Opinion

Tinubu getting governance right but economy wrong – Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 years ago

January 13, 2024

Farooq Kperogi

Tinubu getting governance right but economy wrong – Farooq Kperogi

It takes a special kind of partisan bullheadedness— or an acute amnesia of the immediate past— to fail to acknowledge that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has, in the last few weeks, enlivened governance, shown praiseworthy sensitivity to public opinion, and has exerted unaccustomed social, symbolic, and political presence in the country.

But it also requires a severely blind partisan loyalty to not admit that Tinubu’s firing of a corrupt minister caught red handed with her hand in the cookie jar, his responsiveness to legitimate public outcries, and his obvious interest in actual governance have not moved the needle in the real living conditions of the majority of Nigerians who are squirming in profound existential hurt as a direct consequence of the unprecedented economic crunch that the removal of subsidies on petrol has activated. I’ll return to this point later.

I am never shy to publicly admit it when I am wrong. Since January 2022 when it became apparent to me that Tinubu would be president, I was distressed. In a January 12, 2022, social media update, I ventilated this distress when I wrote: “No nation can survive a transition from Buhari’s corrupt, do-nothing, geriatric, and dementia-plagued presidency to a drunken, narcotized, geriatric, and potentially corrupt Tinubu presidency.”

I am not ashamed to concede that I am probably wrong and that the people who insisted that Tinubu would be different from Buhari are right—at least for now. By my training and disposition, I am parsimonious with expressions of commendation for people in positions of power. It’s because I know that the privileges and pressures of power can make people unpredictable or change in a fraction of a moment’s notice. But there is no harm in acknowledging demonstrations of good-faith efforts by people in power.

The swift, no-nonsense suspension of Betta Edu as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation after irrefutable evidentiary proof of her corruption emerged and public outcry for her ouster grew— and the summoning of the Internal Affairs Minister to explain how a company he is associated with benefitted from Edu’s corruption— has scored the Tinubu administration its most visible reputational mileage in governance yet and has caused many critics to thaw their frigidity toward the administration.

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It doesn’t mean there are no other corrupt government officials who are fleecing the nation, but this is the first time an APC administration has fired a minister for corruption. All past examples of ministers who lost their jobs because of corruption have been during PDP administrations. Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’adua, and even Goodluck Jonathan have records of firing ministers who were credibly accused of corrupt enrichment.

Yet, Muhammadu Buhari, who rode to power on the strength of the perception and claims that he was “clean” and was intolerant of corruption, not only never fired a single minister on account of corruption (even though Nigeria lost the most money to corruption during his regime), but he also actually weaponized his symbolic power as president to defend the corruption of his ministers and close associates.

After the alleged corruption of Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai, Lt. Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazzau and Babachir David Lawal were published, Buhari’s public response, in December 2016, was, “Terrible and unfounded comments about other people’s integrity are not good. We are not going to spare anybody who soils his hands, but people should please wait till such individuals are indicted.”

But when corrupt people were indicted, he defended them both publicly and privately. For example, when Babachir Lawal was indicted by the Senate for fleecing internally displaced people in the Northeast, Buhari deployed astonishingly bald-faced lies to defend him.

In my January 28, 2017 column titled “Presidential Lying in Defense of Corrupt “Executhieves,” I wrote: “In his letter to the Senate ‘clearing’ Babachir David Lawal of multi-million naira ‘grass cutting’ corruption scandal, the president said the senate didn’t invite Lawal to defend himself. Lie. He WAS invited via a letter, which the permanent secretary attached to his office acknowledged, and via at least three newspaper adverts. But he spurned the invitation and sent a representative.

“The president also said only three senate committee members signed the letter asking for Lawal’s resignation and prosecution. Another lie. Seven senate committee members did.” It was Yemi Osinbajo’s acting presidency that recommended Babachir Lawal’s firing. Left to Buhari, nothing would have happened to him.

