Opinion

Rise of right-wing economic populism in Nigeria – Farooq Kperogi

Published

9 months ago

March 9, 2024

Rise of right-wing economic populism in Nigeria – Farooq Kperogi

Over the last few months, I have unconsciously transitioned from keyboard diarrhea to mental constipation and have pulled back from social media engagements. I even struggle to write my weekly columns.

It’s precisely because toxic, unthinking, IMF-manufactured, right-wing economic populism has become hegemonic and taken firm roots in Nigeria. Blaming Tinubu for his right-wing economic policies while ignoring the fact that his opponents subscribe to the same policies is the kind of hypocrisy my mental, emotional, or ideological constitution is incapable of tolerating.

Right-wing or conservative economic populism manifests differently in different countries, but its core lies in weaponizing the general population’s concerns and frustrations, particularly around economic issues, to advocate poisonous, anti-people, market-centric, neoliberal economic policies while blaming an invisible elite or establishment class that supposedly controls power and resources to the detriment of the majority.

In Nigeria, conservative economic populism consists of the intentionally deceitful and absurd but nonetheless successful (at least for now) demonization of subsidies, especially petrol subsidies.

Nigeria’s elite-created economic woes are fraudulently attributed to the dispensation of subsidies. The masses of unsuspecting chumps in the country are then whipped into a senseless frenzy about an invisible, unidentified class of “subsidy thieves” who putatively suck up our commonwealth through petrol subsidies and who would wither and perish when subsidies are removed.

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That’s classic right-wing economic populism. Well, experience is showing that it’s actually the masses that are withering and perishing after petrol subsidies have been removed. An acquittance who passionately opposed my recommendation to Tinubu to not remove petrol subsidies in my April 29, 2023, column by regurgitating the banal talking points of hard-hearted neoliberal hawks reached out to me a few days ago to admit that he was a gormless fool to believe the propaganda that petrol subsidies didn’t benefit the masses.

It took the collapse of his small transportation business and the descent of his previously thriving relatives into the dark depths of despair and poverty in less than one year after the removal of petrol subsidies for him to come to the realization that citizens of every country need subsidies.

Another central plank of Nigerian right-wing economic populism is the advocacy for the devaluation of the naira. It’s also known by the fancy name of “floating the naira.” The idea that the naira is “over-valued” and should be allowed to find its true worth in the crucible of demand and supply is a standard arsenal in the rhetorical armory of conservative economic populists in Nigeria.

Yet another favorite shtick of the treacherous tribe of neoliberal vampires in Nigeria is to capitalize on the well-known inefficiency of civil service bureaucracies to advocate the privatization of everything and the mass retrenchment of workers.

Yet these are really old, discredited Structural Adjustment Program policies that the IMF and the World Bank imposed on developing countries, which devastated national economies, caused the untimely deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, which the IMF was compelled to slyly apologize for amid mounting evidence of their tragic failure.

The same rotten and venomous policies have been repackaged, aromatized, and re-presented to developing countries as new and effective elixirs. Every developing country that has embraced them is now coping with potentially explosive internal turmoil.

Like Nigeria, Egypt recently accepted to devalue its currency by more than 68 percent and remove subsidies that lighten the burden of existence for ordinary folks in exchange for an $8 billion loan from the IMF.

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Everyone within striking distance of becoming president in Nigeria in 2023 subscribed—and still subscribes—to the consensus that the IMF and the World Bank are inviolable economic oracles that must not be disobeyed, that subsidies must be eliminated and the poor be left to fend for themselves, and that the market is supreme and should be left to determine the value of everything.

In fact, the other day, PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar put out a press statement titled “Argentina’s Javier Milei approach to reforms should serve as a lesson for Tinubu” where he extolled the dangerously right-wing Argentinian president Javier Milei whose rightwing economic populist policies are destroying the fabric of his country.

“I read a recent report in Reuters titled: ‘Argentina’s market double down on Milei as investors ‘start to believe’,” he wrote.

