20 Jul 2009 |
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Ojo Maduekwe’s famed tongue was at its caustic height only this time, it was disguised in Yar A’dua cheek at the recently organised rehearsal of imminent abdication by a beneficiary of an alternative not opposition political party’s ticket called book presentation by the overtly excited Governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim.Ojo as we all know is Popular in “Abuja” as a consummate Speech writer for both dictators and democratically elected presidents .From the tone and temperament of the address, even the least experienced observer of the Nigerian politics will see that the so called presidential address was neither written nor vetted by the president. I therefore hold Ojo fully responsible for the contents. We shall reserve dissecting why a state governor whose writing skills and personality should benefit her state will go to another governor elected on the platform of another political party’s state to present his books. Imagine the amount spent by those who graced the presentation of the books in Lagos on hotel accommodation and sundry needs and the amount it must have cost Imo state to organise the necessary protocol for the presentation and you would appriciate what Ohakim’s exercise in self aggrandizement deprived the economy of Imo state. This is however not the first time. Last year, he celebrated Imo state at Shehu Musa Yar A’ dua centre in Abuja. There must be something too good or bad about this green going Governors state he does not want the friends he is making in high places to come to Imo state and experience. The issue at hand is Ojo Maduekwe’s diatribe and I beg to return to that before NEPA strikes. For the benefit of those who did not read Ojo’s adresss, I will replay some relevant parts before we continue. “In the cause of time, the attainment of the seven point agenda will vindicate us. The administration will succeed at the end of the day” Suffice it to add that that is what all Nigerians earnestly yearn for. He continues, “We will not join hands with these critiques, the government will not be distracted by these daily torrent of abuse thrown at its door step by those who do not know the names of their councils. These are intellectual hit men seen to pull down every administration and are too lazy to fight for power. The people know those who are working for them and who their true leaders are and at the end of the day, this administration will succeed” First ,the Agenda Ojo is talking about is agenda set out to improve our lot by a government supposedly deriving it’s just power from our consent .It follows that the best evaluation mechanism for the performance of these agenda so far should be our opinions on it.Ojo and his fellow alchemists in Abuja are so busy trying to transform our wrought iron lives into gold and would not entertain any distraction from the ungrateful us; he would rather we shut up and wait for the final product of their trial and error alchemy. What will happen to Ojo is like what was forcefully brought down to my cousin and I while we were growing up. As day students in my village secondary school, we often used my cousin’s who was by the way my classmate room as our study. The window of the room was quite close to a foot path through which many of the village women going to the market passed. The banters and footsteps of passersby always distracted us when we are reading. On this faithful day, we were preparing for a continuous assessment test and it was as if the whole villagers had to pass through the path. The distraction was so intense that Mark, my cousin could not beer it any longer. He stood up as if he was going to forcefully divert all the passersby, grabbed a piece of chalk, went outside and wrote boldly on the wall above the window, the words “Silence, Great Minds at Work”. No sooner than he got back into the room feeling that he had put out a stern warning than another band of women maybe excited from a gulping down few cups of palm wine in the village market square passed singing on top of their voices. We were shattered by a sense of disappointment from an obvious show of complete disregard to our warning. This trend continued for about one more week before it dawned on us that these largely illiterate women did not even take notice of our written warning. We therefore changed strategy. We barricaded the pathway and placed a bigger signboard with a large inscription that read, no thoroughfare. This instantly diverted the stream of passersby and we were able to start reading in silence without distraction.Ojo should know that he has only succeeded in drawing our attention to the performance of the seven point agenda and it is either they deliver on it or they will have to endure our complaints. His diatribe will not scare us away from his back not when the only right partially available to us is the right to complain.What Ojo needs is a change of strategy. Ojo Maduekwe should know that the reason why we disturb him and his company is because they are not giving us what they promised and that we know they humbly applied for the job they got. They even swore to deliver and it is our duty to hold them in debt to their commitment. If they cannot deliver, they should pack their bags and leave us alone. Like my cousin I did, Ojo should realize that they have not done enough and until they do, we will continue to grumble even louder and louder. I am persuaded that Ojo knows there is nothing he can do about our complaints which is in exercise of one of our God given rights. As a matter of fact ,we will ,drum, dance and even scream on top of our voices about our government if we care and if Ojo does not like that, he can as my people would say bleat mmehehehehe!, like a goat. On the seven point agendas, we will continue to demand that we are told which agenda that is under execution. We will continue to demand minute by minute update on the progress of execution. We will join in the discussion of each agenda, move motions on the way forward when necessary, and take counter motions , even vote on the necessity of continuing the pursuit of any agenda depending on our assessment. We will not stop because we know that Ojos diatribe is only a display of his trade mark braggadocios aimed at impressing the president. Ojo has successfully assaulted our national conscience for the over twenty five years and has managed to remain relevant through a combination of subterfuge and sophistry.Ojo remarked that those of us complaining do not know our local government areas and we are too lazy to fight for power. He also said that we cannot win elections. What Ojo does not know is that we are not struggling over the political space he has firmly annexed with him. We are only insisting that he makes it better because it belongs to all of us. If indeed there is anybody incapable of wing elections, it is Ojo Maduekwe who Oji Uzor Kalu once described as a man incapable of winning elections that he nominated for ministerial position to rehabilitate. At the tail end of the fourth republic, Oji Uzor Kalu demystified Ojo despite Obasanjo’s lavish support by declaring him persona non grata in Abia state. Even in the last election, Ojo’s influence could not help PDP win Abia state so he should spare us his tantrums and focus on enjoying the power he clearly knows nothing about how it was won. We will not stop because we know Ojo is a General whose war strategy is based on the principle of retreat and surrender. In the 80’s, Ojo was the first person to bring to national awareness the presence of the practice of an aspiring politicians swearing to a fetish oath of allegiance to their sponsors when he admitted that he took to his clean pair of heels when a sponsor he approached asked him to swear to remain loyal to him by crossing over a coffin. Since then, Ojo has found other ways of remaining in power without running for elections. He may have acquired the war chest and enough money to guarantee that poverty does not hunt his family in their generations to come but if the joy of politics is in winning elections, Ojo is still an unfulfilled man. As such, he cannot intimidate us. During his tenure as the minister of transport, we can all recall how Ojo set out to conscript Nigerian into bicycle riding. It took just one bus driver to scare Ojo away from a conviction he had wasted so much of public money promoting. Here is another example of General Ojo retreating. At a recent appearance before members of the national assembly, Ojo once again tried his luck at brinkmanship. As the members of the national assembly stood up to Ojo, the general once again surrenderd.We will stand up to Ojo, because in this seven point agenda question, Ojo will as always surrender. It is interesting that Ojo realises that, they have not done their job and that is why he wants us to wait for posterity to vindicate them when their tenure is over.Ojo however failed to tell us which tenure he talking about. One thing is clearh and that is that if vindication still remains the prerogative of posterity to dispense,Ojo remains completely at our mercy for there is no more posterity than us who are witnessing the happenings and who will live to tell or now depose to history how he is using our trust.Ojo should strive to earn our benevolence and he will do well to start by restoring the place of Nigerian missions abroad which many commentators have raised their voice to alert the nation on their shameful state. He may not have time to do that having been generously provided for to complete and furnish the ministry of foreign affairs complex at Abuja and he will do everything not to upset the president to remain in his plum job but for what it is worth, we will hold all including him accountable on the seven point agenda. It is either they deliver on it or have all that they claim to be doing now at the end of the day amount to nothing but aiki banza Kowe!
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