We also learned from the Head of Service of the Federation in November 2017 that Buhari was actually aware of, and even countenanced, the scandalous reinstatement and promotion of Abdulrahseed Maina, the former chairman of the Pension Reform Task Force Team who was sacked for stealing 14 billion naira belonging to pensioners. Of course, we all know how Buhari featherbedded Sadiya Umar Farouq who stole way more money than Betta Edu did.

A separate column needs to be written on Buhari’s corruption and how he gave aid and comfort to the worst corruption in Nigeria’s history. It suffices for now to state that Tinubu’s actions would have been mere unremarkable routines in governance had he not been preceded by the worst, most incompetent, and least transparent ruler in Nigeria’s history.

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Nonetheless, the praises that the Tinubu administration is receiving from unlikely quarters shouldn’t lull it into a false sense of self-satisfaction to the point of being unmindful of the damaging consequences of its punishingly harsh economic policies.

I was in Nigeria in December 2023 and saw firsthand the extreme, unbearable, and unexampled adversity that the vast majority of people have been thrown into in the aftermath of the removal of petrol subsidies. The level of suffering people are going through now is simply unsustainable. Something will definitely give if nothing is done urgently.

Since the Tinubu administration has so far shown itself to be amenable to be persuaded on issues that matter to the public, I suggest that immediate steps should be taken to halt the drift to hopelessness that’s taking roots in Nigeria.

In Monarchs and Mendicants, Dan Groat warned: “Not interested in scarin’ anybody, but people with good sense are afraid of a man with nothin’ to lose.” Lance Conrad reiterated the same sentiment in The Price of Nobility when he said, “Only a fool would underestimate a man with nothing to lose.” Extreme deprivation, such as what most Nigerians are going through now, inspires hopelessness, loss of faith in life itself, and a willingness to bring everything down.

One of the first moves to stop that is to recognize that it’s way past time to increase the national minimum age across the board. N30,000 is no longer even remotely in the realm of a realistic minimum wage in a country where a liter of petrol is more than 600 naira and a bag of rice is more than N50,000.

Second, as a matter of fierce urgency, the government should make Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) readily available and affordable across the country as an alternative to petrol if it’s unwilling to bring down the price of petrol. By affordable, I am suggesting that it should be less than N200 per liter.

The economy is contracting because people aren’t spending, and people aren’t spending because their disposable incomes are being eaten up by the unsustainably high price of petrol.

Third, Nigerians need to see visible signs of the utilization of the money saved from the removal of petrol subsidies in strategic expansion of railways and investment in inter- and intra-state transportation. This would obviate the need for fuel subsidies.

We already know that contrary to what government officials and defenders of subsidy removal had said, money saved from subsidy removal won’t go to education or health. Only 7.9% of this year’s budget is allocated to education, and only 5% is allocated to health. That’s not different from previous years.

There is so much more money for government officials to steal precisely because the removal of fuel subsidies took from the poor what should make life a life easier for them. So, firing corrupt officials will only make sense to ordinary folks if it translates to an increase in the quality of their lives.

Tinubu getting governance right but economy wrong – Farooq Kperogi

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

Opinion

Tinubu, el-Rufai and the cobra

Published

5 hours ago

February 20, 2026

Trends Admin

Former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has accused President Bola Tinubu

Tinubu, el-Rufai and the cobra

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, February 20, 2026)

If they were not venomous, snakes would probably garland the necks of the rich and the influential to delineate social class. With a body handwoven by its Creator, the snake is the most awesome creature, epitomising engineering fluidity among wildlife. Its fleeting mobility, intricate symmetry, stretchy sinews, delicate precision and frightening fatality define a brute created without hurry.

If the Creator, in His infinite creativity, had swapped the rabies of the dog for the venom of the snake, the faintest bark would have sent feet fleeing, sticks wielding, and alarum bells ringing. Armed with just rabies as a weapon, the snake would have been handpickable like snails after rainfall; slithering and spitting alone do not deter like venom strike. Meat and skin, snakes are attractive.

