Opinion
Serve Me Breakfast! (Part 2)
Published
3 months agoon

By Toyin Falola
Last night
It was you and I and crackles and vodka
And a sky full of stars
It was two truths confessed I had cheated
I did it for balance
Brymo – “Without You”
(https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDj9wXHa3x0;
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDj9wXHa3x0&feature=youtu.be)
Folakemi sat at the bar with Zain and Olivia, two of her friends. They always dragged her out to outings such as parties and clubs. Folakemi was the only dark-complexioned lady among the trio and the prettiest. Her face looked like what God had taken enough time to sculpt, and he gave her small cute lips that curved into a bow to give her a charming smile. She had a more reserved personality and dressed more appropriately than Zain and Olivia, who were almost always scantily dressed. The purpose of that outing was for Zain and Olivia to hunt for a man, and if that plan failed, they would get drunk, and Folakemi, a non-drinker, would chauffeur them home.
READ ALSO: “Serve Me Breakfast!” (1)
Alone at his table and sipping vodka, Mayowa noticed the ladies throwing glances in his direction and giggling mischievously. He took a quick survey of himself to check whether something was out of place that made him look funny, but there was none. Satisfied that he still exuded the charm he left home with, he took a deep breath before getting off his seat and heading toward them. Folakemi, not surprised at her friends’ brazen ogling at the tall, dark, and very handsome guy who sat tables away from them, frantically tried to get her friends to behave, but it was a lost cause. Zain and Olivia would not comport themselves even when they were sober, not to talk of when they had downed a few drinks.
“Hi beautiful! My name is Mayowa.” Those words serenaded Folakemi like a lullaby when she realized the hunk was talking to her. But why would he leave her sexily dressed and ravishingly beautiful friends to talk to her? Zain and Olivia had been picking his masculine attributes piece-by-piece and were having explicit discussions about it. Before she could gather her thoughts to respond to his greeting, Olivia, even more daring than Zain, gently pulled Mayowa down to a chair on their table. They shamelessly flirted with the young guy while answering all the questions he directed at a tongue-tied Folakemi. She felt so embarrassed about the way her friends, especially Olivia, threw themselves at the stranger.
On the drive home, Folakemi could not rid herself of the thoughts of the “Greek god” she had encountered earlier. Her friends would also not stop talking about him. She tried to keep her eyes on the road while Olivia and Zain cooed and scrolled through Mayowa’s Instagram page and ogled over his photos. Of the three ladies, only Zain appeared to be uninterested in Mayowa. Folakemi liked him and felt special that she got his attention, but she could not boldly respond to his advances. Olivia, the most outgoing of them and a notorious man-monger, had openly declared that she would do anything to become Mayowa’s girlfriend.
In the course of the following weeks, Mayowa called Folakemi more than any other guy had ever done. She loved the attention she was getting but still refused to accept his invitation to a date or just for them to hang out or watch a movie together. Folakemi did not know how she would tell her friends, especially Olivia, that she was falling in love with Mayowa. Sometimes when he called, she deliberately shifted their conversations to her friends, wanting to know if he was interested in Olivia. But he didn’t give her any reason to doubt that she was the only one he had eyes for. When Mayowa would not stop pestering her for a date, she eventually gave in, and two more dates after, they shared their first kiss.
Day after day, Folakemi got more glued to her phone and spent less time with the clique, even refusing to go out with them. The other girls did not need a soothsayer to tell them their friend was already hooked on somebody’s son. They suspected it was Mayowa, especially as he stopped answering Olivia’s phone calls. When they mentioned it before Folakemi, she only shrugged and said he was probably busy.
One evening, Zain and Olivia decided to trail Folakemi to know where she went almost every night. Not so much to their surprise, they saw her getting into a car they recognized as Mayowa’s. Back home that night, they confronted Folakemi, and she opened up that she had been seeing Mayowa for a couple of months and that they were in love. Zain was ecstatic and jumped for joy, hugging Folakemi repeatedly. Olivia, however, only walked away, still annoyed that Folakemi kept them in the dark about her relationship with Mayowa and jealous that he chose Folakemi over her.
