered to you on a platter of gold?
Now, compare that with the Presidency. Since 1992, you have sought this position with every effort. You have fought doggedly with the last breadth in you. Like the General you are, you have fought gallantly. But even a General must retire from the warfront and hand over to younger officers to continue where he stopped.
Such retirement does not suggest defeat. Rather, it suggests wisdom. It suggests experience. It suggests circumspection. It suggests prudence. It suggests strength.
For record six times, you had made attempts at the Presidency and for that number of times, you had failed to attain that feat. Why continue – even when time and circumstances clearly indicate that your chances of getting it at the seventh trial is bleaker than the rest? Is it not even an attempt to tempt God?
Waziri, please permit me to share this anecdote. It is about the prototype developed by Brazilians to catch monkeys. They throw utu – a kind of nut usually craved by monkeys into a bottle with a narrow neck and hang it on tree branch. The opening is wide enough to allow the hand of the monkey in, but too narrow to allow a clenched fist out.
Knowing that monkeys are greedy and would never let go, they take full advantage of this fact in setting this obvious trap. True to their expectations, the monkey would usually fit its hand into the bottle and grab the nut, but would be unable to pull it out with the nut. The owner of the trap standing by would then begin to approach. The monkey on sighting the obvious danger would start struggling with the hand inside the bottle.
Now, all the monkey needed do is to free the hand and let the nut go to save itself. But it never does. Because all its senses are focused on the sweet taste of the nut it loses the sense of danger and stays with the bottle until it is caught – not even having the opportunity of tasting the same nut. That is how the Brazilians catch monkeys.
Alhaji, does this send any meaningful message? Does it look or sound familiar? Like the situation of the monkey with its hand in the bottle, Nigeria is in danger at this time. You have the singular opportunity of saving it. The only way to do it is through the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Your insistence on running for the ticket of the party ahead of the 2027 presidential election represents the perfect imagery of the monkey’s hand in the bottle.
No doubt like the nut to the monkey, the Presidency is sweet. But like the unpromising situation of the monkey, there is no way you can pull the nut out with a clenched fist. The only option is to loosen your fist and let go.
Waziri Adamawa, free your hand. Let go this quest for Presidency. It is not yours. Destiny has denied you the opportunity. Your biggest opportunity was in 2019, though it was not to be for reasons that are now history.
Today, the odds are stacked against you! You are not from the South – make it the South East. You are no longer young. You belong to the old order. Yes! You are favoured to win the ADC primaries but winning the election proper is a different kettle of fish. There is no way you can win it. Forget what your followers are telling you.
On the other hand, sitting right beside you is Peter Obi. All the odds are in his favour. He is from the South – the South East. He is young. He has the organic following. He will win the presidential election of Nigeria before midday on January 18, 2027.
Let me conclude this letter by creating two scenarios. Consider a situation where you contest this election and fail as you are bound to. What will it be said about you? How will history record you?
Will you not be seen as the man who finally sounded the death-knell on Nigerian democracy by allowing President Bola Tinubu transform Nigeria into another Paul Biya’s Cameroun, Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni? Surely, that imminent fall will not only be a fall in unfulfilled goal, it will be a fall of destiny of a national. The consequences are heavy, grave and unimaginable!
On the other hand, if you conquer the greed of the monkey and let the nut go, you will not only have helped in freeing Nigeria from the immediate bondage in which it is destined in the hands of Tinubu and his brood of vipers, you would have saved it from the cataclysmic eruption of blitzkrieg that might result as a counter.
Remember how it is now history that you destroyed the PDP by insisting to run against the zoning arrangement. How will it sound that after delivering the fatal poison that killed the once largest party in Africa with a deadly political fang you whipped the ADC with a poisonous tail to achieve the same result.
As we speak now, David Mark, ADC National Chairman is from the North. Now, you want to take the presidential ticket, thus replaying the reel of the PDP scenario. Is it not obvious that the result will be the same? Is it not the same PDP playbook?
Waziri Adamawa, remember that even Nnamdi Azikiwe, with all his greatness, never became President. Obafemi Awolowo never attained the position either. Yet, as a reporter with The Guardian in Enugu, I could not count the number of dignitaries, Nigerians and foreigners, whom I reported their presence at Onuiyi Haven in Nsukka, home of the late Owelle of Onitsha.
I assume that of Ikenne, the home of the great Awo would also have been the same before his demise. Who says your own home in Abuja or Yola, would not be a Mecca for Nigerians and world leaders to pay their homage by the time this race is run and the mileage counted.
That will only be possible if you decide to play the role destiny has put in your hands. Waziri Adamawa! Save Nigerian Democracy! Save Nigeria! Let your name be written in gold letters and not with blood of Nigerians. Yes! President may be denied but Father of Democracy is there. It even sounds sweeter!
May God guide you.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
I bet you didn’t know Abike Dabiri. Two factors will make this possible. Either you were not around in Nigeria in the golden era of our Nigerian television girls – the era when being a regular face on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) gave you the golden key to open all doors – or you were somewhere in the villages very far and distant from civilization – many of us were – that included not having access to the television.
O! You didn’t know? You didn’t know a time was in this clime when seeing a television screen from a distance, was one of the biggest privileges one could get let alone watching it – that people clustered at the windows of homes with television sets to catch a glimpse of Village Headmaster, for instance.
You’re carrying shoulders because you probably met the time when carrying a Blackberry phone was all you needed to get that fine babe behind your sheets! Today, you thought that because you could now watch your matches on your phone – I watched all the AFCON matches on my phone, being on the road most times – there was no time men had to climb walls to turn television antennas to get some appreciable pictures. Chai! This changing world.