If its venom was exchanged for rabies, the snake would probably have been Man’s best friend, barking through a slit mouth and narrow throat, without a noise. Before closing production on the evening of the Sixth Day, God assessed His production line; behold all things were bright and beautiful. So, he rested on the Seventh Day.

But Man and snake are not friends; one strikes the head, the other strikes the heel. This eternal enmity results in deaths within both camps, with the human casualty dripping with grief, while snakedom is griefless – Ọ̀dájú lọmọ ejò.

On the last day of January 2026, fast-rising soprano singer, Ifunanya Nwangene, curled up in bed, enjoying a sleep in her Abuja apartment. Later, a cobra crawled into bed with her. Ifunanya probably felt the snake crawl over her arm, and she tried to move her arm away from the uninvited visitor. When the cobra sensed that the arm, which was inanimate a while ago, was slowly becoming animate, it panicked and lashed out, sinking its fangs into the songbird’s wrist. With that split-second strike, the cobra blew out Ifunanya’s candles.

In minutes, a numbing pain in the wrist woke the songster up. She saw the bite and the swelling. Frantic, she made a call to her father, uncle and friends. This must be a bad dream, Ifunanya thought. Wake up, wake up, girl! But the Nightingale was slipping away. Death has crept in right in the safety of her room.

Following Ifunanya’s death, the BBC, in a February 7, 2026, story headlined “A singer’s tragic death highlights Nigeria’s snakebite problem,” reveals the controversy that trailed Ifunanya’s death. In the report, Ifunanya’s father, Christopher Nwangene, accused the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi, Abuja, of unprofessional treatment and lacking antivenom when she was rushed to the hospital. But the hospital refuted the allegations in a clap back, insisting that it had enough antivenom in stock and that Ifunanya received good treatment. The Chief Medical Director of the FMC, Saad Ahmed, explained that Ifunanya arrived over two hours after the snakebite. Ahmed’s allegation, however, beggars belief and raises the question: why would Ifunanya’s uncle and friend separately go in search of antivenoms and, indeed, buy some, if the hospital had the antidote?

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A nationwide backlash left a populace lamenting the preventable loss of a special talent. Christopher said the hospital’s medical staff should not have removed the tourniquet tied to her wrist to limit the venom from spreading to other parts of her body when the hospital did not have enough antivenom. Though the use of a tourniquet is no longer advisable as treatment for snakebite because it can cause tissue damage and increase the risk of amputation, Ifunanya’s father insisted that it was better for her daughter to be amputated than to die.

In its characteristic fire brigade method, the Nigerian Senate, without setting a timeline, called on the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control to ensure hospitals across the country were stocked with safe, effective and affordable antivenoms. The Senate’s hollow directive typifies the futility of an imam’s rumbling stomach when presented with a dish of pork.

The lack of direction and commitment in the Senate directive on antivenom explains the lackadaisical legislation the nation gets when issues involve the masses, while diligence and speed attend legislation on issues that directly benefit lawmakers like constituency projects, car purchase and accommodation. The energy and time deployed by the Senate leadership under High Chief Godswill Akpabio to fight the Soyoyo from Kogi State, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, encapsulates the NFA metaphor of my youth. In my secondary school days, unserious students were called NFA, an acronym for No Future Ambition. Can the Nigerian masses attest that their National Assembly yesterday, today or tomorrow truly has people-oriented ambition, except talk loudly, cackle heartily, defect, and look towards the Presidency for patronage?

The venom economy, when measured through anti-venom and venom-derived therapeutics, is a multi-billion-dollar, fast-growing global market with respectable profitability driven by healthcare demand, innovation, and rising global incidence of venomous encounters. Nigeria, with its multitude of youth unemployment should tap into the global-venom market, but its clueless political class will not ensure any life-changing policy to push unemployment back.

