Loud Whispers Wth Joseph Edgar

Cardinal John Onaiyekan: Caught in a Swarm of Bees

I didn’t even know when the Bishops visited our mercurial President; otherwise, I would have begged them not to bother. Be that as it may, they went and had “fruitful” discussions. The President told them some things, and they drank “coke,” ate biscuits with guguru and epa, and everybody went home to sleep.

But Cardinal couldn’t sleep well that night as he must have felt that he was not allowed to say his real mind. So he went on ARISE NEWS and bared it all. He scattered and felt good about it.

Since then, he has known no peace, I swear. The President’s people have come very seriously at him, pelting his white robes with rotten tomatoes. One of the presidential aides even penned a widely circulated piece saying that Cardinal abused “clerical privileges”, whatever that means. Oh wait, you know Cardinal is Catholic, so this obviously mischievous aide must have leaned on the secrecy that comes with the confessional to title this his “story”. The Cardinal should not have spilled seeing that what was discussed could be equated to a confessional.

Anyway, my own is that I stand with the Cardinal because the man has spoken the minds of Nigerians, and if it is to abuse him that would be his punishment, we will gladly collect it all together.

The truth is that those around the presidency find it very difficult to receive any message that is not complimentary. Once someone says something they do not like hearing, the next thing is to attack the person, obfuscate the issue and start turning rings around the issue to the point that we will all now forget the issue at stake.

Mbok, is Cardinal the issue? Did he carry himself to go and complain that he was tired of his vow of celibacy? Mbok, leave Cardinal alone o and face the economic hardship the man is complaining about abeg. Condom is now N7,500 a pack o. Help!!!

Ademola Adeleke: A Familiar Kind of Feeling

My Egbon is beginning to feel the usual heat. The path is well travelled by those in opposition. Once the election is coming, federal institutions will start the bullying and harassment aimed at distracting, sending fear and all of that ‘kira kita’ into the system. Today, they have arrested his Chief of Staff – or is it Secretary to the State Government, I kuku cannot remember the position – the next day, they released him. Another day, EFCC has frozen state accounts; tomorrow they will release it. Even the governor has come out to shout – Tinubu stop the killings ooo, I have endorsed you, according to one report I have seen. All this is to bully the man and his followers into submission.

Now you will understand this persistent need to bully and capture Osun. It’s in many submissions – remember there is no official biography – this is supposed to be the ancestral home of our Oga, so its continued hold by another party will continue to be a kind of humiliation, like an annoying boil.

Anyway, my dear Governor Adeleke, if you have been sincere with your people, if you have done the work, there is no way God will not stand by you. No matter the huge arsenal raised against you, no matter the battalions of philistines, you will stand like biblical Joshua with your hands raised in the sky to hold the sun for the whole world to proclaim your victory. All you need to do for now is to go back to your “kerubu” background, don the white garment complete with the headgear, grab your olive oil and go on strict fasting – woli, mesha, abednego, holy, holy, holy, holy – and victory will be yours. Confirmed.

President Bola Tinubu: A Harsh Warning on State Police

I was asked during a recent TV interview about my thoughts on the inevitable State Police, and I did not waste time saying my mind as usual. The policy is good as it takes policing down to the grassroots. This is especially good with the worst case of insecurity in the land, with kidnapping, banditry and the rest. But then again, it also comes with a whiff of danger. Argh, not whiff o, massive potentials of danger.

You see, in a political environment where democratic institutions and governance have been so weakened, you now throw in state police, then you would be creating 31 new despots to add to the one in Abuja, and then Nigeria will now be a free-for-all battleground.

State governors all over her tiny despots. They rule their states like King Herod, and in most cases, the State Houses of Assembly are worse than rubber stamps. There was even one other governor who did not inaugurate his own State House of Assembly for almost all of his tenure, and then you now add a “sare wagba” judiciary leading to the death of the doctrine of checks and balances and separation of powers. What you will get will be a situation worse than anarchy.

Let me even mention names so they can come and beat me – imagine a state police under Wike or Fayose with that kind of temper and approach to politics. Kai! Me, I would have crossed the Sahara desert on foot by that time, I swear.

Mbok, if we have any say in this one – we have lost our say in so many things – let us first strengthen the institutions that can serve as a counterbalance before releasing police to state governors o, otherwise one day one of them will march on Aso Rock o. I have said my own o.

Dave  Umahi: A Different Kinda Fella

I have just been looking at this one with wonderment. Where they went to pick him from and come and give him public office needs to be studied. Is it his annoying arrogance, or his intellectual pretensions, or his morbid but irritating attempts at dry humour, or his faltering messianic streak? Whatever drives him, he just stands out like a bad case of “whitlow” on the fingers of public service.

Recently, a female lost her life in his home. Despite the hue and cry, nothing seems to have been done in the strict sense of the word, leading to her people instigating a N20 billion case on the matter.

Now, if I were in his shoes, I would go low, push out of public glare, not out of any seeming guilt but out of respect for the family and Nigerians. But no, Oga is still out there in full tomfoolery and making statements that continue to rile and annoy.

“Oh Tinubu has ignored all those saying ….. and has said, I should go on and continue building more infrastructure.”

Oh my God! Did he just say that? Yes o, according to the report I read. Total insensitivity, total arrogance, total abhorrent inconsideration to our pain and a push towards business as usual.

Even though in the same report, he placed a curse on his family, wouldn’t it have all been better if he had just “shut up” in absolute respect to the grieving family and to Nigerians? Chai, who even advises these people? Na wa.

