On February 27, 1966, the venerable Allah-De (Alade Odunewu), Nigeria’s high priest of quality journalism, wrote a piece in the Sunday Times with the headline: How, Brother How?
The piece was about the overthrow of Ghanaian President, Kwame Nkrumah, just a few days after Nigeria’s first military coup ousted in a bloody manner, some of our revered nationalists.
Writing like a prophet, Allah-De had in his column of May 1963 stated, almost three years before Nkrumah was sacked from power, that “unless a miracle occurs in Ghana, President Nkrumah will die as President…” That coup was the miracle.
Allah-De’s focus in this compelling piece was not necessarily about the violent removal of Nkrumah from office while on a peace mission in Peking; travelling with a 70-man contingent, as was his tradition.
The author concentrated more on the unbelievable, various reactions of Nkrumah’s associates, aides and even the state-owned media to his sack by the military.
Rendered in the usual Allah-De’s punchy, erudite style, what struck me on Wednesday night as I savoured the beautiful piece was the opening sentence: “The bush fire is spreading in a manner only a bush fire does.”
That sentence approximates what is happening in Nigeria today. It captures in totality our current circumstances. In Nigeria, it doesn’t rain; it pours; it doesn’t burn, it devours.
Election fever is gripping the nation just the way it was envisaged. The effect is bruising. The impact may last for a lifetime. Blood has been spilled. Bones have been cracked. Widows and orphans have been created – not by God; but by circumstances.
I recall reading somewhere, a story quoting an All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain as saying that Muhammadu Buhari is enjoying a better health condition than President Jonathan.
Last week, Patience, wife of the president, was quoted as saying in Kogi State that Buhari, the presidential candidate of APC, is parading a dead brain all over the world.
A few days later, spokesman of Buhari Campaign Organisation, the respected Garba Shehu, issued a stinging statement describing Mrs. Jonathan as “an incredibly crude woman”.
In the same statement, Jonathan was to have achieved an unbeaten record in corruption, displayed appalling lack of capacity on security issues, and a glaring incompetence in dealing with economic issues.
Name-calling. Outright insult. Tar-brushing. Fact-twisting. All these have found their ways into the vocabulary of Nigerian politics in 2015. Even some known idiots have resorted to hate speech as a way to cover their deficiencies.
Have they not read Proverbs 17:28 that says even fools, when they keep their mouths shut, could be counted as being wise? Sometimes, silence works wonders and speaks louder.
Fellow Nigerians, why on earth should people’s health be a subject of political insult? When did it become criminal to be sick? How did one political party arrive at the deduction that its candidate is healthier than the other?
I am yet to understand how the First Lady of Nigeria could brutally conclude that Buhari has a dead brain. Yes, maybe she was speaking metaphorically. But that still doesn’t justify such insensitive declaration!
Anytime I read some of these scornful insults and fierce abuses in the papers, I simply scream: “Good heavens! Where are we drifting to?” That was what Allah-De said in his piece titled: Crazy, That’s All, published on April 21, 1963.
Certainly, the bush fire is spreading in a manner, direction, intensity and unpredictability only a Nigerian bush fire is capable of unleashing.
I was sitting quietly in my study watching a football match on television while pretending to be reading a pile of foreign magazines on the table when my wife walked in with urgency, and inquired: “Are you watching AIT?”
I replied: “What about it?” I thought she was referring to a Spanish drama usually aired on that station by 10pm, which she has recently started watching.
However, before I could ask further questions, she grabbed the television remote control and tuned it to AIT channel and then went ahead to give me a summary of what she had watched so far.
It was a documentary on the former Governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu. I watched in silence as my wife pulled a chair. The silence was broken with her repeated question: “Can this be true; or they telling lies?”
At the end, I told my beloved wife that a wild fire had just been set on dry leaves, and that the effect will linger for quite some time. She looked at me in disbelief and fired more questions as if I were the producer of the documentary.
For fear of being caught in the bush fire that is already raging in all directions, most commentators have been very careful in their analysis of the issues raised in the programme. So am I.
However, despite the denials and devastating attacks unleashed on the programme producers by Tinubu’s aides and lawyers, there is still one question to be answered: do the issues raised in the documentary have any element of truth?
In other words, are all the evil accumulation of wealth attributed to Tinubu and the approaches adopted in the accumulation of such wealth all figments of somebody’s imagination, or is there any element of truth in them?
This is the question somebody must have the courage to answer.