Well, the same Western financial establishment is already praising the outcome of Tinubu’s economic policies. A March 8, 2024, report from Bloomberg, for instance, has said that “Foreign investor demand for Nigerian assets surges as reforms instituted by President Bola Tinubu’s administration starts paying off.”

Similarly, one David Roberts, identified as a former British Council Director in Abuja, bragged the other day that Nigeria’s economy “posted a GDP growth of 3.46% in quarter 4” as a result of Tinubu’s economic reforms.

He wrote: “Why would a country with a severe infrastructural deficit invest more money on a wasteful expenditure such as cheap petrol, instead of building schools, hospitals, dams and a national railway system? It is evident that it had to go.

“We joined the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in saying as much to the Nigerian government. And at long last, it is gone.”

People outside Nigeria reading about Nigeria in the Western financial press would think Nigerians are now living in El- Dorado as a result of Tinubu’s “reforms”—just like Atiku thinks a favorable Reuters story about the anti-people economic policies of Milei, who is called the “Madman of Argentina,” is already yielding excellent outcomes.

If you do the bidding of the Western establishment, they will always make up statistics to show that your economy has grown. I called attention to this in my June 28, 2023, column titled, “Why Tinubu’s Hiring and Firing Frenzy Excites Nigerians.”

I wrote: “What shall it profit a country when it pursues policies that cause the economy to ‘grow’ but cause the people to growl? After the economy has ‘grown’ but the people still groan, where is the growth? The most important growth isn’t the rise in abstract, disembodied, World Bank/IMF-created metrics but in the improvement of the quality of life of everyday folks.”

Milei’s Argentina that Atiku is praising is almost in the same right-wing economic hellscape as Nigeria is. Like Tinubu, Milei began his presidency by removing subsidies for petrol and transportation and devaluing the Argentinian peso by more than 50 percent. In addition, he threw scores of workers into unemployment when he reduced the number of ministries in the country.

He is so market-centric he scrapped a whole host of rules designed to reign in the greed and exploitation of private enterprises. He did this by getting the parliament to approve the principle of “delegated powers” to the executive for one year, which allows him to rule by decree like a military dictator in the name of “economic urgency.”

The result? Like in Nigeria, most Argentinians are having a hard time finding food to eat. A February 1, 2024, CNN story captures it: “‘I don’t know how I will eat.’ For the workers behind Argentina’s national drink, Milei’s reforms are turning sour.”

Argentinian workers periodically go on strike to protest Milei’s punishing right-wing policies. On February 28, all flights were cancelled in the country because air travel workers went on a crippling 24-hour strike.

A March 4, 2024, Bloomberg report said Milei’s policies had caused spending to plunge at shops in Argentina, that firms were seeing double-digit sales declines for third straight month, that the worth of salaries had plummeted amid a paralyzing 250% inflation, and that recession was deepening in the country.

The lead to the story says it all: “Consumers in Argentine are running out of options to shield themselves from runaway price increases as President Javier Milei’s austerity measures send the country deeper into recession.”

That’s Atiku’s exemplar for Nigeria. Peter Obi is, of course, no different. Tinubu, Atiku, Obi, and in fact Yemi Osinbajo are united in their love for rightwing economics, which invariably leads to an increase in poverty, suffocation of workers, rolling back of welfare for common people, etc.

In a perverse way, they are actually worse than Buhari because they are self-conscious conservative economic ideologues. Buhari is merely a know-nothing, bungling, kakistocratic power monger.

The real tragedy is that the vast majority of Nigerians who are ensconced in the narrow ethno-religious political silos built around the personalities of the major 2023 presidential candidates don’t realize that on economic policies, which is what really matters, Tinubu, Atiku, Obi, and Osinbajo are more alike than unlike.

Sadly, Nigerian leftists, who used to be the bulwark against the dangers of conservative economic totalitarianism, have either been coopted or silenced. Only Femi Falana, Majeed Dahiru, I, and a few others consistently stand up to the forces of economic conservatism.

