THE HYPOCRISY OF THE APC

Chuks Iloegbunam argues the opposition preaches the opposite of what it practises

“If we are in the habit of practicing the opposite of what we preach, our admonitions will not only lose their force and cogency, but also we ourselves will forfeit every claim to credibility. An ounce of example, it has been widely said, is far better than a ton of precepts. “Obafemi Awolowo

There was this prominent businessman who, as preparations for the inception of the Second Republic went apace, fancied himself as the next governor of Oyo State. His nemesis surfaced in the form of Tai Solarin. Just before the Oyo primaries of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Dr. Solarin struck a blow for impeccable moral rectitude. The wealthy man, Solarin pointed out to UPN leaders, had no place in the primaries. He was unqualified to run for the governorship of Oyo State, or for any other elective office for that matter. Asked to explain his exception to the man’s candidature, Dr. Solarin was brief and to the point: The wealthy man’s family life was in tatters, the renowned educationist said. He couldn’t, therefore, be entrusted with the onerous responsibility of directing the affairs of a people. That sounded the death knell on the man’s gubernatorial ambitions. Dr. Solarin who, strictly speaking, was not a partisan politician, accomplished this feat with the sheer force of his moral authority.

If Solarin were alive today, or if he viewed Nigerian politics from the back of beyond, how would he react to the kleptocratic vultures currently using mass hysteria to dent the place of the Yoruba as one of the most politically sophisticated peoples on the planet?

Next: Oyibo Odinamadu! Mrs. Odinamadu, now domiciled in the United States, was born in 1928 in today’s Anambra State. She took an honours degree in History and Sociology from Lincoln University of Missouri in 1952 and an M.A. in Education from Columbia University, New York, in 1953. When the politics of the Second Republic came, she hopped across the Niger River, paying scant attention to the Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, to join Chief Awolowo’s UPN, whose National VicePresident she became. Mrs. Odinamadu did this because she saw something positive in Awolowo’s person and politics. She knew that Awo was the first elected Nigerian leader to establish free education for his people. She knew also, as Wikipedia states, that Awolowo “built the Liberty Stadium in Ibadan, the first of its kind in Africa; established the WNTV, the first television station in Africa; erected the first skyscraper in tropical Africa: the Cocoa House

(still the tallest in Ibadan) and ran a widely-respected civil service in the Western Region.”

If Mrs. Odinamadu returned to Nigeria today, what would she make of the unprecedented plunder of Lagos by a man who happened to have governed the state for eight years? Would she embrace this architect of mindless pillage? Awolowo’s first degree was in Commerce. He, therefore, knew what to do with money and resources. But he did not divert state resources in the direction of his pocket. He built the first TV station in Africa for Western Nigeria, not for himself. He built the first Olympic class stadium in Africa for his people, not for his family. He built Cocoa House for his people, not for his personal aggrandisement. Awo achieved these laudable goals because his foray into politics was informed by the desire to serve, not the impulse to pauperise his kith and kin.

If Chief Obafemi Awolowo were alive today, or if he viewed the dynamics of Nigerian politics from the back of beyond, what would he make of the long line of menopausal professors, beneficiaries of his Free Education Scheme, who are now the political sons of the Broom Bandier of Bourdillion, providing the rotten intellectual planks propping him up? Would he not be wondering whether or not the academicians remember the fate of the children who followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin? Would Awo not be alarmed at the virtual cessation of commonsense and the total abandonment of moral scruples by those to whom he believed he had bequeathed a legacy of integrity and sagacity? How can they have allowed an avaricious few to be pissing of the people’s heads while lying to them that it is raining? How did the Yoruba country, nay, Nigeria come to this terrible pass?

Nkem Owoh is a preeminent actor of Nollywood pedigree. His elder brother, Bartholomew Owoh, was one of the three young men the dictator Buhari executed with the force of a retroactive decree in 1984, the other two being Lawal Ojuolape and Bernard Ogedengbe. What would Mr. Owoh be thinking today regarding his brother’s precipitate and catastrophic ending? Look at it this way. Reading this piece by Chuks Iloegbunam today is not a criminal offence. But, if an upstart seizes power tomorrow and issues a backdated decree criminalising the innocuous act, all those “guilty” of reading this piece could be liable for imprisonment or execution. How can this sort of vileness ever be right in the sight of God and man? Given the gross injustice of murdering people with the instrument of a backdated edict, Owoh, Ojuolape and Ogedengbe deserve posthumous pardon.

In 1913, two Black landowners, Thomas and Meeks Griffin were executed in South Carolina, USA, convicted of killing a white man. They were posthumously pardoned in 2009 – 96 years later, because justice was found to have miscarried in their conviction. Back here in Africa, the new political leadership of Burkina Faso has directed the exhumation of Thomas Sankara’s corpse for proper reburial, and an investigation of his murder. Captain Sankara, the Marxist revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, was toppled and assassinated by a renegade called Blaise Compoare in October 1987. Iloegbunam (iloegbunam@hotmail.com) is the author of two novels – Surbenia’s Day and Tinye!