When he was Health Minister six years ago, a former Speaker of the Lagos House of Assembly, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora, described as ‘epidemic proportions’, the 20,000 snakebites recorded annually in Nigeria. That was six years ago. Today, the Toxinological Society of Nigeria says snakebite cases in Nigeria annually have climbed up to 43,000, making the need to produce antivenoms locally a matter of national duty. The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria estimates that the country spends about $12million yearly importing antivenoms. A vial of imported antivenom, according to the BBC,costs between N45,000 and N80,000, necessitating the need for local production, export and job creation. But in Mamora’s alarm lay an underlying potential for the country to partake in the multi-billion-dollar global venom market, which included participants like scorpions, spiders, wasps, ants, etc.

The BBC report states that Nigeria’s snakebite “epidemic proportions” is “compounded by a critical shortage of affordable antivenom, which needs to be stored in fridges – often impossible in areas with unreliable electricity”. However, herbal medicine produced locally by traditional medicine practitioners does not need refrigeration. A 2005 study, “Effect of Annona senegalensis rootbark extracts on (cobra) Naja nigricotlis venom in rats,” published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Ethnopharmacology, showed the relative effectiveness of the rootbark of African custard apple in treating cobra venom.

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While the nation grappled with insecurity, hunger and poverty, there came a rumble from outside Aso Rock. A little mallam, Nasir el-Rufai, sat on a huge pile of peddles, singing a Fulani song, pelting the roof of the Villa with his pebbles. Aso Rock panicked. The embers of a recent coup are still glowing. When a fly perches on the scrotal sack, caution becomes the first commandment.

I daresay the former Kaduna State governor was the most vocal vendor of the Bola Tinubu electoral commodity to the North when members of the Fulani hegemony were afraid to openly side with the presidential candidacy of Tinubu while President Muhammadu Buhari reigned. Short men and daring deeds.

When everyone was afraid of Buhari, El-Rufai showed dogmatic courage and stood by his belief. And Tinubu won. After Tinubu’s victory, el-Rufai danced to Kizz Daniel’s Buga song with Tinubu over dinner. While Tinubu was bugga-ing in owambe fashion, el-Rufai was waltzing to Buga in the Fulani stick-across-the-neck dance style. I watched the dance again today. Laugh catch me. Between Tinubu and el-Rufai, someone was scratching their nose with the head of a cobra.

Before or after the deceitful dance, Tinubu publicly begged el-Rufai to come and work in his administration, and el-Rufai said he would work on a part-time basis because he had some personal issues to attend to. When Tinubu was compiling his list of ministers, el-Rufai also submitted his cv, but his name was shockingly flagged by security agencies.

I do not know what the mallam did to offend Jagaban, but I guess the President is just uncomfortable with the personality of the former governor. He probably sees Nasir as a stormy petrel who would be uncontrollable if allowed into the cabinet. The moral question that bubbles up from the depth of virtueless politics, therefore, is: “Why enlist el-Rufai to fight your battle when you knew you were going to dump him?”

Well, Nigerian politics lacked virtue before, during, and after the days of el-Rufai as Kaduna governor. In the murky waters of politics, fish eats fish, dog eats dog, snake eats snake. Tinubu is eating today; he might be eaten tomorrow.

So, when you see El-Rufai vehemently criticise Tinubu, e get why. No bi because of God. When Tinubu abuses Abubakar Atiku, na cruise. When Peter Obi knack Tinubu apako, na content. If Atiku tear Tinubu, na paddy-paddy matter. Dem all sabi wetin dem dey do. Dem go fight, dem go settle.

Nigerians love sports, especially football. In Brazil, football employs 3.3 million people, generating about $2bn annually. In the 2023/2024 season, the Premier League generated $6.34billion. Nollywood and the Nigerian music world, without government initiative, have grown to international repute, generating millions of dollars.