Now that her friends knew about her and Mayowa, Folakemi could freely invite him to the house and inform her friends when she was going out with him. She even started passing the night in his place occasionally. However, the friendship between Olivia and Folakemi became strained, and Zain’s efforts to reconcile them yielded no positive results.
Confident in her relationship with Mayowa and his feelings for her, Folakemi was having the best time of her life. They flaunted each other on social media, with many “God when?” and “God, am I a spoon?” comments on their loved-up photos. Folakemi was happy that she had found a man who was serious with her, and their relationship thrived. It started showing features of what would lead to marriage, which was exactly her dream.
“This is not right,” Mayowa said to Olivia after their now-regular rendezvous at the hotel. “This is unfair to Fola; she doesn’t deserve it.”
“What is not fair is you dating my friend when you knew I liked you from the very first day we met, and I even showed it in many ways, but you chose Folakemi instead. I love you, Mayowa. Let’s get married and run away,” Olivia said.
“You must be out of your mind! I am getting married to Fola. Like you don’t even know. See, this has to stop. If not, I have to tell Fola the whole truth.”
“You wish! I even dare you to. It will make it faster for me because Folakemi will drop you like hot coal. Then it will be her loss, my gain.”
READ ALSO: RMD’s Daughter Nichole Reveals What Boyfriends Did After She Got Served ‘Breakfast’
Mayowa could no longer count the number of times he and Olivia had betrayed Folakemi’s trust in them. In fact, he could not clearly remember how they got to that point. But after every time they engaged in their illicit affair, he was full of regrets and wanted desperately to end it. But the more he ran, the more it seemed Olivia had a strong hold on him. He kept falling for her advances until he actually began to enjoy it. He loved Folakemi and was going to marry her, and her friends knew this. So, if Olivia wanted a taste of the “goody” before Folakemi claimed full and total ownership, he would indulge her. But now it seemed he had made the biggest life mistake by getting involved with Olivia. She was desperate, and if he was not careful, she would ruin his relationship with his fiancée. He contemplated telling Folakemi the truth and asking for her forgiveness. She loved him almost to a fault and would likely forgive him.
Some days later, Mayowa and Folakemi were having dinner together in his house, and he was looking for the opportunity to gently confess his misdeeds to her. He was showing her pictures from a party they held in his office when a WhatsApp message popped up on his phone. Before he could do anything about it, Folakemi had read it and seen the sender. It was from Olivia, and she just informed him that she was pregnant for him. Folakemi dashed into the bathroom and shut the door before Mayowa could stop her. She sat on the toilet seat as she read the chats between her friend and her fiancé and saw the countless lewd pictures from Olivia. She was dumbfounded and felt like the floor was sinking underneath her and she was going under. After she regained herself, she opened the door, and without saying any word to Mayowa amid his pleas and cry for forgiveness, she took her bag and left his house.
Friends and family members tried to intervene when Folakemi announced that she was calling off the wedding, but she was adamant. She had made up her mind and there was no going back. To make matters worse, Olivia refused to abort the pregnancy and demanded that Mayowa marry her, threatening to make his life hell if she refused to do right by her. When Folakemi could no longer bear to live in the same house with Olivia and Zain, whom she also blamed for keeping the knowledge that Olivia was sleeping with Mayowa away from her, she moved back to her parents’ house and cut off every tie between her and her friends.
Mayowa tried several times to reach out to Folakemi to ask for her forgiveness and a chance to make amends, but she wasn’t having any of that. If he could sleep with her friend, then there was no evil she could put past him. She preferred to nurse her wounds as a single girl rather than as a wife or a single mother. Her job and involvement in church activities became her favorite pastimes, and she deactivated her social media accounts to stay off the Internet until she was fully healed from the heartbreak.