This state of affairs will ensure that Tinubu’s successor will be another neoliberal ideologue who will bludgeon his way to the presidency using religion and ethnicity as cudgels. When he deepens the misery he inherits, he will blame his predecessor for not being a faithful practitioner of the neoliberal gospel. His own successor will replicate his template.

After three terms of this right-wing baloney, Nigeria will be irretrievably gone. The time to pivot from the IMF and the World Bank and to reject everyone who is their poodle is now.

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian newspaper columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.

Rise of right-wing economic populism in Nigeria – Farooq Kperogi

Opinion

Farooq Kperogi: One president, many spokesmen, and mixed messages amid misery

Published

4 days ago

November 23, 2024

Trends Admin

Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi: One president, many spokesmen, and mixed messages amid misery

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s unparalleled appointment of three official, cabinet-level spokesmen—in addition to 9 other senior media aides— symptomizes an insidious governmental malaise. It shows a government that is obsessed with public relations at the expense of public welfare, propaganda at the expense of progress, and mind management at the expense of meaningful management.

On November 14, Daniel Bwala, the former mouthpiece for PDP’s Atiku Abubakar during the last presidential campaign, was inaugurated as Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication. This move added him to a line-up that already included Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, who had been informally recognized as the senior spokesperson after Ajuri Ngelale’s dramatic exit, and Sunday Dare, Special Adviser to the President on Public Communication and National Orientation.

Yet, on his very first day, October 18, Bwala brazenly declared himself “the spokesman for the president” to State House correspondents, proclaiming that he was the direct successor to Ngelale. His Twitter declaration further cemented his self-anointment: “Resumed officially as the Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications/Spokesperson (State House).”

Since Onanuga had effectively functioned as the spokesman for the president after Ngelale was forced out of the Presidential Villa, it seemed like Tinubu had no confidence in Onanuga and chose to upstage him by bringing in Bwala.

That puzzled me. I wondered what reputational, symbolic, or political capital Bwala had to earn such an edge. Here’s a man who is deeply resented by Tinubu supporters for his erstwhile caustic attacks on the president and APC during the last election, who is reviled by the opposition for his perceived treachery and mercenariness, and who is disdained by people who couldn’t care less about both Tinubu and the opposition. Such a person is more of a reputational liability than an asset for persuasion.

So it came as no surprise when I read a swift news release from Bayo Onanuga disclaiming Bwala’s self-description as “the spokesperson” for the president. TheCable of November 19 reported that Tinubu was “furious on learning of Bwala’s manoeuvre and immediately instructed Onanuga to issue a clarification.”

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The “clarification” says Bwala is now Special Adviser Policy Communication and Sunday Dare is now Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications. “These appointments, along with the existing role of Special Adviser, Information and Strategy, underscore that there is no single individual spokesperson for the Presidency. Instead, all the three Special Advisers will collectively serve as spokespersons for the government,” the statement said.

Tinubu has by far the largest media team in Nigeria’s history—just like he has the largest cabinet in Nigeria’s history. Yet his government has inflicted the most hardship on Nigeria and demands the greatest sacrifice from Nigerians whom he has already stripped of basic welfare and dignity.

Despite this elaborate roster of media professionals, Tinubu’s government stands as a paradox: the most expansive communication team in Nigerian history, yet the most tone-deaf administration in addressing the agonies of ordinary Nigerians. Like his record-breaking cabinet size, his communication machinery seems less about functionality and more about optics—a poorly orchestrated façade against the backdrop of deepening national suffering.

Historically, Nigerian presidents have managed with far leaner communication teams. President Olusegun Obasanjo had a relatively modest media and communications team. His first spokesperson was Doyin Okupe, who was designated as Special Assistant on Media and Publicity from 1999 to 2000.

He was succeeded by Tunji Oseni whose designation was changed to Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity and served in that role from 2000 to 2003. He was replaced by Remi Oyo from 2003 until 2007.

Apart from these official spokespeople, Obasanjo appointed Dr. Stanley Macebuh as Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications. After firing him, he replaced him with Emmanuel Arinze.

