Discussing MKO, Bisi Akande, Osimhen and Portable

Tunde Odesola

Discussing MKO, Bisi Akande, Osimhen and Portable

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, June 21, 2024)

The moin-moin thinks it is wise. It hides part of itself within the folds of éwé eeran, the green-turned-bronzy leaves encasing it. Hungry Man unfurls the leafy wraps, using his fingers or spoon as a rake, scraping out the moin-moin clinging behind the leaves: ibi pelebe la ti ń mú òlè je, the Yoruba say.

Moin-moin eating starts peripherally, not centrally. The etiquette for consuming moin-moin and agidi is written in native intelligence. If you finger, spoon, knife or fork móín-móín and èko headlong, you lose premium on quantity. Moin-moin eating is like an orchestra performance – building suspense in ibi pelebe, anticipatory nibbling of the sides of the moin-moin, preparatory to climaxing devouring.

This article is a potpourri. It’s a dish by a cook beset with overflowing ingredients of ‘assorted’ innards – shaki, abodi, bokoto, roundabout – and cow head, stockfish, snails, crabs, prawns etc.

Too many ingredients spoil the broth. Nonetheless, I lay out a five-course dish comprising an appetiser, soup, entree, dessert and snacks called ipapanu in Yoruba. The dishes are Nigerian.
At the table are the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola; a former Governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande; Nigerian footballer, Victor Osimhen, and waspish hip-hop musician, Habeeb Okikiola, aka Portable. Enjoy!

Appetiser
In the olden days when shame lived in the dark, a moral question combed the conscience, “Where would he blow it, the thief who stole the kàkàakí of the king?” This moral suasion belonged in Nigeria’s golden past. Nowadays, shame luxuriates in the sun, emboldening some faceless workers of iniquity to unchain the Sallah ram of a Chief Imam in the Bassa Local Government Area of Jos, Plateau, during a downpour, and disappear with it.

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THE PUNCH reports that Imam Abdulkadir lost his ram on Sallah eve. What was the motive behind the ram heist: religious obligation, greed or the ravaging hunger in the land? I don’t know. But I do know that as the chief imam and his relatives ruminate on Sallah, they would wish they knew whose gullets their ram passed through.

Kalakuta Republic was the Ikeja, Lagos home where the Abami Eda, Fela Anikulapo, lived. It’s now a museum. Watching a documentary a few days ago, I saw an inscription on the wall of the museum which says, “No smoking of Indian hemp, here.” Uhmm! Really? Father of tragedy, Aeschylus, a Greek, said, “Time brings all things to pass,” his fellow countryman, Pericles, concludes, “Time is the wisest counsellor of all.” I hear Fela’s voice from the grave, “Confusion break bone, yeepaa! Double wahala for deadi body and the owner of deadi body.” Fela loved his marijuana.

The soup
In a seminal article, “Tinubu’s ‘taste’ gerontocracy,” published on Monday, June 17, 2024, in Nigerian Tribune, Lasisi Olagunju lampooned the appointment of a former interim National Chairman, All Progressives Congress, Chief Bisi Akande, by President Bola Tinubu as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council, University of Ibadan, at the age of 85. Olagunju had no soothing words for former-this-former-that octogenarian soldier, General Ike Nwachukwu, whom Tinubu also appointed Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governor Council, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, 72-year-old Yayale Ahmed, whom Tinubu made Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

Is Akande qualified for the UI top job? In 2009, Osun indigene and Peoples Democratic Party bigwig, Chief Abiola Morakinyo, was stopped as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, after protesters hoisted in the face of President Musa Yar’Adua, the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Act 2003, which says that anyone to be appointed Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council of a national university must be a university graduate. Because Morakinyo wasn’t, he was removed.

According to his personal website, bisiakande. com, the highest certificate the Ila-born politician attained in Nigeria was a Grade III Teacher Certificate at the Divisional Teachers’ Training College, Ile-Ife, before proceeding abroad, where he did correspondence courses at Wosley Hall, Rapid Results College, and the School of Accountancy, both in England but both were not universities.

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Vanguard columnist, Owei Lakemfa, titled his 2009 article, which condemned the appointment of Morakinyo, “To be led by the blind.” I am from Osun, the Omoluabi state; I cannot call Baba Akande blind. But I can call him a retired accountant and in-luck pro-chancellor, unlike Baba Morakinyo, a retired accountant and out-of-luck pro-chancellor. Nigerians, if you like, jump into the lagoon in protest, does the APC care? Have you forgotten too quickly the 2020 Night of Long Knives at the Lekki tollgate?

A joke explains why it’s incumbent for pro-chancellors and chairmen, governing councils of Nigerian universities, to have university education: “So that when a member of council lays a report before the Senate, the ‘un-university’ pro-chancellor and chairman of council would not ask, ‘Where is the report for the House of Reps!’

Entrée
A few days ago, one of the children of the late MKO Abiola, Abdulmumuni, lit a fire on June 12 mountain when he granted a podcast interview to Seun Okinbaloye, accusing his elder brother, Kola, of having an affair with the daughter of his father’s jailor, General Ibrahim Babangida, the architect who designed the failure of the Nigerian nation.

Being family friends, there’s a possibility that Kola and Babangida’s daughter might have been dating before June 12, 1993. There’s also a possibility that the tricky Babangida, being a dribbler noted for booting penalties into throw-ins, might have repeatedly assured Kola that he was going to free MKO and make him President. Mumuni didn’t give Nigerians an idea of the particular period of the June 12 struggle Kola was knowing the daughter of the bloodiest Nigerian General. Neither did he reveal if Kola stopped at any point of the struggle. Is it the blindness of love or the madness of lust that sustained the frolic? So, when Nigerians were being shot, maimed and incarcerated by soldiers during the protest, Kola was sweating with Babangida’s daughter inside Aso Rock?

Though it was insinuated MKO died after drinking a cup of tea in incarceration, I still prefer the quote of English musician, Boy George, who says, “I would rather have a cup of tea than sex,” to the opinion of American actress, Angelina Jolie, who says, “I need more sex, OK? Before I die I wanna taste everyone in the world.” Between George and Jolie, who would Kola vote for?

Abdulmumuni also said Kola was unfit to be Nigeria’s President, adding that his elder brother couldn’t manage MKO’s empire. The younger Abiola didn’t shout obscenities, he spoke like he was discussing football’s Greatest of All Time, Lionel Messi, with Okinbaloye.

Dessert
Eccentric musician Portable recently blew his lid in a viral video in which he insinuated that Davido misadvised him. Hitherto, Portable had sung the praise of Davido to high heaven for taking him out in Atlanta, Georgia, and buying things for him. In a sharp twist afterwards, however, Portable came out with a video, poking innuendos at Davido. The Omo Baba Olowo didn’t take issues with Portable, he only unfollowed him.