By Emeka Alex Duru
A consistent trend in the person and antics of erstwhile Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, is his tendency to flow with the tide at any time, so long as it guarantees survival. He reminds of Janus, the double-faced creature in the ancient Greek mythology, looking at the past and the future.
Fani-Kayode may have gone further, dropping the name of God at will to give his trade a seal of divine endorsement. He started off earlier in the present political dispensation as a Pastor, provoking debates that often touched on ethnic concerns and chastising the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, selling the dummy of disinterest in civil politics and material cravings. But unknown to many, his perceived knocks on Obasanjo, were mere entry behaviours, aimed at commandeering the attention of the President. They paid off, earning him appointment, initially as Special Adviser and later, Minister.
That drew him closer to Obasanjo, giving the latter a broader understanding of his strategies, hence at a time, the ex-president, reportedly said, that what mattered to get Fani-Kayode, sing and dance for one, was to draw him closer and feed him. Perhaps, that attitude of serving the master, accounted for the former Minister, attacking the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, and physically attempting to drag him out of the Federal Executive Council meeting at the time the latter was having issues with Obasanjo. Having tasted the goodies on the corridors of power, Fani-Kayode has not looked back.
Recently, when it seemed to him that a pretension of alignment with the South East and the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), who have been accusing President Muhammadu Buhari of marginalisation, would give him mileage in his attention-seeking agenda, he frequented Igbo land, fraternized with the people, flirted with IPOB and started appearing in the traditional Ishi Agu costume of the people. The decoy earned him acceptance among the Igbo provoking hasty assumptions that he was the new face of handshake across the Niger – not even when he had at a time, dismissed the Igbo as a parasitic lot, who deserved the pogrom directed at them in 1966 and 1967! In tow, he rode over South East ladies, some of whom still bear the pains of their liaison with him.
For him, it is a matter of survival and being at the table where the so-called national cake is being shared. No doubts, he has a gift of the garb and rhetoric. But for reasons, maybe known to him, he has not translated those potentials and his law background into testing his popularity at the polls. Close associates even snigger that he may not win a ballot in his native Ife, Osun Polling Unit. He rather prefers hanging around wielders of power at all time.
When therefore he returned to the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday, September 16, it did not come to many as surprise. He is not new in the back-and-forth movement. This would be the second time he would be running back to the party. In line with his antics, he had predated his final action with running down the party and President Muhammadu Buhari. At an appearance on television interview, he had dismissed the President as a crude dictator not fit to lead the country. For the APC, he swore that over his dead body would he return to the party. But typical of the former Minister, he has gone back to his vomit, unabashedly posing with the president for a photo shot, and declaring publicly that the APC is now, the way to go. Again, he floated the name of God, claiming that he was directed in his new game by the Almighty.
Some APC chieftains are incidentally celebrating him as a huge asset to the party’s propaganda machine. That, you can concede to the ex-minister, as long as the brief assures of rewarding and comfortable environment. He did so in the run-up to 2015 elections, when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) made him the campaign director for the re-election of the then President Goodluck Jonathan. But with Jonathan and PDP losing to Buhari and APC, the market is over for Fani-Kayode.
The APC and the President, are now the axiomatic beautiful brides. You can trust the former Minister for having his eyes on the balls. He will sing the praises, henceforth for Buhari and his new party. He will also bare his knuckles against real and perceived opponents of the President. For him, all is fair in the battle, so long as the returns are worth the triggers. But the romance can only last as long as APC remains in power and he gets his rewards.