(OPINION) Tinubu, matter don pass ‘Be Careful’

The above happened sometime in 1964. A year later, the problem multiplied for Chief Akintola who became increasingly troubled, his hands unsteady; “he could no longer write his signature on a straight line.”

At 5.50pm on 6 August, 1962, Chief Obafemi Awolowo left his place for the residence of the Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, for a 6pm appointment. It was at the height of the political crisis of the early 1960s. Awo arrived at Balewa’s 8 Lodge on the dot and wasted no time opening their discussion.

He asked Balewa: “Are you sure in your mind that this crisis will end well for all of us and for Nigeria?” Chief Awolowo said “Balewa replied in a low, solemn voice that he was sure it would not end well…” (See Awolowo’s ‘Adventures in Power’, Book Two, page 249). And, did it end well? There is no point answering that question. We all know how it ended.

Today, there is a new fire on the mountain. Things are bad; very bad. Paris-born Nigerian singer, Bukola Elemide (Asa) sings: “There is fire on the mountain/ And nobody seems to be on the run…”

The first time we heard a cry of fire and fear in our politics was in the Western House of Assembly in 1962. Since then, the mountain of Nigeria has been badly scarred by political bush-burners. A fresh blaze is balding the skull of the poor today and the consequences cannot be imagined.

There are consequences for everything anyone does or does not do. Even the words that I use here will have consequences. Ethnic and business ‘friends’ of the president will abuse me like they’ve always done to poets who refuse to do palace clowning. They forget that I am a child of the farm; I walk the furrows, not the ridge. I am beyond their shot.

Authored by researchers Iain McLean and Jennifer Nou, a piece appeared in the October 2006 edition of the British Journal of Political Science. And the title? ‘Why should we be beggars with the ballot in our hand?’ That is the question we dare not ask here without them saying we should bring our heads.

They say the president is our brother who cannot do wrong. They forget that we were not taught in Yoruba land to merely chase away the fox and pamper the cocky bumbling hen. We were taught to give justice to fox and then to hen – one after the other. How is keeping quiet when the ‘war’ is all around us going to help “our brother”?

The hunger that is in town today is more serious than the hunger that made Sango burn down a whole town. Yet, our leader appears not worried. He is not scared. It is business as usual. Why are we not fearing the consequences of our misbehaviour?

There were protests in parts of the country last week by hungry Nigerians. But President Bola Tinubu’s trusted people said the protests were unreal; they said the president’s policies are good and popular with the people.

Did President Tinubu read Segun Adeniyi of Thisday last week? The columnist asked him to go and watch again the Yoruba mainframe play, Saworoide. If you are not Yoruba, look for the plot summary of that play, it should be online. Read it. It should tell what the warning is all about.

They are all prophets – the warners. Did the president read Abimbola Adelakun of The Punch last Thursday? She warned that “things are getting out of hand.” Did Tinubu read Tunde Odesola of the same newspaper the following day? He wrote that in Tinubu’s Nigeria, “the poor can’t inhale, the rich can’t exhale.” Farooq Kperogi of Saturday Tribune has written twice (last week and the week before) on hunger and anger in the land.

The naira is ruined, the kitchen is on fire. We thought the regime of Muhammadu Buhari was the last leg of Nigeria’s relay race of tragedy. Now, it is clear he was actually the first leg in a race that won’t end soon. Tinubu took the baton from his game-mate and said his wand is made of hope in renewed bottles.

His first eight months have proved that it is not true that the child does not die at the hands of the circumciser. This is better said in Yoruba – àsé iró ni wípé omo kìí kú lówó oní’kolà! This one is dying – or is dead.

Before the president’s very eyes, the country has become a vast camp for stranded people; a nation of displaced people who live on food rations. The people now ask who is going to be their helper. Legendary Ilorin musician, Odolaye Aremu, at a moment of anomie as this, lamented that the one we said we should run to for safety is urging us to run even far away from where he is (eni tí a ní k’á lo sá bá, ó tún ní k’á máa sá lo).

Cluelessness is a physician treating leprosy with drugs made for eczema. Who told the president that opening the federal silos is the solution to a bag of rice selling for N70,000? It was N7,000 nine years ago. The protesting people from the north and in the south are not saying there is no food in the market. There is no scarcity of foodstuffs. It is not a demand and supply problem. There is food in the market, but the food in the market is priced beyond the earnings of the people. That is the issue, the problem, and it cannot be solved with handouts from grain reserves. It can only be solved with a magic that will shrink the price of foodstuffs to a size within the financial capacity of the poor.

Some say it is age that ails Tinubu making him unfelt in this season of pain. But, he won’t be the first old man to be king. There was a prince in Ofa who owned neither calabash nor plate (kò ní’gbá, kò l’áwo). But he had a large piece of cloth as his only item of value. He did not use it; it was too unuseful to the poor old man who would rather lend it for a fee to others for use on their special outings.

The man’s condition remained critical, his poverty unremitting. He prepared himself and went to an elder for consultation. He sought counsel on what he could do so that he might gain importance.

All who are favoured are counselled to take it easy with life. They should cast away the garment of greed, of hubris and of lust for the self. If they care, they can take counsel from these lines from the ancestral scroll: “Do not run the world in haste.

Let us not hold on to the rope of wealth impatiently. What should be treated with mature judgment should not be treated in a fit of temper. Whenever we arrive at a cool place, let us rest sufficiently well and give prolonged attention to the future; let us give due regard to the consequences of things. We should do all these because of the day of our sleeping, our end (Má fi wàrà wàrà s’ayé, K’á má fi wàrà wàrà rò m’ókùn orò. Ohun a bâ fi s’àgbà, K’á má fi sè’bínú. Bí a bá dé’bi t’ó tútù, K’á simi simi, K’á wo’wájú ojó lo títí; K’á tún bò wá r’èhìn òràn wò; Nítorí àtisùn ara eni ni).

Tinubu’s salvation lies with his orí inú- his inner head. That is the priest he should consult. It is what he should go and ask for the way. His reign is painful.