Abah Folawiyo

own son, Olusegun Awolowo Jnr., is the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council. Sisi Abah was married to Segun, scion of the influential Obafemi Awolowo dynasty until death did them part in 1963. Segun died in his prime in a ghastly motor accident that rattled the Awolowo family. The half Ghanaian, half Nigerian woman remarried and this time, to billionaire Folawiyo who died in 2008.

It is unlikely that in his storied and sensational life Muiz Banire, a three-time Commissioner in Lagos State, has been more harangued as he has in the last one week. Eventually, like all man-made deities, Muiz has stopped resembling a ‘god’ or something like that. He began to lose worth like the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat. Gone are the days when his words were laws. Banire, then a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos and practicing lawyer, was appointed Commissioner of Environment in 1999 by then Governor Tinubu. He would spend the next 12 years in the service of the Lagos State government, traversing the Transport and Special Duties Ministries and acquiring staggering wealth and power along the way. Now the National Legal Adviser of the APC, Banire has no doubt come into his own; he has become his own man and now wants to usurp his benefactors. A political chameleon, in his characteristic manner exhibits the power of changing colours with the environment, so as not to be easily detected. But with Nigeria’s evolving democratic dispensation his type are getting exposed on daily basis. If not, how do we begin to describe a legal adviser to the ruling political party whose stock- in- trade is to say one thing at night and do the exact opposite the next dawn? Banire’s increasing anti- party antics are diametrically opposed to that of the body he says he serves. A few instances would suffice. Not too long ago he went to court seeking injunction to restrain LAISEC from conducting election without joining APC as a party to the suit. Without blinking an eye, the judge threw out the suit! That triggers the pertinent questions: Was it not the same Muiz Banire that supported incumbent Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, known for his anti- party activities,