Tunde Asaju

By Tunde Asaju

It must be quite frustrating when your much-vaunted integrity goes to the market of public opinion and buys nothing except doubts, scepticism and sometimes, outright derision. It’s even more enervating when your worse nemesis is someone whose meter of integrity is not enough to raise the mercury in the thermometer of public opinion.

Why can’t we just accept what Lai Mohammed, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu tell us as gospel truth instead of rushing to Google to put their words to the test? What’s wrong with us as a people? Is it because President Jones who brought the Internet made the eternal mistake of not taking it back to Otuoke? See how our doubting spirits have given fillip to the dynamic inactivity of the anti-corruption war. Three years of speculation is suddenly keeping the bail bondsmen and women busy. Those who refused to enter the ark provided by the Association of Pampered Criminals are roasting in courts. Jonah Jang, Ibrahim Shekarau, Aminu Wali, Lucky Imasuen, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, and Dan Orbih are eating at home this week by the generosity of the courts. The anti-corruption floods are inundating.

Obasanjo and Buhari

Since the Wizard of Ota used esprit de corps to clear Mr Integrity of the alleged N25 million PTF scam, courtesy obligates Mai Gaskiya to reciprocate by burning the $16 billion investment in darkness file. We may have reached a hasty conclusion. Our elders say that a chick destined to be the hawk’s dinner usually rejects the admonition of mother hen not to linger at the refuse dump.

If there’s anything that the wizard of Ota hates as much as he hates heaven, it is people attempting to outshine him and his perceived legacy. Everything in the kingdom of this animal called man either falls under his command or come under his watch. Kings that fail to accept him as the be-all-and-end-all get tongue-lashed ad nauseam ahead of the gang-up. Only Abacha broke the pattern. Abacha remains the Wizard’s nemesis, even as he is Pa Bubu’s hero.

The Wizard of Ota hates competition even with his own children – ask Gbenga, Iyabo or any of the children of the Solomonic harem. In Owu, legend has it that at creation when the gods made wisdom, knowledge and understanding, they put Naija’s share in a special keg and ordered everybody to take a sip. When the Wizard got there, he drank what was left and broke the keg. If you doubt this tale, check the man’s midriff, the reason why he doesn’t wear oyibo suits?

If there’s anything that the wizard of Ota hates as much as he hates heaven, it is people attempting to outshine him and his perceived legacy. Everything in the kingdom of this animal called man either falls under his command or come under his watch. Kings that fail to accept him as the be-all-and-end-all get tongue-lashed ad nauseam ahead of the gang-up. Only Abacha broke the pattern. Abacha remains the Wizard’s nemesis, even as he is Pa Bubu’s hero.

Bubu has been competing with the Wizard in history. Both men retired from the army but were not tired of politics. Both men use farming as subterfuge to shroud personal interest. Is it a coincidence that both men jailed two notorious CSOs for various reasons? Hamza al-Mustapha and Santa Sambo Dasuki should collaborate on a tell-all.

Not satisfied with the accolade from the AU, Sai Baba’s integrity brigade couched a homemade Trump endorsement in pidginified English. It takes a Farooq Kperogi to expose this matter, although as far as Sai Barbarians are concerned if it doesn’t exist, making it up is not a sin.

Magu may be the anti-corruption sniffer dog, it was the Wizard that signed the enabling acts for the EFCC and ICPC. Whenever anyone is harassed for hanging with dissidents, intellectual property tithes must be paid to the pioneer of the laws. You can’t use another man’s instrument without giving him credit for it; that is political plagiarism punishable under relevant codes of transparency.

The Wizard was the first military leader to retire from government and be begged to return. He achieved that without crying in public. Sai Baba sought his own mandate with tears. Both men have tasted detention before ending up as ex-junta leaders to win democratic mandates. The Wizard was the first to get a second term, but Pa Bubu is strutting behind. If it takes the APC three years to lament what the PDP failed to do; they’ll need eight years to conclude the process. Then and only then could they start working on their own legacy or third-term and here lies the ominous threat and the clear and present danger. Sai Babarians want to achieve this feat, even if it means conquering, dominating and destroying the so-called Third Force.

It is incumbent on all people of goodwill to beg these two demigods to tone down the internecine rhetoric. Without conceding to either party, the $16 billion induced darkness prevents global view of this presidential rumble. There are bloodhounds roaming the nooks and crevices of our nation lapping up the blood of the innocent from Zamfara to Kogi, Maiduguri to Calabar. Hunger is ravaging the land and starvation looms as farmers have been uprooted from their farms and once-thriving communities may have to wait for Trump’s grains and the cancer they harbour. Ebola is knocking and not everyone could rush off to London for a vaccine.

It is incumbent on all people of goodwill to beg these two demigods to tone down the internecine rhetoric. Without conceding to either party, the $16 billion induced darkness prevents global view of this presidential rumble. There are bloodhounds roaming the nooks and crevices of our nation lapping up the blood of the innocent from Zamfara to Kogi, Maiduguri to Calabar. Hunger is ravaging the land and starvation looms as farmers have been uprooted from their farms and once-thriving communities may have to wait for Trump’s grains and the cancer they harbour. Ebola is knocking and not everyone could rush off to London for a vaccine.

The man in the Rock vaunts to have put his best foot forward. Reality says there are better players with longer shots. The empty sound and fury signifying nothing is taking people’s eyes off the ball of what’s important. We must pour libation to these gods to stop them from turning this to Aceldama the land of bloods.

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