So, instead of our elected politicians and public officials snaking from one party to another in almajeri fashion, there should be a concerted national effort geared towards providing the dividends of democracy to the masses. Perhaps they have forgotten what the dividends of democracy are, here they are: security, healthcare, education, employment, welfare, infrastructure, etc.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

Tinubu, el-Rufai and the cobra

Opinion

El Rufai’s Arise News mind game with Ribadu, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

6 days ago

February 14, 2026

Trends Admin

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

Farooq Kperogi

El Rufai’s Arise News mind game with Ribadu, By Farooq Kperogi

Nasir El-Rufai claimed in his interview with Arise News that someone intercepted and recorded his former friend Nuhu Ribadu’s phone call in which Ribadu allegedly instructed El-Rufai’s arrest.

He acknowledged the illegality of the act but said the government had used similar methods against him.

My strong suspicion is that El-Rufai is merely playing mind games. It is operationally improbable that a serving NSA, with all the personnel and paraphernalia available to him, would issue a sensitive directive of that nature over an unsecure call. I would bet my bottom dollar that the claim is made up.

Still, the allegation serves powerful and artful rhetorical warfare purposes, which El-Rufai appears to have calculatedly designed. If authorities pursue action based on his admission of illegal interception, critics may interpret this as indirect validation of his story, thereby injuring Ribadu’s professional competence and judgment.

In other words, arresting El-Rufai for admitting that he illegally obtained help to intercept and listen in on the NSA’s call could authenticate his claim, which I strongly suspect is manufactured for psychological warfare, and portray the NSA as vindictive and unprofessional for supposedly relaying sensitive information through insecure means.

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By admitting to the illegality of the interception, he is begging to be apprehended to give an indirect stamp of legitimacy to what I suspect is an intentionally strategic fib.

But if authorities ignore the claim, some observers may assume it is true. Silence in this context could be construed as consent.

At the same time, if the NSA’s office issues a public denial, El-Rufai could plausibly commission AI tools to generate a voice call mimicking the NSA’s voice. Convincing AI-generated voice simulations are no longer difficult to produce, and people’s gullibility seems to be at an all-time high.

Finally, El-Rufai’s remarks may also be designed to induce paranoia within Ribadu’s inner circles. Suggesting that someone taped the NSA implies that either close associates of his or elements within the SSS are monitoring him on behalf of adversaries. That kind of insinuation can foster a crippling persecution complex.

Of course, if Ribadu issued no such order, or communicated only through secure channels, he would simply laugh off El-Rufai’s claim as a wily but unsuccessful mind game from a former friend who’s still hurting from his unexpected exclusion from the orbit of power.

El-Rufai’s ultimate objective, however, appears to be to cultivate public sympathy ahead of his scheduled appearance at the EFCC on Monday while simultaneously attempting to psychologically unsettle his adversaries. Interesting times!

El Rufai’s Arise News mind game with Ribadu, By Farooq Kperogi

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

Opinion

Oshiomhole: Behold the 13th disciple of Christ

Published

1 week ago

February 13, 2026

Trends Admin

Oshiomhole: Behold the 13th disciple of Christ

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, February 13, 2026)

Friday, February, 13, 1976: A libidinous soldier, Lieutenant-Colonel Buka Suka Dimka, waited in ambush for a black Mercedes-Benz, counting down to the zero hour, caressing his gun, ready for the whistle from death. Dimka was not alone. He was in company with fellow coupists and treasonable felons.

Today, Friday, February 13, 2026, marks exactly 50 years since assassin bullets pierced the unarmoured body of the black Benz to pierce the body of the Nigerian Head of State, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed, seated at the back of his official car, snaking its way through Lagos traffic. That was a period when Nigerian Heads of State commuted in just one official car; no convoy, no siren, no madness.

It was a death most gruesome for the 37-year-old General, bubbling with life by 8a.m, stone-dead by nine. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Akintunde Akinsehinwa, and driver, Sergeant Adamu Michika, were killed in the Dimka-led ambush on George Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, en route to their Dodan Barracks place of work.