Six months later, her colleague was telling her about the beautiful pre-wedding pictures of a couple she had found on Instagram, describing their attire and how lovely they looked together. Not thinking a thing of it, Folakemi asked to see the pictures, and staring at her were her ex-fiancée and her ex-friend, in truly lovely photos they hashtagged #MayOlly. She could see Olivia’s small baby bump, and though she hated to admit it, Olivia looked even more beautiful with the pregnancy. Resigned to her fate and accepting that her relationship with Mayowa was never meant to be, she started reading comments under the post. As she expected, quite a number of people recognized Mayowa from the days they happily shared their relationship with the Internet. A particular comment from “femionthebeat” had over 300 replies from people who knew about Mayowa and Folakemi’s relationship:
femionthebeat: Is this not Mayor who was breaking the Internet with one slim pretty black lady like that? E be like say comrade don serve the girl breakfast.
queennolly2021: Burna boy don talk am say na everybody go chop breakfast. The way I used to type “God when” on their pictures then. God abeg o!
coolbuthot: @femionthebeat, you are right o. I hear say na that black girl serve Mayor breakfast. She followed one guy wey be Canada citizen.
oyindamolaandme: I just got served my own breakfast. Everyone should carry their cross please.
antiadugboyin: @coolbuthot, where did you hear? How can a man like gossip like this? If you give this same energy to your dying business, you for don make am.
charitypeaceandkindness: Dear sisters, give your lives to Christ. Jesus is the only man that will never #serveyoubreakfast.
Streams of tears ran down Folakemi’s eyes as she read through the comments and looked at each of the pre-wedding photos. She wondered if Mayowa truly loved her or if all they had were lies. Considering how fast he seemed to have moved on after she broke up with him and he was going ahead to marry her friend, a part of Folakemi felt relieved that she got served breakfast before getting married. Now she can finally put the past behind her and work more on healing completely from the hurt. Perhaps triggered by the plenty #servemebreakfast she read from the post, Burna Boy’s Last Last came to her mind:
Na small thing remain, it could have been all over
My feelings still dey swing like jangolova
Feelings still dey swing like-
Ti n ba ni kе juru, e juru
Omo why to’o ki nfe ni suru?
Why do you say I did nothing for you
When I for do anything you want mе to do
Ti n ba ni ke juru, e juru (E juru)
Omo why to’o ki nfe ni suru? (Ni suru)
Why do you say I did nothing for you
When I for do anything you want me to do
Maybe another time,
Maybe another life you will be my wife and we’ll get it right
E don cast, last last, na everybody go chop breakfast
Have to say bye bye o, bye bye o to the love of my life
My eye o don cry o.
*This piece is dedicated to Dr. Samson Ijaola of Glorious Vision University who understands that “Na lunch I want chop. Breakfast no dey belleful!”
Falola is a Nigerian historian and professor of African Studies. He is currently the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.
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By Toyin Falola
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei
Religion remains a much-debated issue, especially in Africa. It is one of the determining factors of our identity. It determines who we are, our beliefs, actions and reactions, and even our thought processes. Africans had their own culture and traditional religion until the advent of western civilization, which brought with it the ‘gift’ of Abrahamic religions—,Christianity and Islam—and judged African traditional religious practices as evil, pagan practice and witchcraft. The missionaries did a thorough job of making people believe that their religion was superior and righteous. Africans accepted these imported religions, and their traditional beliefs began to fade. Christianity and Islam are now the new order, and people are extremely devoted to these newly found Gods.
The Toyin Falola Interviews recently played host to music composer and songwriter, Beautiful Nubia. The question of Beautiful Nubia’s stance on religion pops up during the interview. He is known to promote African spirituality but has also defended foreign religions as advantageous. In response, he talks about his ancestral line: his paternal family were Olu Orogbo devotees (the Yoruba god of letters), and his maternal family were Ifa priests and Esu devotees. He said, “religion has always fascinated me like it gets people’s minds.” He opines that spirituality ties into what gets people so much into religion. Although he no longer practices religion, he affirms that these religions have positively influenced people to do good and show kindness to their fellow human beings.
