Politician takes all the bribes he can, constitutionally,
Lawyer robs you with a pen completely legally
Country bombs its matty land nationalistically.
It’s a dog eat dog world, a dog eat dog world, a dog eat dog eat dog eat dog world.
Live like a dog, die like a dog, as the old saying goes,
The plant you water is the plant that grows, everybody knows,
Give blows, get blows
Down’s how the water flows
Live like a dog die like a dog
It’s a dog eat dog eat dog eat dog world. (By Nim Lee).
We live in a dog-eat-dog world. And politicians are dogs. They kill dogs and eat dogs to appease the gods of their ambitions. They do it routinely in that party called All Progressives Congress (APC). The other twin called Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) does it too. They grill and eat their brothers and leave the world to gape and gasp.
Nigerians brought in the APC in 2015 because they thought they needed a big cat to take out rats eating away at the nation’s future. Cats, since the beginning of creation, are effective counterforce to rats and their nibbling acts. Growing up, my family kept cats that helped ward off impudent rodents. What we kept were female – you know, male cats always grow wild and dreadful. There was this rather very beautiful one that gave birth to six kittens. If the mother was beautiful, the kittens’ beauty was in the realm of the superlative. We liked and pampered them. Then one day, in horror, we discovered that our cat had killed and eaten four of her own kittens. She left the heads for us to appreciate what she had done. Why would she do that? We raised her to rid the homestead of rodents, not to sink her feline teeth into her own. If ‘cannibalism’ had an attraction for her, why her own children? While we were seeking answers to that question, the carnivore had had enough time to finish off the remaining of the kittens. We had no clue except that our cat had become evil. That was our conclusion. We quickly devised a way to get rid of her.
The APC is one interesting party. It always tries what normal men would think unthinkable, almost bordering on sadism. It knows how to create and destroy; building and demolishing is a ritual that gives it life. It has done so much to subvert others, so much to subvert order and the general sanity. It has done these so successfully well that it now wilfully subverts itself. Like our cat was bought because rodents wouldn’t let the house rest, we were told APC was created to rescue Nigeria from the almighty PDP. It claims it has been doing that. Now, look at what is happening to it in Lagos between Emeritus Governor General Bola Tinubu and the Ordinary Governor Akinwunmi Ambode. The party has gone very far in self-decapitation. It is doing what no one has ever done before in Nigeria. Have you ever heard of ordinary local government chairmen, councillors and other minions stick filthy fingers in their governor’s eyes without consequences? It happened in Ambode’s Lagos. It is happening there right now. I also want to ask if there has ever been any governor in this land whose party denied a second term ticket? Someone here is saying yes – Alao-Akala defeated Rasheed Ladoja in the PDP primary of 2007. And I say it happened because Ladoja had first suffered impeachment and Akala had been governor. That contest, therefore, was a diluted fight in a blinded battlefield. Like the wild cat, the APC in Tinubu’s Lagos has crossed the Rubicon; it is set on eating its own. And it will cook and eat this governor for its coming last supper.
Give blows, get blows; live like a dog, die like a dog. Someone’s ambition died in 2015 for Ambode to be crowned. Every victim has been a beneficiary. That is the argument from the other side. But I have a story for the spirit rowing their boat.
There was a farmer who sweated morning to evening making 200 heaps. At the evening of his toil what did he do? With the same tool in his hands, he unmade all the 200 heaps because he was searching for his missing snuff box. You remember a deputy governor in Lagos called Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele? There was another deputy governor called Femi Pedro. They served the same governor who exited them serially like our kitten-eating cat. Why were those two removed and who did? There was a stellar Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora, the best of the pack. What took him out of the Senate? Who replaced him?
That is what you get when autocracy, in its worst narcissistic form, is served in democratic plates. The narcissist uses other people “in order to feel that he exists.” Through the eyes and behaviour of followers who worship him, “he obtains proof of his uniqueness and grandeur. He is a habitual ‘people-junkie.’ He regards those around him as mere instruments… He is unscrupulous, never bothered by the constant exploitation of his milieu, indifferent to the consequences of his actions, the damage and the pain that he inflicts on others and even the social condemnation and sanctions that he often has to endure.”
That is what ails Lagos and other APC states. Consider this. Look at APC everywhere you choose to look. It is a power that draws and drinks alcoholic blood to stupor.