He also appointed Femi Fani-Kayode as Special Assistant on Public Affairs and replaced him with Uba Sani after elevating him to a minister. In other words, Obasanjo never had more than three media/communications people at any one time, and he always had just one official spokesperson.

Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s had Olusegun Adeniyi as his one and only media person/spokesperson. He is also on record as the first president to elevate the position to a cabinet-level position by redesignating as a “Special Adviser” position.

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Goodluck Jonathan sustained this tradition. When Ima Niboro was his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity from 2010 to 2011, he had no other media/communications person. And when Reuben Abati took over from Niboro from 2011 to 2015, he was the only spokesperson and media/communications person for the president.

The slide into a propagandocracy began with Muhammadu Buhari, who doubled down on PR appointments. While Femi Adesina served as his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu operated as Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity. Buhari’s entourage also included social media mavens, photographers, and digital content creators—an unprecedented escalation in spin management.

There was Tolu Ogunlesi (Special Assistant, Digital & New Media); Lauretta Onochie (Personal Assistant, Social Media); Bashir Ahmad (Personal Assistant, New media); Sha’aban Sharada (Personal Assistant, Broadcast Media); Naziru Muhammed (Personal Assistant, TV Documentary); Sunday Aghaeze (Personal Assistant, Photography); and Bayo Omoboriowo (Personal Assistant/ President’s Photographer).

But Tinubu has taken this expansion to absurd heights. Apart from three cabinet-level official spokespersons, you also have Tunde Rahman (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Media); Abdulaziz Abdulaziz (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Print Media); O’tega Ogra (Senior Special Assistant (Digital/New Media); Tope Ajayi – Senior Special Assistant (Media & Public Affairs); Segun Dada (Special Assistant — Social Media); Nosa Asemota – Special Assistant (Visual Communication); Mr Fredrick Nwabufo (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Public Engagement); Mrs Linda Nwabuwa Akhigbe (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Strategic Communications); and Mr Aliyu Audu (Special Assistant to the President — Public Affairs).

Such bloated extravagance sends a disconcerting message about the administration’s priorities during a time of profound economic hardship.

In a March 4, 2017 column titled “Propagandocracy and the Buhari Media Center,” I pointed out that the size of a government’s propaganda apparatus is often inversely proportional to its confidence in its own legitimacy. Tinubu’s indulgence in this over-the-top PR operation signals two troubling realities: insecurity and incoherence.

The insecurity stems from an acute awareness of its own fragility—an administration desperate to control the narrative because it knows it has failed to deliver on substantive governance. The incoherence arises from the cacophony of voices in this unwieldy structure, breeding contradictions, turf wars, and conflicting messages. How can a government unable to synchronize its internal communication hope to connect with its citizens?

At its core, Tinubu’s sprawling PR machine is emblematic of an administration focused on perception management rather than problem-solving. This gluttonous obsession with propaganda, in the midst of soaring inflation, subsidy removals, and austerity measures, is an affront to struggling Nigerians.

Leadership demands more than just the appearance of competence; it demands action. Until Tinubu shifts his focus from multiplying spokespersons to delivering substantive governance, his legacy risks being that of a leader who built a fortress of spin while the people languished outside its gates.

Farooq Kperogi : One president, many spokesmen, and mixed messages amid misery

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.

Opinion

From warmongering to lie-peddling, Alapomu go explain taya

Published

5 days ago

November 22, 2024

Trends Admin

Tunde Odesola

From warmongering to lie-peddling, Alapomu go explain taya

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, November 22, 2024)

Ankara needs no introduction; it’s the capital of Turkey, an Islamic country with a 99% Muslim population. Ankara needs no introduction; it’s the name of the brightly-coloured cotton fabric popular in West Africa. Ankara is the introduction. It marks out its wearer as a guest qualified for semo and plastic bowl at Nigeria’s owambe shindigs. Welcome, dear ankara – the uniformity cloth, clothing the lowly and the mighty at parties, like green leaves clothe móín-móín and èko, two edible kindreds, tumbling in embrace down throaty road.

