Politics has assumed a riotous character. It is a pity it evolved in the land of undefeated warriors whose products from ancestry can boast of impeccable history of reverence to life and free competition and decency through its long written and oral history, beginning with white entry into our land with religion and commerce.
We may have been defiant to imposition of foreign authority, but we were not indecent in revolt. We are at this time in utter defiance of high-handedness in religion, but we are not pompous and inciting of friction and irreverence to constituted authority.
I stand in condemnation of ridicule of elected authority over our land and our land by one whose knowledge of the dignity of human person is inexistent with regard to power politics and decent conduct. It shows abysmal lack of parental upbringing. Worse, it shows utter absence of pedigree to dishonour guests at an event of humungous significance to our repair trajectory of our corporate psyche in the midst of bombardment of neighbours over our rich significance in Nigeria and her chequered history.
I probably would have swooned from shame, if I were physically present at the Iri Ji Mbaise festival. I have kept away since its reduction to orchestrated self-glorification of conscripts of power and distortion of national ethos of Mbaise people. Perhaps, I should have fought harder to ensure that Iri ji Mbaise as name of the event should be changed, to raise the value of the event as an eating event, which it was not, and insisted on its pristine lore of examining ourselves for repair and honour to ancestors for their celebration of hard work and right conduct.
Perhaps, I should have fingered all those who have myopia of Machiavelli that “the end justifies the means” in pursuit of power and prevented them with contradictory campaigns from accessing power ab intio. Perhaps, I should have hollered when the tiger was developing its spots to mark him out as a vile beast when he first dared the portals of power with sheep’s clothing.
Well, I could not have, since they all had a sheepish following that sang their praise for their belly’s sake, following state-induced poverty that has been our national inheritance from a militarised state. I would be dammed not to take them on now and explain to them in clear language that their cycles are bound to close sooner than later.
Nothing expropriated from the corporate psyche of a people will not find closure in suffering of some sort, no matter how apparently affluent such dirty humans show themselves off as. Deep within, they live in fear of reaping the rotten fruits of their conduct. Good conduct cannot yield evil fruits, and vice versa. Those who kill and maim on their approach to power must have unavoidable debilities that will show them off eventually as failures in creation. An Igbo proverb holds that a plant cut does not immediately wilt. Wise people should set their gazes on all those who lack love and care in their pursuit of power.
No leader worth their salt should disrespect a leader who arrived the portals of power with popular appeal. It is common sense to give free rein to the will of the people. He who seeks to bend the will of a people in any way ends up in the dustbin of history. I will not be a prophet to predict that all those who contrive less than honest and fair approaches to power will lose their relevance when nature starts unwinding their dirty trajectory to their armies of vile followership, whose main desire is to gain access to public till to lavish its contents on their pleasures. Those who enter power game to elevate the public good, on the other hand, find comfort in the end and invariably yield their places after fulfilling positive missions. Their thresholds remain object of awe and admiration through all ages.
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha, has denigrated our land by dishonouring a leader, no matter his faults. I would not find rest if I did not howl out against his reduction of the dignity of our people. I see no merit in his conduct of denigration and dishonour to Governor Rochas Okorocha whatsoever. His conduct should require symbolic expiation sacrifice to our ancestors for using our event so wickedly, especially as it is bound to root some displeasure for populous Mbaise people in all parts of Nigeria. It is appropriate to sound it loud and clear that it was not a communal resolve to provide him unworthy pedestal to power of any sort.