He states, “Any organized religion has a set of dogma or doctrines they use to guide you to put you in there. You are there; it is like a strait jacket to keep you on the straight and narrow. Why I said religion is a good thing is because the purpose of this is to ensure that you stay on the straight and narrow, that you do good things.” We can agree that religion has contributed to the rise of morals to a certain extent, as the fear of God keeps many people from doing evil. It has curbed wickedness and negative traits inherent in humans and made many people see the world in a new light. Religion has spread the message of doing good and becoming a better human being.
Beautiful Nubia
The issue, however, is not the practice of these religions but the ability of leaders to sway people easily. Although imported religions have helped to stop the extremities of African religious practices, it has only accentuated people’s gullibility. Beautiful Nubia further states, “What is wrong with religion is that it gives certain people the power to use their followers. It is not the religion itself; it is the human beings who run these religious organizations who use their power to extract money from them and push them in the wrong direction.” Owning a church is one of the easiest and quickest ways to get rich, particularly in Nigeria. All that is needed to succeed in this business is to be a good actor, have nice clothes (suits, particularly), can win people over with words and give yourself an extraordinary title such as Rabbi.
It is common knowledge that the major reason why people attend church and Jumat services religiously are that they seek solutions to their problems. As much bad governance is enough to seek God’s intervention for various human issues ranging from terminal illnesses, protection, promotion, unhappiness, barrenness, unemployment, and marital problems, to poverty, which is an average African’s motivation to seek God’s face, also cause people to become staunch believers. To get swift, miraculous answers to these problems, many people fall prey to the traps of “men of God”, who only look to fill their pockets and bellies. This explains why a “pastor” would shut down his church after winning a 100 million Naira bet.
Pastors and Muslim clerics are considered mini gods who can do no wrong. The Bible verse, “touch not my anointed and do my prophet no harm,” is an ever-ready response by Christians in defense of their highly revered pastors who would not think twice before taking advantage of their desperation to get their problems solved. They forget that a “man of God” is first a man. Religion has rendered humans gullible to the extent that they excuse things their religious leaders do that are not even in tune with what is written in the Holy books. How do you explain a pastor who sleeps with a woman looking for the fruit of the womb and says his sperm is the anointing that will cause her to have her child? What do we say to a pastor who instructs his congregation to bring a greater percentage of their salaries to him so that God can answer their prayers? Should the man who claims to be an alfa but has exploited so many people in the name of being a ‘wonder healer’ be left alone? Churches and mosques nowadays see the desperation of people and feed off it. Many people come to church for prosperity and get ripped off the little they have, all in the name of miracles, signs and wonders. You could be in a church service and then suddenly hear the pastor say, “I see seven stars. I need seven people who will give the Lord Seven Hundred Thousand to come out now at the count of seven. One, Two…Seven!” You will be amazed at the number of people who will run to the altar to give the ‘Lord’ that amount of money in this present economy. Unsurprisingly, some borrow money to give to their pastors to receive blessings, then struggle to pay back the borrowed money. Monkey dey work, Baboon dey chop.
These men of God add false doctrines to their fraudulent, shady activities. Beautiful Nubia quotes his mother, a Christian singer, as saying, ” any church where they are a lot of people there, you know there are telling them lies there.” He made an example of a Muslim cleric who tells his followers that every other person is evil, an infidel and a pastor who tells his congregation that their Jesus is not a Jesus of poverty, that He died for them to be wealthy. It is now rare to find churches that preach about the kingdom of God and how to live a life that pleases God. Churches today entice and then mislead people.