Native to Ankara, Turkey’s second largest populous city after Istanbul, are the Angora goat, Angora cat and Angora rabbit, renowned for their extraordinary coats which are shorn and made into mohair, a globally prized source of cotton, with Angora being the westernised name for Ankara.

Yet, there’s another meaning to ankara. In Spanish, ‘encara’ means ‘still’, an adverb, whose synonyms include yet, nevertheless, nonetheless, notwithstanding, however, despite that, all the same, even so, in spite of etc.

On April 18, 2007, at 19 years of age, Lionel Andres Messi Cuccitini, football GOAT, during a Copa del Rey semifinal first-leg match between Barcelona and Getafe, singlehandedly dribbled past the entire Getafe team, leaving in his wake, players and goalkeeper biting the grass, with the commentator, Joaquim Maria Puyal, screaming, “ankara Messi, ankara Messi, ankara Messi, Messi, Messi, ankara Messi, ankara Messi, ankara Messi, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, goooooooooooooooooo…”

From Barcelona’s right half of the centre circle, Messi got a short pass from Xavi and made a beeline for goal, ghosting Getafe players, who fell over themselves like bags of beans, making the commentator scream, “ankara Messi, ankara Messi – meaning: ‘still Messi’, ‘still Messi’, ‘still Messi’, as each Getafe player tumbled and the entire stadium stood on edge, frenziedly watching if the charging GOAT was going to miss or score. The GOAT did not miss. He scored the greatest Goal of All Time. And the whole stadium – Barcelona and Getafe fans – erupted in ecstasy.

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Gripped by the pulsating dribbling run that produced Messi’s goal, the Catalan radio commentator, Puyal, mispronounced ‘encara’ which means ‘still’ in Spanish as ‘ankara’, thereby gifting football lexicon a new word. If you’re in doubt, please, google ‘Ankara Messi’.

I’m ready to put my neck on the chopping block at Ìmògún, the ancient place of skulls, if any of the three following assertions is wrong. One: Ankara, Turkey’s capital city, is not unfamiliar to the Alapomu of Apomu, Oba Kayode Adenekan Afolabi. Two: The Igbákejì Òrìsà is not unfamiliar with ankara, the popular fabric; and three, the stylish Alapomu is not unfamiliar with designer clothes made from Angora furs.

But, by the king’s insistence on standing his ground even though he’s standing on quicksand, the crown may tumble into the gutter of politics. It’s evident the kabiyesi believes that a lie vehemently told possesses the capacity to become the truth after some time like a lizard becoming a crocodile after eating. His rejoinder to the viral video of his call to arms screams, “A bad excuse is better than no excuse.”

Since public outcry trailed the video of Oba Afolabi, in which he personally called for violence in the 2023 Ayedaade/Irewole/Isokan House of Representatives election in Osun, Afolabi has remained as tenacious as Messi, trying to dribble out of the odium his indiscretion has landed him.

This is the badly-worded rejoinder the king sent to The PUNCH: “ALAPOMU IS NOT A WAR MONGER – Alapomu Media Aide.

“The attention of Oba Kayode Afolabi, the Alapomu of Apomu has been drawn to an opinion written by a Columnist titled “Apomu King turns war monger for PDP” published in a national newspaper.

“A statement made by his media aide, Tolu Adetunji said Oba Afolabi is not a war monger but a man of peace. He said the article is biased, prejudiced, subjective, one sided opinion which is not based on facts but on a video which the King has refuted in many national newspapers and online publications.

“The refuttal was made shortly after the video went viral nearly a week ago” according to the Media Aide.

“In the refutal the King said the video was doctored to bring his reputation down in the eyes of the right thinking members of the society.

“Based on the rebuttal, the Media Aide said “anyone who wants to do a story or write an opinion on the video should be fair and objective by balancing the story with the king’s official response to the video.”

I won’t bore you by reproducing all the incriminating assertions the Alapomu made while gassing at the empowerment programme by the incumbent House of Representatives member for Ayedaade/Irewole/Isokan federal constituency, Lanre Oldebo, recently. I’ll take just a paragraph of his speech.

