I am ashamed of you. I am ashamed to be in the same profession with a vile human being like you. You cannot even find out the truth before running me down for the sake of your benefactor. God will not forgive you. Your enemies will overtake you. How dare you publish such lies!! – Senator Biodun Olujimi
I was in a meeting after Sunday service last week when my phone rang. I excused myself and answered the call. Immediately the voice on the other end confirmed my identity, she introduced herself and launched into a tirade. She went on for minutes. When I felt I had got enough gist of her mission, I ended the call. She kept calling but I ignored her subsequent calls; then she sent the quote above as a text message. Welcome distinguished Senator Biodun Olujimi, the senator representing Ekiti South in the National Assembly! Olujimi’s rage centred on “Senator Biodun Olujimi’s embarrassing moment” published here last week but because she rained abuses and curses all through, she neglected to make her point. This is one mistake people often make when they allow anger have the better part of them; but one would have expected someone who claims to be a journalist to know better. It is trite that in the first few paragraphs of any rejoinder, verbal or written, you make your points and set the records straight before engaging in inanities. This is one of the basic principles that the profession teaches thoroughbred professionals. The distinguished senator accused me of not finding out the truth? What truth? Possibly she meant “the truth” of who was right or wrong between her and her aides on the one hand and the less fortunate ordinary citizens on the other that were reported to have exchanged hot words and traded demeaning blows over the use of an elevator at the National Assembly. The police and the courts should help the parties involved sort that out! My presumptions, which, I am afraid, have proven misplaced with unfolding events, was that a distinguished senator – even her aides – should never have allowed themselves be caught in such a sordid web.
I have watched Olujimi from close quarters on occasions in the past; you cannot miss her strut like the peacock’s. I have also listened to her speak; her forced phonetics amusing. I knew of her love-hate relationship with the governor of her state, Peter Ayodele Fayose; but that is nothing new with politicians; especially the Nigerian genre that has taken the cliché “there are no permanent friends but permanent interests” to ridiculous level. The pretentious and sanctimonious posturing of the average Nigerian politician beggars belief. Few people take politicians seriously when they pretend to fight. Soon, the “enemies” of today will emerge from an inner chamber tomorrow grinning from ear to ear after they have “settled” their differences. How many times have Olujimi “fought” and settled with Fayose? What is the assurance that their present dog-fight will not be settled again very soon? Prostitution, deceit, chicanery, every imaginable shenanigan sit pretty with politics and politician.
Olujimi’s latest disagreement with Fayose did not just start penultimate week; it has been on for months but it has not been any of my business. If I had wanted to serve the interest of my “benefactor,” I wouldn’t have waited till last Sunday. Olujimi is not the only one in the group or groups “fighting” Fayose at the moment. Fortunately and or unfortunately, two of my friends and brothers, Dayo Adeyeye and Owoseni Ajayi, are in the group. Like Olujimi, this will not be the first time they will “fight” Fayose. They fought so bitterly in the past that many had thought they would never see eye-to-eye again; but they settled, resumed their “wole-wode” and began to eat on the same table again. There is no assurance they will not settle again. So, Olujimi should not attribute my criticism of her un-Senatorial outing to her present squabble with Fayose. It has got nothing to do with it. That, however, does not mean I will be afraid or unable to take sides in the Ekiti political divide. You may agree or disagree with my position but must respect my right to take it, in the same way I am compelled to respect your own right to take a position opposed to mine. When I chose to change from an unrepentant critic of Fayose to his qualified supporter, I announced it here and gave my reasons. I campaigned against Jonathan in this column and voted Buhari in 2015 – which I now regret – and I have been critical of the Buhari-led APC administration since he began to show his hand.
The fulcrum of democracy is vibrant opposition; any attempt to kill opposition will foist a one-party state; and once that blossoms, we shall have dictatorship. It shall then be bye-bye to democracy. I was hounded, harassed, and detained in the fight to end military rule and enthrone democracy; escaping death by the whiskers on a couple of occasions. So, I cherish democracy and decided that Fayose, being the lone voice in the aridity of opposition to creeping fascism and burgeoning dictatorship, deserved support. If a demon is the one willing to tread where angels feared to, then, I have no qualms backing that demon. Fayose has done this country a world of good for standing up when others had gone into hiding. But for him – and God – the story would have been different today.
