Random Thoughts: Of Superheroes, Olympics and Advocates

We are now at the next level where you are assailed on all sides by issues, memories and news designed to make you lose your bearings, and provoke you to either lash out in futile exasperation, or choke in indignant lethargy. Such is the capacity of the Nigerian condition: devastating and demoralizing news tumble after disclosures, after hair-brained actions, and after flamboyantly nonsensical pronouncements. If you are gifted in the art of dispassionate dissection of information, and presentation of facts in clear distinction from fallacies, Nigeria is a head-spinning fantasy – a maelstrom that never stops giving.

Sometimes, your senses are numbed by the sheer weight, number and regularity of our misadventures that it is difficult to settle on one or two particular issues from the legion besieging us. In these times, we resort to staccato ‘attack’ on as many ‘problems’ and as randomly as possible. Perhaps, your conscience would be less burdened by the consequences of prolonged lethargy, and vicarious acquiescence. Certainly, not because you ever believe that your prose or thoughts would, by any means, stem the flow of idiocy and menace. Such nonsense only happens in the movies.

Let us start with the latest scapegoat of Nigerian systemic corruption – no less a personality than our most decorated sleuth, the quietly garrulous Abba Kyari, the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police. His travails, puerile efforts at redemption and disoriented antics to sway public opinions reveal a sad replica of the finest traditions of the Grecian tragic hero.

Our former super cop has found himself in a hole, whether self-made or designed by Karma, we cannot now say; and instead of maintaining a moment of solitude and wisened contemplation, he chose to dig further furiously and aimlessly. His efforts to dignify his alleged complicity, and protect his gilt-edged reputation as a supercop have further tarnished his accomplishments, and exposed a deeply flawed and disorderly hyper-intelligent sleuth. From his social media interlocus of N300,000 payout for a recommended tailor (before the FBI indictments became public); to revision of N8m as a tripwire between contending fraudsters (after the indictments went viral); to pictures of Kyari beaming in cosy photos alongside notable figures of disreputable insinuations, the man in the eye of the storm, could not stop digging for face savers, and losing himself in a consuming hole made to measure.

Few years ago, while observing his quiet, but vigorous display of valiant acts and crime bursting results of his team in a WhatsApp group that we shared, my worried thought was that Kyari was trying too much to be noticed, and be recognized for his boldness, intelligence and doggedness. Really, those virtues are so scarce in many areas of our national life that they ought to be encouraged and decorated when we see them in action.

But the Kyari exhibitionism was a little self-serving and too eagerly in-your-face. While we didn’t imagine he could be felled so cheaply by antics of a young rascally confidence trickster, it speaks to the traditional flawed character of all superheroes…that something so detestable, uninspiring, lame, sentimental or ordinary would often be the grave Achilles’ heel that brings untold tragedy: remember Sophocles’ Oedipus and his hubris; Macbeth and his Lady; Samson and his Delilah; Romeo Montague and his Juliet, etc. In all tragic heroes, catastrophe is usually inevitable as a consequence of one or more errors of judgement. Kyari, stop digging, and face your hubris…or Karma – as your former acquaintances emerge from the crannies with more damning revelations.

Awash with the glitter and glory of excellent competitions and triumphs at the outgoing Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Nigerians have, on the other side, endured the shame and infamy of losing medal chances, and grueling inefficiency of sports officials who brought our athletes late to the Olympic villages in conditions that guaranteed insipid performances. We watched as our bright hopes were eliminated by different self-orchestrated means: exposure to banned drugs, disqualifications through poor coaching, ineffectual training regimes, disorientation from jet lag induced by cheap flight arrangements; non availability of official jerseys which were supplied by Puma, but grew wings, etc. (Puma, red faced by such barefaced self-enrichment by Nigerian sports mafia, cancelled its four year contract barely after two years!)

The ultimate shame came when some of our athletes were seen washing their single jerseys (probably training jerseys for others) while opponents had excess to share with fans and loved ones who came to cheer them. We watched in morose submission to the incorrigible greed of our sports colonisers as athletes of other countries draped their national flags in dizzying celebrations after winning one medal or the other – yet, many of those winning athletes bore obvious Nigerian names! Their joy in escaping the dross and drudgery that is Nigerian sporting establishment was unmistakable, as they celebrated their good decision to leave Nigeria for the ‘golden fleece’ on other talent-loving continents.

Surely, a timely warning, and invitation to their contemporaries still wallowing in the cesspit of Nigerian sports to get out, so as to get an Olympic medal. It will be interesting to see how many of our younger talents at the Tokyo Olympics, and those left behind at home, would be anywhere near the Nigerian camp at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Congratulations to the Nigerian Olympic committee, we have successfully and officially exported our shame onto the global platform – proudly unashamed!

Now, back home, where shamelessness walks in broad daylight. The fire this time is as a result of the Supreme Court judgement which narrowly retained Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) of Ondo State in power. The jurists were finely split four to three in disfavour of Eyitayo Jegede, the PDP candidate at the October 10, 2020 governorship election. At the core of the dispute before the Supreme Court, apart from electoral irregularities, was if the national caretaker committee of APC as led, on ad hoc basis, by the governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, was in contravention of the Nigerian constitution which forbids holders of executive offices from holding any other public offices.

Before the ink had dried on the two contrasting judgements, Festus Keyamo (SAN) who is not exactly a politician, but a junior minister in the cabinet of an APC government, wrote a confidential memo, (which conveniently leaked into the social media), advising his party to take a cue from the near devastation of losing Ondo State to PDP by relieving Buni, and similarly appointed persons from the party’s caretaker committee… just few days to their nationwide party congresses. That caused quite a stir, and a flurry of unsolicited supportive and counter arguments. Not to be outdone, the Federal Attorney General, and cabinet mate of Keyamo, Abubakar Malami (SAN) fired off his own salvo in a confidential letter (no doubt) to APC governors. Of course, in opposition to Keyamo’s position. While one cannot begrudge Malami’s right to take a position on any matter, not to mention law that he superintends here, the tone of his intervention raises more questions beyond alternate legal opinion. He lacerated Keyamo’s focus, calling it “meritless” (don’t mind some media outlets that transformed it to “senseless”). And that contrary to the suggestion of interlopers that the apex court declared Buni’s ‘ad hoc’ position as illegal, Malami argued that since PDP did not think it fit to join Buni as a respondent at the lower trial, the Supreme Court did not make any pronouncement on the person or status of Buni; and therefore the congresses could go on.

All is fair in war – but is this President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet at war within itself? Why would supposed colleagues wash their linens, dirty or clean, in the market square, when they could have jostled intellectually, and exhaustively, in their cosy chambers, thus sparing us the growing sentiment of imminent political catastrophe. We will be excused if many Nigerians begin to fear that ministers and people elected to guide this nation right are engaged in power play and such aggrandizing peccadillos with grave consequences for the health and welfare of ordinary Nigerians.