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Oba Afolabi, “I said, Mao, if the election turns to war, so be it; if it turns to combat, so be it. No one can cage the king but God. I told Mao that at all costs, I am solidly behind him – go and unleash absolute violence – this candidate (Lanre) MUST win the election. Then the situation snowballed into “Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! To! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! We thank God the effort yielded good fruit…”

May it please your kingship, Oriade, to know I did not remove one ‘ta’ from the 10 ‘ta-ta-ta’ and the one ‘to’ you said to describe what followed your battlecry. This is because I do not want to misquote your majesty.

Being a commoner in conversation with royalty, I need to minimise my excitement and maximise this opportune moment of man-god correspondence because the bull is no mincemeat to be hit twice by the hunter’s arrow, a kìí rí efón ta léèmejì.

The more I watch the video, the more I’m confused as to the motive of the kabiyesi coming out more than one year after the electoral heist, to publicly admit his role in the coup. I’m confused because the kabiyesi is a man of integrity; he wouldn’t say such a thing for money.

I sincerely feel pity for the kabiyesi because the video pinned him against the wall. Going by the language of his rejoinder, he didn’t really want to start a media war but he needed to say something, and by saying something, he impugns my own integrity, leaving me with no option than to spit out the salt and the fart. Omoye has run into the market naked, the flowery ankara clothe is of no use to her.

Kabiyesi, I know the APC are no saints. They cheat, shoot and maim, too. They have kings in their pockets, too. But every infraction on public integrity should be condemned fiercely as this is being condemned.

Oba Alapomu, you said, “Anyone who wants to do a story or write an opinion on the video should be fair and objective by balancing the story with the king’s official response to the video.”

What a cheeky statement! Kabiyesi, I advise you should just squarely face the warmongering duties you’ve taken on behalf of your party, the PDP, and leave elementary journalism alone.

Alayeluwa, I guess those around you, who have passed by a newspaper house in their wakabout peregrinations, are the ones telling you I must ‘balance’ my article, “Apomu king turns warmonger for PDP,” with your baggage of lies.

Kabiyesi, let me throw this in real quick, it might help your understanding of journalism. Sir, journalism is a profession based on truth, fairness, equity and justice. You lost the moral authority to call for balance when you gathered the balls of the APC in your hands and sharply pulled them backwards. Ouch!! You know it hurts. As the saying goes, “He who comes to equity, must clean with clean hands.” Igbá Kejì Òrìsà, did you come with clean hands?

Alapomu, you also said the video of your shenanigans was doctored. Please, kabiyesi, with due respect, ask enlightened people around you what is meant by, “He who alleges must prove.” Your Highness, the onus lies on you to produce the ‘authentic’ video, where you didn’t say all the things you said.

My Lord, I humbly challenge you to produce the video proving that I maligned you in any way. I am dead sure you can never produce such a video because any video you produce won’t only become an exhibit in court, it will also be subjected to forensic analysis as INEC, Police and the DSS will be joined in the case, and then, what the PDP cooked that burnt down the whole house would be revealed.

Kabiyesi, sir, your laughable rejoinder mistook denial of an allegation for proof of innocence. That may be a royal way of thinking but it’s not the justice way of thinking. Truth doesn’t think like that.

I’ll advise the kabiyesi to just apologise (publicly or privately) for the viral outburst and treat all citizens as his children, going forward. But if the Oriade prefers media back-and-forth, I’ll hold steadfastly my truth to his sword.

By the way, instead of cheerleading the PDP, the kabiyesi can earn some foreign currencies from publishers of English dictionaries – Thesaurus, Longman, Oxford, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge and Collins – by patenting his own meanings of electoral violence, rigging, prebendalism, serfdom, injustice, vanity, intolerance and evil.

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

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Opinion

Apomu king turns warmonger for PDP

Published

2 weeks ago

November 15, 2024

Trends Admin

Apomu king turns warmonger for PDP

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, November 15, 2024)

As a nobody son of a nobody, I dare not caress the blade of the king’s sword with the palms of my hands. Otherwise, blood shall trail my footsteps to Ìmògún, the ancient place of skulls, where the heads of the guilty and the guiltless tumble down the hill on the king’s inviolable order. In utter respect and total submission, I bow and tremble before the throne of Apomu! Who am I to look into the eyes of the gangster of Apomu, Oba Kayode Adenekan Afolabi? Èwò orisa!