You think only dogs eat dogs as the above poem says? If one has not travelled far into the forest, one would claim God has not created hunch-backed squirrels. I don’t want to think about Kemi Adeosun and those she pointed at in her resignation letter as persons she “thought were trusted associates.” Story, story, sordid stories. Politicians are sea pirates. In the world of piracy, there is no fidelity to anything positive. They are loyal only to themselves and to their rum. Whenever expediency demands, any co-traveller can be thrown overboard and be made food for the sharks of the deep.
Look further at what APC has done to itself in Osun State. For next Saturday’s governorship election in that state, there are two candidates nursing on the teats of the party’s structures. The structures that nurtured the party are gone, torn by a fratricidal war that won’t end before the victory and the defeat of September 22. The brawling duo have chewed their party’s teats raw. One is APC, the other is Action Democratic Party (ADP). Both are big, bold and strong and are on the streets of Osun State. Both have beaks and talons and wings to soar and scare. Both have the prospect of winning. Both also have the prospect of losing to any of the PDP branches in African Democratic Congress (ADC), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the rump of the ex-ruling party. The fracture in APC is the product of the party’s bad ‘democratic’ manners. Bad behaviour has ensured that the fratricidal war has ruptured the party head to toe. You would understand what has happened when you note that the normally boastful ruling party is no longer sure of its standing. It is struggling!
It is happening to Bello Masari in Katsina, to Jibrilla Bindow in Adamawa. The drunkenness is like that brilliant advertisement: everywhere you go. The sad thing is that whatever war you see going on across all the parties has nothing to do with the people. The people are nameless orphans. Their interest is no one’s priority. The people themselves don’t prioritize their interests. They balance the leader’s load on their bald heads, and precariously drag their own on the dusty road of crude destiny.
The APC is polygamous, lecherous and dissolute with no balancing sense. At every level, it has favourites to whom it feeds the flesh of disused s3x partners. If you are not of the innermost room, don’t be too sure of favours. The PDP was bad in power; the APC is worse in power. It soullessly jilts lovers like the compulsive playboy. Maybe it is not its fault. As it was at its beginning, so shall it be forevermore. Take this: On Tuesday 26th November, 2013 inside the cosy living room of Kano State Governor’s Lodge, Aminu Kano House, Asokoro, Abuja, the cream of Nigeria’s political class sat. The host was then Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. It was an MOU-signing ceremony between the then fledgling APC and the NewPDP. Comments were free and opinions frank. Chief Bisi Akande spoke first. He spoke on the need for an inclusive party. Senator Bola Tinubu spoke about a mission to rescue Nigeria. Those holding power, he said, wouldn’t surrender it without a fight. To get power, the needful must be done, he said. General Buhari told the nPDP that they were coming into the new party at a critical moment in the life of the nation. At the end of the meeting, a two-clause agreement was signed by the parties. A key point in the agreement was that “every member of the party at all levels shall have equal rights to aspire to any office of his or her choice.”
Signatories on the APC side were Chief Bisi Akande and Chief Ogbonnaya Onu, while on the nPDP side were Alhaji Kawu Abubakar Baraje and Dr Sam Sam Jaja. They signed and sealed the agreement and everyone was happy. They went to that 2015 war; they won and came home with bounties of battle. What then happened? Ask Bukola Saraki; ask Yakubu Dogara. Ask all on their side. They lost the agreement – the letter and the spirit – and almost lost all. They barely escaped with their heads on their shoulders. The 2018/2019 victims are the homeboys because there must always be victims.
Brothers eating brothers for supper didn’t start today. There was an Os’ika Egbon (wicked elder brother) who went on a dancing trip with his sibling, his Aburo. They danced so well and got the favours of kings and chiefs and the rich of their host towns and villages. They got paid in handsome measures. The elder got 2,000 cowries, his younger brother got 1,000. But Os’ika Egbon was not satisfied with his bigger, better lot; he killed his beloved brother and took his 1,000. The Yoruba remember this and the consequences and they sing: Os’ika Egbon pa Aburo/ Ajantiele… Beyond Lagos, we will see orisirisi as our political parties go for their primaries across the country. The stakes are obviously very high. The times are getting desperate. The gloves are off; the cleaver is out of the sheath. The die is cast.
