The lion has roared
I didn’t have ample time to go through the Sunday papers. I decided to read them while eating the freejon – the Brazilian dish made of special black-eyed beans and eaten only on Good Friday in Lagos. It was introduced to Nigeria by the ex-slaves who returned in the late 19th century – kept for me by Cosiba, my friend of Aguda descent.
So with the Sunday papers in hand, I strolled to Cosiba’s house, few streets away from mine that Easter Monday, three days after Good Friday.
– I waited for you to arrive before heating up the food.
– I thought it would be waiting for me piping hot!
– Madam, this isn’t a restaurant.
We laughed.
I spread the first paper on the table and tucked into the food.
-Did you read the papers yesterday?
– Yes. Same of the same.
– Your eagle’s eye missed the headlines?
– No.
– Really! Don’t you see that there’s trouble in paradise?
– Where’s the paradise?
– In the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress.
– If I didn’t know you well, I’d have said you had taken something stronger than your usual morning tea.
– Why?
– There’s no paradise anywhere. It’s hell on earth.
– Now, now, let’s be charitable.
My friend, Cosiba, went on to say that within the APC was a division which was making the disgruntled members sound like an opposition party. She said some elder statesmen in the party had started behaving like Olusegun Obasanjo when the latter was in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and was dissatisfied with the direction the party was taking.
One couldn’t have missed the headlines of almost all the papers that Easter Sunday. In bold it was written that ‘Tinubu blasts Buhari’s Minister’. The blast was on fuel scarcity. And the Minister was Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum. What was the Minister’s offence which earned him the Jagaban’s wrath? He was alleged to have said that he didn’t have any magic ‘wand’ to make the fuel queues disappear. So Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT), the Jagaban of Bornu and national leader of the All Progressives Party (APC) said that ‘Kachikwu’s flippancy was out-of-line …’
A lot of us cheered BAT for coming out to say what others were whispering in hushed tones. Jagaban is well known and admired for his boldness and his concern for the people. One needs to see him at close quarters to appreciate how people draw towards him as if he was a magnet. They cheer him and he responds with smiles. Those close to him say he’s humble and generous with what he’s been blessed. And that could not be said about many moneybags in our midst.
BAT, it was said earlier, is a national leader of the APC. It was his foresightedness that led to the birth and victory of the current government slogan of which is ‘Change’. Nigerians believed in that Change mantra and that was what made many of us brave the elements to come out to vote a year ago. Do all the members of the APC believe in this Change?
The current Osun government, in the second year of its’ second term, is without a cabinet – no Commissioner, neither is there any local government chairman. It’s a government of permanent secretaries. Not only that, the doctors employed by the state are on strike. Government workers who aren’t on strike sit down at their desks with long and sad faces. What’s happening? It’s been long since they got alert of the payment of their salaries from their banks. Teachers in Oyo State schools and civil servants are singing PSquare’s song ‘E no easy’. They too, like those in Osun State, are waiting for the bank alert.
The situation isn’t peculiar to the APC-controlled states. It’s also rampant in the PDP-controlled states. The Federal workers aren’t spared this treatment either. Workers aren’t paid but some state governors’ children are living the good life. The arrogance and I-don’t-care attitude of some state governors are tolerated by their parties’ hierarchy. So was Kachikwu emboldened to be ‘flippant’ because of such bad eggs?
Asiwaju’s anger was directed at Kachikwu. The ripple effects would have been felt throughout the Ministry of Petroleum, even in the office of the substantive Minister of Petroleum, President Muhammadu Buhari. It was and still is a national headache, this fuel scarcity. This national headache is fast turning the plight of the Nigerian worker to a migraine. Asiwaju, the leader that you are, is expected to also address the Nigerian workers’ plight enumerated above. For when the lion in the Jagaban roars, the whole nation shakes. Kachikwu has learnt that when the National Assembly invited him and some civil societies joined the Jagaban in condemning his ‘flippancy’ and arrogance.
Chief Executive Officers in the organized private sector and parastatals are advised to use their Public Relations Officers when sensitive matters come up. CEOs must remember that a word is like an egg – once broken can never be scooped back into the shell. If Kachikwu had given the microphone to his PR manager that day he gave a press interview, he wouldn’t have made the gaffe and would have avoided feeling the hot air of the Jagaban breathing down his neck.
The Nigerian people have been plodding on since and one doesn’t need to be distracted by the inner wrangling within the ruling party. We’re sure we are on the road to the promised land. Will Muhammadu Buhari and his team be the ones to take us there? We can’t say. In all this PMB asks us to be patient. He asks Nigerians to expect more action. I hope it isn’t going to be fireworks, erupting from the bowels of the ruling party.
As a man of the people, the Jagaban is expected to also blast those governors who are behind with their workers’ salaries. And may this blast also be splashed across the front pages of all national dailies just like that of Easter Sunday. After the friendly football match to round off Asiwaju’s 64th birthday celebrations, Akinwunmi Ambode, the Lagos State governor, described the celebrant as a ‘man who has great love for Nigeria’. Because of that great love, the Nigerian people are now waiting for the Jagaban to cry out against the future of Nigerian workers blighted by unpaid salaries in the APC and PDP controlled states. It’s nation-wide. We’re waiting.