As a commoner, I dare not disrespect the Alapomu. May Sango kill my bata drum and its accoutrements! I fear the king, I swear. May the king’s sword not be unsheathed from its scabbard before my very eyes, and stabbed into my very back – won ò ní ti ójù mí yo idà, kí wón tí èyìn mí kíbó. The mighty king kills who dares, aróbafín ni oba n pa! May my writings and agitation not kill me like Ken Saro-Wiwa. May the king not kill me.

Trembling – therefore – I maintain égbèfà distance near to the king; fearful – thereof – I move away from the king at égbèje distance because, in the land of Ódùdúwà, you dare and die – the king is the next in command to the gods.

In the land of Káárò Ójíire, nobody greets the king standing, we prostrate to greet the Alapomu, the almighty oba who gallantly fought on the side of the Peoples Democratic Party in the Osun House of Reps election war in 2023. K-a-b-i-y-e-s-i o!

Actually, I didn’t set out to write about the Alapomu in this edition. I had my mind set on the great Baptizer, sorry, I mean the great Balthazar of Equatorial Guinea Kingdom, Emperor Ebang Engonga (GCFR), who baptised over 400 women in the sea of his semen.

Because of its faraway distance, I was preparing to tread the spider’s web to Malabo, moving gingerly, ensuring my feet and hands did not get entangled in the naughty knots dotting the spider’s silky entrapment while trying to critique Balthazar.

But, a day before I was to write the Balthazar article, a bedlam suddenly arose over the viral video of the Alapomu in a Whatsapp group I belong to. I didn’t join the hullabaloo but took notice of the various press statements about the unkingly action of the Alapomu.

Most Whatsapp groups are madhouses with madmen and madwomen prescribing medications for madness. To maintain your sanity, you must know how to unstick yourself from the gummy madness online.

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The farmer’s calamity is the sparrow’s hilarity. I repeat, the farmer’s cause of weeping is the sparrow’s source of laughter. The sparrow’s belly, full of corn, draws scorn and baleful looks from the helpless farmer.

Journalism and quicksilver and shifting sands are all children of the same father called Dynamism. The life of a columnist is the fate of the Swiss watch – tick-tock, tick-tock without rest – life of news monitoring round-the-clock, and when you think you finally got a topic you want to write about, another bigger story breaks, belittling the story you’re exploring. When this happens, the columnist becomes a creative spider, webbing a potpourri of tales.

You will agree that Balthazar’s story should be a stand-alone tale. Balthazar is big. He’s an elephant, he needs space. And I figure the Balthazar story will still resonate throughout the year, so I can always come back to it, but the Alapomu story would soon be lost in the ocean of the tyranny our tyrant elite drown the masses.

Along the way, I had also given a thought to the interview by popular gospel musician, Yinka Ayefele, whose radio guest – a demented cannibal, claimed to have killed over 80 persons. Ultimately, however, I had to drop Balthazar and Yinka Ayefele, and hug the Alapomu.

Crowned only four years ago, the viral video of Alapomu’s verbal dysentery during a PDP empowerment event in his domain recently is both repulsive and shameful.

Fellow Nigerians, this is a translation of what the man called kabiyesi said in Yoruba, “I will tell you PDP members a secret: Go and take good care of your house because we do not know who the rival party will put forward (for the next election). If the rival party puts forward a strong candidate, and if there’s no unity in PDP, it can affect us. I always say something to people – you don’t know the value of your possession until you lose it. No matter what, let’s cherish our common interest.

“I’m using this opportunity to beg you (PDP members) to stand by Lanre (Oladebo). On the eve of his election, Akogun stormed my palace, and said, “Kabiyesi, you have been slammed to the ground.” I said, “Who slammed me to the ground?” He (Akogun) said, “It is Olufi (the King of Gbongan).” I said, “What? Olufi!? Olufi is my son! Gbongan was founded in 1793, the Olufi is junior to me, he should be calling me father. How can he slam me?

