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It really would never matter if the cage was golden. It is still a cage. Some folks were excited about recent comments credited to Olu Eko, Rilwan Akiolu. Opele was not excited. Why should the Olu not be brazenly partisan? He is being fed to fainting.
He said the PDP would never rule Lagos State. He said God would give Lagos another APC governor. All those were within the rights of citizens under the Constitution. Akiolu did not overstep his bounds in any way.
In fact, Justice Mustapha Akanbi’s launch was a great outing. Obasanjo called this National Assembly a congregation of looters. He gave valid reasons why he said so. Nigerians know this for a fact. Really, what do thieves do? They scale fences.
Obasanjo tells the truth most of the time. The problem with his brand of truth is that it is often affected by amnesia and he also has this inclination to remove himself from the horde of Sodom, like one who never reveled and caroused with sinners before.
Today, Obasanjo is too rich to criticize looters. Too many people died under his watch for him to criticize any government over insecurity. Too much was done against deunitarization of Nigeria under him, for him to qualify as anything short of Nigerian enemy. Both ancient and modern histories of Obasanjo are woeful. He was given Nigeria by the gods across two seasons and he failed to turn this country to the path of greatness. Ancestry should be a torture for this man.
His friends and party mates were being plucked off by assassins, when he was the most powerful Nigerian. He could neither protect them nor solve their brutal murders. How could this person still talk about security problems in such arrogant terms?
Among the presidents which the gods employed to punish Nigerians, Obasanjo ranks high. However, it was great of him to capture this National Assembly, which had been so since his time. Why should the thieves in the National Assembly not operate, if the ones in the executive arm and the judicial arm were having a field day? Whose money was Andy Uba carrying when he was arrested in the United States?
The other truth which came out of the outing was Akiolu telling the hall that Obasanjo’s regime was worse than Jonathan’s. Now, it was fun having two grand liars telling strange but true tales about each other. Indeed, Obasanjo’s time was in many folds worse. There was unnecessary hikes in fuel prices. There were too many plane crashes. There were too many murders. There were too many pointed rejection of court orders. There was too much looting and treachery. There was a calculated pursuit to derail democracy. Over and above all, there was a foolish attempt to extend his mandatory stay in office. Akiolu was right.
Obasanjo criticizes Jonathan on security. The 200 Chibok girls might return one day. We pray and hope. The one thousand souls Obasanjo’s bomb killed in one day in Odi would never return. The man should leave Nigeria alone. It could not be worse.
As for the folks who worry about Akiolu’s avowed love for APC, may be they too have the right to worry under the Constitution. But we would be falling short of the truth if we claim a certain ignorance. People worry because they thought a man on the stool should be the father of all his subjects and that he should be the point of decorum and decency.
Now, all these virtues are not restricted to royalty. They are basics expected of every normal human being. In terms of royalty, it is simply taken for granted that such virtues and attributes abound.
Look, there are royal humans and human royals. There are ordinary men whose bearing and carriage exude royalty. Then again, there are royals who through identity belong far away from the palace. Akiolu is not what these worriers think.
There are ‘Obas’ in Yoruba land who are not off the loins of Oduduwa. They are identified in a certain way and you quickly determine by their title that they do not bear the ancient crown. Some of these obas are good human beings, even regal. Whoever gave birth to them, they did a rebirth of themselves. Akiolu is not only a stranger to Oduduwa’s loins, he also missed the vital self-rebirth, which could have attempted a make-up for the huge deficiency from that divine disconnect.
His is that unfortunate military obaship – the Ibadan strife which lumped doves and chicken. These are some of the reasons Akiolu has neither loyalty nor respect to the throne he occupies. Stark illiterates in royal office handle political situations better. The white man did not bring diplomacy here. Oduduwa entrenched diplomacy here, and the oracles which authentic palaces have, sustain it. But there is no taking smallness from the nose. How do you stop a Tapa man from trading hides. Were the bushpig to ape the domesticated, where would men walk in town. Were slaves to turn sovereigns, won’t cities be sacked? This is why the process of selecting Obas in Yorubaland is so painstaking and ordered. When they started rigging it like political offices, things went very bad, yet, this is a horrid example.
A governor must not have a louder voice than the oracle in this process. Unfortunately, the military governors who seized the power, passed it on to civilian governors who chose to hold on to it. This was how a man like Tinubu could have a say in who becomes an Oba in Lagos! Good for them.
Akiolu is not committed to a throne which speaks to the Source. He sits on a stool which has a fleeting pact with whoever could sit on it. When Akiolu talks, he talks with the fear of one man only in his mind. He does not reckon with the people. He does not remember tomorrow. Yesterday fails him. When life turns its bright side to them, they indulge in poor conduct. They forget that the elders who indulge in surreptitious treachery are prone to stealthy damning judgments.
If you added Akiolu’s police profile to the equation, you begin to see a clearer picture. There is too much pollution in Lagos leadership for any ground-shaking expectations. It does not matter if you thought in terms of politics, culture, morality or ethics.
Lagos is constantly washing. You never really could tell what the Lagoon might wash up next, when prayers go in search of children, governors,obas etc. It could wash up money, greats like Mobolaji. Unforgettables like Adeyinka Oyekan. Or it washes up drug barons, looters, rotten corpses for the throne – yes, you think zombies don’t move?
This royal error also failed to catch the fact that Lagos State goes way beyond the Island, where his presence ends. There are way too many towns in Lagos who are praying fervently for the end of Tinubu’s reign in Lagos. They are praying that he does not get the fifth term which he desperately seeks.
As much as Akiolu reserved the right to play partisan politics, partisan politicians are now very free to scrub the floor with his robes. He chose to step into the ring. This royal is fair game. If an elder elects to tie a band of corn, then the chickens could indeed find a mate.
It really would never matter, if the cage was golden…