The gunshots pumped into Murtala were still echoing when the coup bit the dust. His body had not gone cold when federal forces rose to quench the coup. Dimka’s comrades-in-harms, Minister of Defence, Major-General I.D. Bisalla; the first military Governor of defunct Benue-Plateau State, police commissioner Joseph Gomwalk; Major Ibrahim Rabo, Captain M. Parvwang, Lieutenant William Seri, and 32 others were rounded up, tried, tied to the stakes and shot. An eye for an eye. A bullet for a bullet.

But Dimka fled Lagos, the scene of his crime, and headed to the East, his newfound refuge, to live in subterfuge. To book hotel accommodation, Dimka shed his lieutenant-colonel khaki and wore the garb of a faceless Mr C Godwin. If Dimka could kill Murtala on the eve of Valentine’s Day, only God knows what he did on Lovers’ Day, as he was caught on May 5, 1976, with a prostitute in Afikpo at a police checkpoint when fleeing to Cameroon.

Before escaping through the toilet window when he suspected police presence, Dimka holed up at Friendship Hotel, smoking, drinking and cooling his hot blood off in the bosom and thighs of luscious daughters of Eve. Cold blood needs warm blood.

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What kind of man would kill on the eve of Valentine’s Day and cuddle Eves on Valentine’s Day? Ha! Dimka got balls. Some men do. What must have been going through Dimka’s mind, watching and listening to reports of his coup and his manhunt, while he sipped beer and kissed and caressed? Daylight coldbloodedness.

On February 3, 2026, as the alleged dalliance of the representative of Edo-North senatorial district in the National Assembly, Senator Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, shook the internet, I hissed at the ignorance of Nigerians who rose in anger, calling for his head.

I hissed because a lot of those stomping on social media streets against Osho Baba are hypocrites ready to trade places with the husband of Lara Fuentes, the Cape Verdean model he married in 2015 after the death of his beautiful wife, Clara, who led him to Christ, and purportedly adopted a Christian name, Eric, upon conversion. Sadly, Clara lost a battle with breast cancer in 2010, aged 54.

Oshiomhole is a man of moral rhymes. From Clara in 2010 to Lara in 2015, there was a period of five long years. So, the born-again Eric waited five long years before looking another woman in the eye. That was honour. That was respect. That was fidelity. How many Nigerian men can wait that long? How many Nigerian septuagenarians are as hot as the ex-defender of the masses? How many possess his handsome looks? How many possess his fit and proper body? When you see Oshiomhole in the gym, you will know he is on a mission.

Dimka dimmed the light of Nigeria’s governance in 1976, throwing the nation into darkness. Despite all of the manhunt and national uproar against his action, however, he remained ensconced in carnal cares, nourishing his whims and the stiffness of his phallus. Some other leaders wouldn’t make it out of Lagos, let alone go as far as Afikpo. But Dimka did with aplomb. That was the hallmark of grit and greatness, something missing in today’s Nigerian leadership.

Although Osho Baba has come out to rebut the viral video displaying his image massaging the foot of a South African goddess, ‘adult content creator’ and ‘professional sugar baby’, Lashaan Dagama, I would have advised against such a move because I know some nosy Nigerians would run veracity checks on the controversial 30-second video.

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Here’s the finding of an online newspaper, The Whistler, which deployed multiple deepfake detection tools to determine the authenticity of the love-in-the-air video shot aboard a luxury aircraft thousands of feet above a grounded country, whose citizens grope in darkness on empty stomachs amid worsening insecurity. The tools deployed by The Whistler included Deepware Scanner, Zhuque AI Detection Assistant, AU Video Detector, Sight Engine, and Hive AI Deepfake Detection.

The Whistler did a story on its multiple checks. Please, read: “These tools analysed for visual artefacts (such as hand/finger inconsistencies, lip-sync mismatch, unnatural facial blending, or lighting errors), audio patterns, metadata inconsistencies, and provenance signals.