Sometimes, people realize all these things are wrong but lack the courage to question these atrocities. According to Beautiful Nubia, “…as a child, you are fully indoctrinated, and as an adult, you are scared to question these beliefs.” Asking a pastor why he preaches only prosperity and how to get rich as a Christian would be considered as seeking the wrath of God because the pastor can call down fire to consume his ‘enemy’. Questioning an Imam on why he sleeps with young girls will only attract curses from the Quran on such a person, followed by “who are you to question God’s prophet? The ways and dealings of God are mysterious”. Really, who dares question these men of God? The fear that has been unconsciously programmed into your mind from a very young age holds your voice and makes you look away from the evils of these religious leaders.
This is not to say that there are no genuine men of God, but there is a plague of greedy religious leaders who, because of their power over their members, influence them to bend to their will while satisfying their greed and lust. “We should not focus too much on religion being our enemy. We need to focus more on ourselves, fix ourselves, and we can use traditional wisdom to do that”, says Nubia. The way we question and demand accountability from the government should be the same way we question our religious leaders. Not every “God says” is true. The Bible in 1 John 4:1 says, “Beloved , believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” Many religious leaders are gods of their bellies and are only out to exploit people to put food in their fat stomachs and live expensive lifestyles with their poor congregation’s money. Child of God, shine ya eye!
This is Part 1 of the report on the interview with Beautiful on March 19, 2023. The extensive interview, which has received millions of views across different platforms, talks about the role of music in society. For the transcripts, see:
YouTube
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7fyHlf1QIsI
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By Toyin Falola
I
Death
Twilight-zone, Afterlife, What-Mays, and Whatnots;
Questions that transcend mortal thoughts.
Uncertainties plucked by the hands of certainty
pondering life beyond the galaxy.
Philosophies, religions, and sciences;
Ancient lenses to dissect and ponder.
Beliefs, opinions, and standpoints in their multiplicities;
Scalpels that open the heart of certain death
Blazing free the skins of uncertainty.
Science, a nobility I revere,
But it stammers answering to the afterlife.
For science is knowledge and knowledge from experience
But the dead neither speak, nor take records.
Their journeys, ordeals, triumphs or woes?
No one bears witness.
But as dead, we must all be witnesses;
witnesses that testify not.
So, for now, we survive the knowledge of death.
II
On my Agbàlàgbà head lies my Ọ́kpụ́ Ágwụ́
With eagle feathers, rare and honorable
Adorning it for three scores, a decade, and some more days.
I had flipped my Kente given by the Gaa
And danced to crescendos from Gàngàn drums
I have been celebrated and celebrating
For the miracles, I have worked with pen, paper, keyboard, and brain
I have taken the tales we tell in my village square beyond the Atlantic
Changed the songs that disdain us into appraisals
I have called my brothers not to point to our fathers’ house with their left hands
I have honed Africa and beyond
To answer the calls of the people’s need
I have reached the thinkable and done the unthinkable
So, I danced and keep dancing.
Suddenly, I felt a touch on my host?
Electrifying my hand, leg, brain, and my whole
Telling me that my jur from the Dinka people awaits me.
That my hourglass tells of crossing the bar.
I thought I knew what it was like,
But my grasping convictions of approaching jur were perceptions
Just surviving the death of the knowledge of death
So, arms wide open ready to abound
What was there to fear?
No catacomb of secrets
No palm oil-drenched white garments
I have taken many to my gourmet
To feast and to see.
What was there not to fear?
With medicine men and women,
Syringes, lights, water, ECG, Oximeters, voices, and touches
Hovering around me like a sacred etutu
Making conversations with me and beyond
I was thrown into a pool of reminiscence
one leg and a part of me were already in the boat
It beckoned but I heard another.
A loud voice like my mother’s.
Who takes a journey without locking his home?
Who takes the jur with unpatched palm fronds on his hut?
While the thunder rages up the sky?
The walls are broken and Balogun journeys?
So, I left the sea to clear the cobwebs and light up the night lamb.
The past few weeks have opened new lights of understanding to me. I now see the world from different hills and have helped to reach new resolutions. I know I have written about “transitioning to nothingness,” but my emphasis was on the “nothingness” with lesser attention on “transitioning.” I think we need to continue to ask questions. Philosophies, religion, sociology, psychology, science, and other ramifications are mere perceptions and we are uncertain. The transitioning occurs when death becomes an angel to hug not a beast to fear. We do not know what it entails but one must always endeavor to go with clean hands.