Do I support the continuity agenda in Ekiti? Of course, I do! I support that the deputy governor, Prof. Kolapo Olusola Eleka, emerge the PDP candidate in the party primaries yet to be fixed and that he should go ahead to handsomely win the July 14 Ekiti governorship election and take over from Fayose. Firstly, it appears as if succession plans run into bad weather where a politician hands over to another politician. We have instances of such godfather-godson acrimonies all over the country, the messiest at the moment being that of Kano State between Rabiu Kwankwaso and Umar Ganduje. Conversely, it would appear that succession plans fare better when a politician hands over to a fringe politician who is more of a technocrat. A good example is Lagos State. I live and work in Lagos and have seen the steady progress that this kind of succession plan has wrought. Will it work in Ekiti? I believe it will. I have watched Eleka at close quarters; he has attributes and qualities that convince me he will replicate in Ekiti what Raji Fashola and Akinwunmi Ambode have carried forward in Lagos. Given the duty to oversee the education sector in Ekiti state, he has turned the comatose sector around, making it come first in public examinations back to back in 2016 and 2017.
I regret that my own dear Ondo State missed out on the Lagos model in the last governorship election, especially as events unfold in that “Sunshine State” that luxuriates in anything but the Sun. It is usually not easy discussing Rotimi Akeredolu because we come from the same place – Owo – and there are legions of apologists ready to jump in your throat on account of that. Some of them, however, are beginning to have a re-think. One recently asked me “Are you sure Ondo State is still in Nigeria?” Of course, yes! What I cannot vouch for is whether Aketi is! We leave Ondo State for another day! As we close, journalism is a noble profession. Thank God we work hard and decent to earn our peanuts and are not ashamed of it. We are not like some people who work little, earn big but are not bold and honest enough to declare it. “Ise kekere, owo nla” I am sure decent Nigerians know that this is euphemism for corruption. Let no one, however, deny journalists what other professionals are entitled to! No one queries doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, etc when they offer consultancy services, be it to politicians or other Nigerians; a thousand and one Olujimis cannot criminalise or be allowed to bad-mouth it if and when journalists render similar consultancy services?
LAST WORD: President Muhammadu Buhari has promised Catholic bishops that he would take a second look at his appointments: If I may ask, what for? If a first look does not yield any lessons for Buhari, a second look is not likely to be of any use. Even a blind man can, many miles away, smell nepotism, ethnic chauvinism, and Islamic fundamentalist trappings, in all of Buhari’s appointments from Day One up till his last week’s reinstatement of a man being investigated in close to a billion Naira fraud case. As with ex-SGF, Babachir Lawal, Buhari constituted himself into a court to declare the man ‘not guilty”. He re-instated the accused without recourse to the Minister of Health, who had sent him on leave, acting on the report of a panel that investigated the accused. It speaks volumes about what Buhari thinks of the Southerners in his government. They are treated with contempt – and the Health Minister is not the first to suffer this fate.
Minister of State in the Petroleum Ministry, Ibe Kachikwu, suffered a similar fate not long ago in his tussle with the NNPC GMD, Maikanti Baru. Reports are all over the place that Minster of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, is the laughing stock of her subordinates from the North. The Customs boss reportedly told her to her face that he would not report to her – and that was it! The Catholic bishops should save their breath and conserve their energy for the needful – which is, escorting Buhari’s bull out of Nigeria’s china shop. Buhari is settled in his dangerous mindset and unrepentant in his mission to impose his tribesmen upon the rest of this country. His leopard will not – and cannot – change its spots. This is also wondering whether Senator Bola Tinubu will be twice foolish. Once bitten, they say, twice shy. Now that they need him, they are addressing him as APC “National Leader” After using him – if he allows them this time around – he can be sure they will do more than dump him. Atiku Abubakar failed to strike his iron when it was hot; witness how Olusegun Obasanjo grinded his nose in the dust!
If Tinubu repeats Atiku’s mistake, worse fate than Atiku’s awaits him from Buhari.