“The scans showed no detectable hallmarks of generative AI manipulation, with high confidence scores indicating the video is authentic footage rather than synthetically created or significantly altered by current AI video generation methods.”

The report returned with a verdict which dismissed Oshiomhole’s AI claim as false, stressing that “the claim that the video is AI-generated lacks supporting evidence and is contradicted by the woman’s public response implying the event occurred, the absence of detectable AI artefacts in the clip, and results from deepfake detection tools confirmed no signs of AI generation or manipulation.”

Do not compare Dimka with Oshiomhole, please; one is a soldier, the other is a democrat. One is a killer, the other is a caresser. One gripped the trigger; the other groped a foot. One exfoliated life; the other moisturised it. Please, do not compare apples with oranges.

But the coping mechanism and survival strategy of Dimka is a lesson in military adaptability, just as Oshiomhole’s transfiguration should be a topic of interest to students of Nigerian politics. Adams transmutation from a poor background in Iyamho, near Auchi, working as a textile hand, joining textile politics before emerging as the President, Nigeria Labour Congress, demanded great coping capacity, courage and consistency.

In February 1999, Oshiomhole rose to labour peak at the dawn of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, leading the NLC to national greatness and acceptability, organising government-shaking rallies to protest lack of electricity, fuel price hike, rising food costs, and harsh economic policies – all on behalf of an applauding masses. By the time he completed two terms in 2007, Oshiomhole had done more than enough to engrave himself in the hearts of Nigerians who spread palm fronds on the ground for the donkey-riding Messiah on his way to the Edo State Government House.

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Even while he was Governor of Osun State between 1999 and 2003, the Baba Isale of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Bisi Akande, had called Oshiomhole names when labour idealism looked politics in the eye. Since crossing over to politics, however, Oshiomhole seems to have acquired 3D glasses which beautify ugly spectacles. He now dines at the same table with Akande, on whose face sits a plastered smile.

If I were in the inner caucus of Osho Baba, I would have told him to damn the naysayers and encouraged him to strut on the runway, exhibiting his 73-year-old masculinity, locking his hands up in a flex, like Mr Universe. I would have sincerely told him that the lovey-dovey Dagama video was a big opportunity to set Nigerian eyes ogling and tongues wagging, distracting the masses from the existential issues of poverty, insecurity, electricity, homelessness, waterlessness, healthlessness and schoollessness. I would have urged the Comrade to treat the foot massage issue like Sage Bola Tinubu described power, saying, “Osho Baba, a model as beautiful as Lashaan Dagama is not served a la carte, you should own her, fight for her, grab her, snatch her and run with her.”

Lady Dagama lives her life on online street. She knows the potential damage her silence on Oshiomhole’s disclaimer could do to her brand, hence her annoyance over the rebuttal was understandable. For an adult content creation business driven by flesh and personage, Osho Baba was a large fish caught by Dagama’s hook, so the attempt to wriggle off the hook made her burst out in frustration, “Your senator is the problem; go, be mad at him, not me.” She went a mile further to proclaim her truth, saying, “The video wasn’t AI, but okay, believe your senator,” when the former APC national chairman maintained the video was AI-generated.

For the multitude ignorantly calling for the head of Oshiomhole because he dedicated precious time and energy to Dagama’s beautiful foot, here are the Yoruba and the Jewish worldviews on foot. In their wisdom, the Yoruba say the head and the feet are interconnected. They affirm the interconnectivity in this proverb, “Ori wo ibo rere gbe mi ya, ese wo ibi rere gbe re.” Thus, it is the belief of the Yoruba that the head and the legs are capable of taking an individual to a fortunate or unfortunate place.

The Yoruba, they are never done; they also say, “Adiye kii ti ibi ese ku,” meaning: the chicken never dies from an injury to its feet.” This is why you never see a chicken walking on a prosthesis. No matter the severity of its leg injury, you will see the chicken hobbling on, at least, one foot, but certainly not with crutches. Oshiomhole understands Yoruba. He knows the curative powers of long, sexy legs. He knows. He knows. He knows.