My recovery from an illness may have offered me a fresh opportunity to shout some more, point to societal needs, and settle unfinished businesses. No, not those caused by my personal undoing, but rather those of the people who would be left unguided, and for matters untold about life, society, and individuals. I can say I have passed through the lessons of tantra transfiguration, to use an elegant phrase that I recently came across, to move from secular to sacred activism. No one survives death because of its finality, but when it seems that you did, it is a renewed quest, offering a new purpose.
Related

By Tony Afejuku
The debate has progressed well so far. Our professors, whose strokes have centred on their fellow professor’s manned INEC have tried as best as they could not to confine their impressions solely to the prism of subjectivity. Even when their impressions seem to be subjective, they still make allowance for contrary views, for opposing views. This obviously gives clarity, objectivity and logic to the subject at hand. Is the will of INEC of a professor minder and mincer of words’ control the will of the people or of the masses? On whose side are the Professors who are as concerned as almost everybody is with what is going – or with what has gone on – primarily about our Presidential 2023 elections? Our Professors who are debating the subject constitute the courageous and prophetic Nigerian voices of our day. Their authentic and responsible thoughts are not restricted to the local or regional. They are also not confined to electoral duties and responsibilities expected of the umpire and the will that belongs elsewhere. The truth about the quality of leadership about our country and elsewhere is also told in the debate of the literati.
Professor (Mrs.) Razinatu Mohamed in her submission, in her salvo-cum-explosion actually, drew attention to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s explosive explosion in the presidency. If Professor Osinbajo had provided the right vice-presidential leadership there would not have been the need for him to explode as he did as per a viral video Professor Razinatu Mohamed referred her fellow debaters to. “What has he been doing in the eight years of their administration? Irritated my foot; he is complicit.” Not done, Professor Razinatu drew attention to the kind of leaders that Nigeria and Africa need: “Leaders that understand the rudiments of modern socio-economic development and systems; Leaders that understand the crux of requirements for economic growth. Leaders that could demonstrate to the rest of the world that just as the world needs Africa, African countries need the world in a symbiotic relationship and partnership context where assistance becomes a dual role…..”
Razinata’s concern is clear. Nothing in Nigeria will climb out of its hollow hole. In fact, the will of the people will remain hollow so long as a hollow mincer and minder is in charge of its electoral affairs.
Professor Da Sylva perhaps responds better to Professor Razinatu Mohamed’s algebraic stroke. “Unfortunately, Nigeria’s democracy is trapped in its primordial self-made ethnic and religious sentiments and so, standards, merit, competence and pedigrees are measured by their curious divides of religion and ethnic inclinations. Until we all come to realize that heavens help those who help themselves, Nigeria ain’t going no-where – meeen!”