Bet you didn’t hear about Bimbo Roberts – later Bimbo Oloyede, Julie Coker and later Augusta Maduegbuna, Elizabeth Nze, Sienne Alwell-Brown, Ruth Benamesia-Opia, Eugenia Abu, Ronke Ayuba, Kehinde Young-Harry, Lola Alakija, in no particular order. No! You wouldn’t if you were not that privileged in the 1980s and even 1990s. They were the glamour of that era.
Glamour? Not in the sense of beauty – but glamour, because television made them so. For indeed, some of these television faces, were not that glamourous.
But beauty or no, Abike Dabiri was one of the discoveries of that era. Obviously not in competition with these others who were the newscasters on NTA News At Nine, she actually carved a niche for herself elsewhere on Newsline – the soft-sell edition of the station’s news programme aired every Sunday.
Abike Dabiri was a toast of that programme. She was a reporter’s reporter – traversing beyond the seven seas and seven wildernesses to bring to Nigerians those rare stories that either made Nigerians laugh their hearts out or cry their eyes out – a doyenne of human-interest reporting.
Then, suddenly – suddenly – suddenly – the serpent came with the forbidden fruit – the temptation of higher ground – the allure of high office – Tinubu’s tainted chalice that comes like glittering ornament but with hollow and rotten underbelly. She took, she ate and now everything scatter-scatter. Our dear Abike Dabiri accepted and ate the sour grape and now her teeth are set on edge! What a pity!
The breeze has blown to uncover the romp of the hen. Before now, whoever believed that our dear Abike Dabiri farts. But we now know that Abike Dabiri-Erewa not only farts, but her fart smells badly. At first, no one noticed the degeneration.
The time she was at the House of Representatives, was the golden era of Tinubu. That was when the Jagaban Borgu was the governor of Lagos State. She glowed along by tapping from glittering appeal of the Lagos show boy!
At that time, Tinubu was generally holding the golden trophy adorned with the beautiful calligraphy of democracy in Nigeria. That was before he drank from the poisoned chalice of Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor by joining him in the hatred for the Igbo man – a phenomenon that becomes the nemesis of some Nigerian leaders – Buhari’s major insignia. Then the desperation! Then the degeneration! Now the albatross!
Now, whoever hates the Igbo and remains the same? None! That was what sealed Buhari’s fate. And surely the snake that bit that braindead archeological discovery – that museum piece – has definitely whipped Tinubu with its tail and the rest is now history. If not, compare a Tinubu as governor when he was all cozy with Ndigbo and now he has turned 360 degrees.
And as long as the darkness will give way to reveal the sun breaking from the East, the sting of the snake’s tail will reach everyone who toes that line. You know why, the dominant culture of the Igbo man is ofo n’ogu – justice, equity and fair-play! Have you watched an Igbo man pray with colanut.
He wakes up and with his cola in his hands, beckons on his chi with these words – ndu mmiri, ndu azu, mmiri atanaa, azu anwuna – the life of the river, the life of the fish – may the water not dry and may the fish not die! Egbe bere ugo bere, nke si ibeya ebena nku kwaa ya – let the kite perch and let the eagle perch – whichever says the other should not perch, may its wings whither. Which other people say the same or similar prayer elsewhere?
Now, because the kid-goat watches when the mother-goat is chewing the cud, hating the Igbo has become a fad among those who want to please Tinubu. Obviously, the totem through which this sentiment find expression is Peter Obi. He has become the tree standing by the roadside that receives the strokes of the machete. Obi has remained the hieroglyph for expressing real and imagined pro-Igbo angst.
So, in 2025, when Babajide Sanwo-Olu wanted to mend fences with Tinubu, after allegedly falling out of favour with his boss, he launched an unprovoked attack on Obi, using the latter’s Johns Hopkins University lecture as a pad. Reno Omokri, has since made himself Minister of Peter Obi Affairs. Daniel Bwala, Femi Fani-Kayode et al along this line never end a line without Obi getting a slash of their machete.
Enter our dear Abike Dabiri-Erewa. The little birds flying around whistle that her tenure as Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiCOM) is coming to an end and she is eying a renewal or another job from the Jagaban. How else to go about it than the low-hanging fruit? – Peter Obi.
From nowhere, on Sunday, the media were suffused with the screaming headline – “Peter Obi has actually raised monsters.” As it were with syndicated stories, each of the medium used to transport the outing carried the same headline – well crafted – of course, using her journalism skill to make maximum impact.
After rambling some clearly obtuse and incoherent words in form of reasoning, she ended up with even more brainless, imbecilic and asinine submission – by the time it is Igbo turn to produce Nigerian President, Obidents – followers of Obi – would have destroyed his chances. Me paraphrasing. Chai!
Now, aunty Abike, whose turn is it now? Isn’t already the turn of Ndigbo and the selfsame Obi? Isn’t it part of the argument that the seat your Jagaban is occupying was stolen from Ndigbo? So, you know that Ndigbo also have a stake to it? Yes! You know. But now you have eaten Tinubu’s palm nuts, see how your teeth have all turned red.
But Ndigbo have another way of invoking justice – ochu nwa-okuko nwe ada ma nwa-okuko nwe nwenwe-oso! I won’t explain. Find an Igbo staff at NiMCOM – if there is one – because I hear you hate them so much that finding one near you might be impossible. But even a cleaner in your office could help or better still – ask your spare parts seller. He’s sure to be Igbo!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
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