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The spartan-looking comrade emerged general secretary of the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria in 1982, a time when over 450,000 textile workers ran the 180 mills across the country. Today, the mills have thinned down to about 20. I’m sure Oshiomhole cannot be happy with this shameful decline because he was at the helm of labour affairs when Nigeria was good, and he is at the corridor of power now that Nigeria is bad.

For a born-again Christian about to climb the 74th year on life’s almanac, Osho Baba reads his Bible diligently, fully aware this world is not his home, he’s just a pilgrim. Despite eyeing heaven, Oshiomhole is also as wise as the serpent and as gentle as a dove – two biblical injunctions necessary to dominate and conquer the earth. Oshiomhole is the serpent; he is also the dove. But he is only following biblical commandments.

Osho Baba worships God in deed and in truth. He believes in Jesus Christ as his personal lord and Saviour. The way he placed Dagama’s foot gently on his lap and anointed it with alabaster oil shows that he has read and missed nothing in the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.

In ancient Jewish tradition, foot washing symbolises respect, honour, hospitality, service, purification and humiliation. Servants or juniors are expected to wash the feet of their masters or superiors. But Jesus changed the social order when he, the Master, washed the feet of his disciples, including the treacherous Judas Iscariot, to teach unconditional love. So, the former labour lion is punctual in church. He knows the feet-washing story, and he wants to go to heaven. So, what is wrong with him washing the feet of Dagama to fulfil all righteousness and earn a place in paradise?

Still talking Jewish tradition. A woman described as a sinner washed the feet of Jesus during a banquet. Some Bible scholars have come to identify her as Mary Magdalene, while some call her Mary of Bethany. The act is recorded in the Books of Luke 7:36-50 and John 12: 1-8. Here is St John’s version: “Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive oil; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.” Mary washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with alabaster oil. Now, Nigerians who want to see Oshiomhole in paradise must tell him to produce the full, unedited, un-AI-ed version of his encounter with Dagama. They must ask if he washed, shed tears, kissed and anointed Dagama’s foot. Oshiomhole is bald; otherwise, I would have urged his teeming supporters to ask if he wiped Dagama’s foot with his hair.

And I did not see Dagama’s shoes on the floor. I wonder where she flung them. I had thought ‘bata’ was a Yoruba word for shoes. This was until I discovered that a Czechoslovakian footwear company, Bata Shoe Company, set foot in Nigeria in 1932. So, I looked up the history of Bata in the Czech Republic. Google dumped pages of history on my lap. It says, “In the Czech Republic, Bata is a renowned, historic brand of shoes and apparel founded in Zlín in 1894 by siblings Tomas, Antonín, and Anna Bata. Bata is considered a household name in the Czech Republic, synonymous with shoes.”

With its factory in Ojota, Lagos, Bata Shoe Factory was to later open retail outlets across the country. Where are Dagama’s shoes, Senator Oshiomhole? As you ponder providing an answer to this question, Your Excellency, permit me I ask another: as Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, and a former general secretary of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, why is it difficult to establish a shoe-manufacturing company in the country?

I love you, Comrade-Senator. I love you with the love of God. I know you know the love of God is also called agape love. Being from humble beginnings like our Lord Jesus Christ, however, I wish to sing you a song by ghetto boy, Daddy Showkey. I’m sure you will remember the song, and you will love it.

“If you see Adamso, Hosanna

Tell am say o, Hosanna

I dey Igbajo, Hosanna

I no get problem, Hosanna

E get one women, Hosanna

Her name na Lashaan, Hosanna

Oh, Lashaan baby, Hosanna

Lashaan fine well, well, Hosanna

I say she fine well, well, Hosanna

Oh Lashaan baby, Hosanna

Adamso carry Lashaan, Hosanna

E put am for jet, Hosanna