But below is Professor Da Sylva’s sledge hammer response to Professor Razinatu Mohamed’s Osinbajo hammer blow:
“Prof Osinbajo’s office demands he does what he did. Besides, it shows maturity and spirit of sportsmanship on his part. Every loser in a game “healthily” contested, is naturally expected to do the same. The only difference which again shows Osinbajo’s magnanimity is that in this context, the contest under reference was neither healthy nor just. The umpire seemed compromised and merely worked to a prepared answer. Yet the gentleman did the needful. I guess, brothers and sisters, that we should put all that behind us, and work for our common good, and the wellbeing of the country, provided the mythical Aso cabal will let the President-elect be, and let the masses be, and as such, they should not create any cause for us to think otherwise, lest they provoke our sense of patriotism to take appropriate action! I guess that those were the reading or feelings of the dirty-minded Aso Villa cabal. People that kill with sword never wish that any folk should pass a sword over their heads, a wise saying goes in Yoruba. The human principalities simply suspected that should they allow PMB to give the VP the intended latitude, they might not be able to control him. I remember on his return from London, he commended the efforts of his VP while he was away. He said he would still continue acting while he would still have some more rest at home. The following day everything changed, PMB decided to take charge as the President. I suspected some back door politics was playing out. My co-debaters, quite naturally, you’ll agree with me that, it is not over-ambition or sheer opportunism as you might insinuate for any deputy in an office to aspire to the next higher office, in a legitimate manner, there is nothing really unusual about it, and it would amount to killing a mosquito with a sledge hammer, should Oshinbajo be crucified for that, if at all. And as for his wishing Buhari’s non-recovery, I think that, again, like my Sister R, is a little unkind and not fair to the gentleman who I know to be a servant of God. He knows as much as I do, by our true Christian orientation and Biblical injunctions that, should he ever wish Buhari’s death or wish him any form of misfortune in those trying periods of the President, God Almighty who we serve would deal mercilessly and ruthlessly with him. That is what Psalm 41:1-13 is all about. So rule that out, because it is not, and could never be in his character. I can vouch for him. Rather, I saw him in those times that he acted for his principal, as someone zealous and appreciative of the trust his principal invested in him, and as such he tried to do his very best to merit the trust and the opportunity! I know and I am also sure that this is what an IBK, or a Razinat, would have done too had they found themselves in a similar situation! It does not amount to wishing one’s principal any evil, not at all. Not everyone can be like Chief Obafemi Awolowo who resigned his position under Gowon when the regime became financially reckless shortly after the civil war. Awolowo also gave very profound argumentation to justify convincingly his actions. He also turned down some other appointments including the “49 Wise Men of the Constitution Drafting Committee.” Oshinbajo couldn’t have resigned, normally, and naturally his principal, PMB should have supported him as a capable successor, but again, the President’s ethnic and religious bigotry took the better part of the President. Besides, PMB’s mind was long poisoned against his VP, a clean job by the Aso Villa cabal. IBK, Lady R, until the faceless cabal is permanently silenced the wheel of Nigeria might continue to go round in a circle, and to nowhere in particular”.
And Professor IBK takes the floor: “Prof. DAO, yours is a powerfully convincing submission, at least in a large measure. Now I am willing to hold a slightly different opinion about Osinbajo. Yet, I cannot fathom why he chose to run against Tinubu, days or weeks after the latter had begun his campaign in the party primaries. There’s much we don’t know about why OSBJ decided to run against BAT. Nothing is wrong with that politically but a little problematic from an Ethical or, at least Moral, point of view. Osinbajo did a poor job of it and came out a distant 4th in the primaries. I think he didn’t read the situation correctly and was probably misled by some cabal of sorts. Either way Osinbajo made a politically fatal error in this regard. Perhaps he must have sensed, or was told, that BAT was not the anointed candidate, or that BAT would be crippled by some ill-health or a medical condition. I remember the party’s screening committee publicly recommending that only younger contestants would be recommended to the NWC or such. Clearly there was an attempt to sideline BAT. Whatever the explanation, Osinbajo make the error in his campaign of promising to be more Buhari than Buhari. A man despised by whole sections of the northern population, a man whose reputation for laziness and incompetence was on the ascendant. Anyway, all is now history and Osinbajo has not given a good account of himself in this particular case. Prof DAO, I think your concept of the Trickster should account for Osinbajo’s situation here. FULL DISCLOSURE: a very close family member of mine was drafted to head Osinbajo’s campaign effort in Kano. We discussed extensively about Osinbajo’s pledge to carry on with Buhari’s policies. There was bewilderment and shock within the members. A week later half of the membership resigned on account of Osinbajo’s increasing identification with Buhari’s policies. Many mistakenly thought that Osinbajo was Buhari’s anointed one! I could go on…”
Interestingly interesting and intriguingly intriguing, dear, dearly dear readers: this debate.
To be terminated by the columnist-terminator and terminator-columnist next week after Professor Olu Obafemi’s summation of the debate he presided over.
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.
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