FRANK KOKORI, AYO OPADOKUN – MBOK, LEAVE ME O
As I came downstairs, just waking from a troubled sleep, I stumbled on the TV with Chief Frank Kokori taking us through the June 12 struggle. He was our hero then o. The man fought the Army in the bid to reinstate the winner of that glorious Election. Ayo Opadokun, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi and Femi Falana were the other speakers. As they spoke, the reality of not only their situation but the situation of this country hit me. They were in 2019 still asking for ethnic nationalities to come together in a National Conference to discuss something. You know when Elders speak you cannot laugh or yab them so that you too will grow old. I cannot really speak my mind but to beg the media to allow them rest na. They have done their bit and they should be given war medals and celebrated with pictures and statues because from the talk I listened to it was obvious that the system has left them behind. Not only them o, but a lot of our leaders who just run around dribbling themselves thinking it is us they are dribbling. Look, the issue in Nigeria let me say it very clearly nobody can catch me is leadership and value. Inept leadership peopled by weak, visionless people in positions of leadership and inability to understand value. These old people are still fighting for oil blocs when that economy has gone. They are still fighting along ethnic lines when the younger generations have seen the power that is in the new economy. An economy that is not extractive but that of ideas, innovation and influence; a borderless market of which control is not by your state of origin but your ability to coral skill and innovation to capture. Be fighting over oil that is becoming useless and be calling for yeye National Conference and go and be speaking broken English while the market is moving. Young people are creating value, redistributing wealth and creating huge markets in this same country while these Babas are talking their crap and indulging in their parochial tendencies. Billionaire Linda Ikeji and other thoughtful leaders of the new economy made and created their influence because they are Igbo or Yoruba people? Value is the new king. Sit down there. Mbok, I will not laugh, make them no go curse me. They can be that wicked. But that generation daily confirms Prof. Wole Soyinka’s position - wasted. No be talk am, but na true. Crap.