“Akogun spoke and maintained that the rival party had met.” I said, “Ha, the election is no longer between Lanre and Oluga, it’s now between Olufi and I, and I will show him (Olufi) that I’m his father. I had an elaborate meeting with Mao, who didn’t reveal the content of our meeting to you people. He (Mao) is right behind me here. (He looks sideways to his back where Mao was seated).”

Boasting of his indomitable powers, the Apomu ruler continued, “I said, Mao, if the election turns to war, so be it; if it turns to combat, so be it. No one can cage the king but God. I told Mao that at all costs, I am solidly behind him – go and unleash absolute violence – this candidate (Lanre) MUST win the election. Then the situation snowballed into “Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! To! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! We thank God the effort yielded good fruit…” And the people hailed the king.

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Lanre Oladebo, the incumbent House of Representatives member representing the Ayedaade/Irewole/Isokan federal constituency, is an indigene of Apomu while his major rival in the 2023 election, Mrs Taiwo Oluga, an All Progressives Congress chieftain, whom Oladebo overthrew, is an indigene of Gbongan. Mao’s full name is Alhaji Lateef Adeniran. An ex-chairman of Isokan LG, Mao is also from Apomu.

The Ayedaade/Irewole/Isokan federal constituency has a history of producing women for the House of Reps seat, with a former Speaker, Mrs Patricia Etteh (PDP), and Mrs Ayo Omidiran (APC), representing the zone for two terms each before Oluga was elected in 2019, losing re-election in 2023 to Oladebo, a male.

The inadvertent revelation of the Alapomu confirms the ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-to-ta-po-pa that shot Oladebo to victory. What a king! What a country!

The ta-ta-ta-ta-ta king of Apomu is not an ápòdà; he’s educated, handsome and suave. But a king should not abandon the nobility of his throne to roll in the gutter of politics because, eventually, he would be like the old man, who ties corn cobs to his waist and is being chased about the village by chickens pecking at his Balthazar.

Apomu was a great community, historically. For about 400 years, Apomu was the economic nerve centre of the entire Oyo Empire of the 16th Century. Its strategic location as a land connecting various Yoruba inland and riverine communities, together with its proximity to resources, accessible roads and political stability, made Apomu the market of choice.

Because of the humongous wealth it generated, security was not discounted in Apomu. Guards were on alert in the land, securing lives and property. But one day, says Yoruba oral tradition, something strange happened to one of the guards, making him to flee the town, bequeathing to the Yoruba language this proverb that describes profound calamity, “Ìlóyá, oníbodè Apòmù, a kó o n’Ífá, a gbà á lóbìnrin, òpèlè tí kò bá wolé mú, ajá gbe e, ‘e bá mi mu, e bá mi mu’, ajá ko si kònga, ilé tí kò bá wò, ilé jóná.” Meaning: It’s time to go, declares the Apomu border guard, whose Ifa goodwill was stolen, and his wife was snatched. He rushes inside his house to get his Ifa oracle to divine why life is going awry, a dog snaps up his oracle. He runs after the dog, shouting ‘help, help’ ‘help’, the dog falls into a well, he runs back home only to find his house on fire.”

That wasn’t the only unfortunate incident in the history of Apomu. Apomu also witnessed the Owu War between 1820 and 1827. The war involved Ife and Owu over the control of Apomu, which was under Ife. The war which led to the destruction of Owu caused Owu indigenes to flee to present-day Abeokuta. The war arose over slaves and trade conflicts.

By boasting that kings are above every authority in the land except God, Afolabi arrogantly smashes the meaning of k-a-b-i-y-e-s-i on the head of decency while the police, DSS and INEC watch helplessly.

I know most traditional rulers are battleaxes and footmats of various political parties. But Apomu has an illustrious history. The Alapomu should stop stoking the embers of political war, he should lead with honour.

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