Tunde Bakare: Inside the Termatarium

Pastor Tunde Bakare has said that our leaders all behave like termites who just move and devour everything in their sight. He was quoted as having said this at the launch of his book in his church the other day. Mbok, baba is not very far from the truth going by the things we see and hear these days.

One day, during the week, one of the people very, very close to this government reached out to me and, in the course of the discussion, he said, “Edgar, the level of leakages in the system is crazy; we are in trouble.” You do not even have to go too far to see. Just go to your local government and see the new houses or new cars in the area; you will see that it is the local government officials that own them.

You see, they will be quoting – foreign reserves, naira stability and all, but all around you is poverty encroaching. Urban areas are turning into slums at a pace you cannot even imagine. Infrastructural decay, desolation everywhere and yet, they are all going around launching City Boy everywhere and driving in 100-car motorcades across gullies that now are an essential part of our road networks.

Pastor Bakare suddenly woke up from his deep slumber, saw all of these and wrote two volumes o. Baba is screaming from the top of his altar, and as usual he will not be heard. In response, they will remind us that he has erectile dysfunction and as such he does not know what he is talking about. While Bakare is shouting, I am doing siddon look before they come and beat me where I am sitting o. I am on my knees, with hands firmly holding my lips and facing the wall. Thank you.

Farooq Areogba: I Really Don’t Understand

Me, I no just like this person. I think he tries too hard, and I also think he is “plenty.” Since one photographer made a mistake and snapped him on top of one horse in his village pantomime, he has really tried to parlay that into unwanted stardom and reverberate celebrity.

That is how he will be carrying one big cigar, climbing one hungry-looking horse – does not even know how to mount o – and be riding and be calling himself king of steeze, whatever that means.

Anyway, what concerns me this morning is the assertion that he made on one TV programme: “I was a dollar millionaire at 30, and by 35, I was a labourer.”

I don’t understand that one. Basically what he was saying was that he was a highly paid banker at 30 and was sacked by 35, and because he no get savings or investment, he had nothing to fall on, hence his working as a labourer.

What we are to learn from that one, na here I siddon o. Well, I hope he has learnt a huge lesson from all of that, especially now that endorsements are coming in because if he loses it all, labourer work in Naija is not easy o. Thank you.

King Wasiu Ayinde: Seeds of Discord

This bobo is just on his own. He recently announced that he has forgotten so many women and their children with his clothes, socks and underwear on his trajectory of “irresponsibility”. This is philandering at its best. Some of us are just starters, whereas these ones are playing in the premiership of philandering, rushing to the mountain top to proclaim it very loudly and powerfully.

I have seen write-ups by female commentators taking him to the cleaners, and I just laugh. You know how our women can be in collective denial on things like this. They never wait to ask the “mumu” women who open their legs and still are opening their legs for this legendary philanderer. In fact, I can swear that there was one of them beside him as he was making that statement, waiting to “blow” him and remain grateful for being given the privilege to be of service to him.

What do you expect of a man who singlehandedly decided to stop a moving plane and was made Ambassador for his efforts? Is it a puny woman who went and got pregnant that will now come and disturb him?

Mbok, all of you women should clear out and let me drink water because the man is not to blame. Why should we blame him when his major headache with women is to fend off the thousands who keep throwing their panties at him? It’s not his fault at all. Thank you.

P-Square: A Terrible Kind of Brotherhood

I watched the video of Peter Okoye lamenting about his twin brother, elder brother and all the shenanigans that have led to arrests, detention, threats to life, destruction and all of the nine yards.

I remain in shock as I see people who came from the same womb and even shared an umbilical cord go at each other with such venom, hatred and bile.

I cannot imagine myself doing these to my brothers. That Jude is a shameful vermin. I am not saying that he is guilty of anything o, I am just saying that as an elder, for this to happen under his watch, he has failed.

When we were in the Ibibio community in Shomolu, there used to be so much talks about witchcraft. Every little misfortune would be blamed on witches. Usually the witches were their mothers. And I would be watching them humiliate their mothers, take them to prayer grounds, strip them and do things to make them confess to witchcraft, and I would be saying to them, if my mother decided to bewitch me, her business. I would never fight my mother or blood over anything. We can have small misgivings o, like them insulting me, especially that my big-headed brother Eteka, who will be telling me to shut up, but to go as far as the Okoyes. Lai lai. It can never happen. Let my brother steal everything. It’s better it’s my brother stealing than anyone else.

My mother died and willed the family compound in the most expensive part of Uyo near the governor’s house to my sister and one of my brothers. I don’t have a house in Uyo and na smile, I smile and wish them luck. These Okoye brothers are just plain stupid. Shameful lot. They cannot even speak English sef. Yeye guys.

Charles Oputa: A Painful Silence

Everybody has said I should keep silent and I have. I am not saying a word o. I will not even mention the fact that I worked on a book project with this person and after it all – 64,000 words – he refused to pay the token I had asked for and went ahead to publish the book, called Obasanjo and the rest to come and launch it.

When Edi Lawani went to broker a truce, he said – make he wait na to see if na wetin he write dey the book.

We have waited, and the feelers I got from the book launch quoted him as saying – the person that wrote this book is as mad as I am. Well, we have not seen the book yet, so we cannot definitely unsheathe the sword, but then again, the elders have said I should remain silent and not say a word. I have taken their advice and have not said a word o. I remain silent. Thank you.