Let me start with a clarification. Last week’s installment of this column was not meant to slight or degrade anybody. Far from it. Nor was it meant to be a naked exhibition of crass ingratitude to those men and women who served this country – or got served so well – to the best of their abilities.
Many readers felt I left out some former public officials and their associates, those men and women who played major roles in our lives before the wind of change that tore through the land uprooted them and swept them out of public gaze. My apologies. And now some amendments.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has not, contrary to predictions, settled down to write his memoirs. Neither has he returned to Otuoke to take up the age-old family business of canoe – building, giving it some presidential touch . Rather, His Excellency has embarked on his long overdue holidays. Not even the crisis that is threatening the Bayelsa State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be a distraction.
The other day he was seen at an airport in Europe admiring a set of twins. Just last week, he flew in style to Kenya with his family in two chartered jets, like a Hollywood star. The way Dr Jonathan leapt off the aircraft, one would have mistaken him for an athlete who is set for a major race.
Gone is the long Niger Delta dress with chains and buttons glittering like a veteran soldier’s medals and the Fedora cap. He was in town to see the games reserves. Now, we have been let into another passion of our former leader – he loves wild animals.
Just before then, Jonathan had paid a secret visit to the Presidential Villa where, according to sources, he asked President Muhammadu Buhari to take it easy with his associates and former ministers. Needless to say, it was learnt, he got a standard reply – that the anti-corruption war was just gathering steam, it would not be a witch-hunt and only the guilty needed to fear. Chikena!
Femi “loud mouth” Olukayode, the one we used to know and address as Femi Fani- Kayode, has since got off the hook in the money laundering charges slammed on him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He acknowledged the fact that God’s favour saw him through. In appreciation of this, he changed his name to Olukayode. Now many are asking: what’s in a name? Has the man who lied that Buhari did not go to school and concocted a fake medical report of the then presidential candidate changed?
A few days ago, the former spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign was in the news again – for questioning the paternity of three girls who he was said to have fathered. He, so goes the salacious story, had been asking that the girls from his estranged woman, Yemisi, daughter of a former Lagos judge, should undergo a paternity test.
With the EFCC issue behind him and nobody ready to hire a propagandist now, Fani-Kayode–Oh! sorry about the slip – Olukayode has enough time to straighten his private affairs, details of which will not be published here, this being a family newspaper. But, there is some good news, Olukayode has found love again – he is head over heels with a former beauty queen, Precious Chikwendu. If all goes well, the fourth marriage will soon be consummated.
Little has been heard from Dr Doyin Okupe, the former presidential aide, since the May 29 shellacking. There have been stories of how the medical doctor-turned- politician diverted into property business in Britain–Is he on exile?– The trade, it was said, brought bountiful rewards – initially. Then, our man planned to go for the kill. He shelled out a hefty sum of money – some said everything he had – and it all blew up in his face; a scam. Now, friends and associates are asking the prince to return home. When he will yield to their plea, nobody knows.
After Elder Peter Godsday Orubebe’s failed attempt to disrupt the collation of the presidential election’s results, he apologised for his disgraceful conduct and left Abuja in utter contriteness. But, against all expectations, his purgatory lasted just a few days. The former minister returned to his church in Ogbobagbene, Delta State, preaching morals and good conduct. In fact, he was recently at a ceremony in which he admonished the youth to be of good behavior.
Many who heard of the event turned it all into a joke and recalled how Orubebe’s name became a subject of biting witticisms, a kind of laughing stock, after his encounter with Jega. In one of such jokes, a woman goes to a doctor to complain about her husband’s strange behaviour.
“Woman: Doctor, my husband is acting strange. He has been screaming ‘we will not take this’ all-day.
“Doctor: Hmm…that’s Orubebelysus
“Woman: O my God! What’s that?
“ Doctor: Calm down. It’s a kind of post-electoral stress-induced psychosomatic disorder, with a low chance of resulting in permanent psychedelic hallucinations. He needs Jegamycin every four years.”
Former Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo – Iweala , according to sources, has been busy compiling what she believes to be evidence that will exonerate her whenever she is called upon to explain some strange transactions under her watch. She was not just running the Ministry of Finance; she was our first-ever Coordinating minister for the Economy, an economy that has now been found to have been shredded by sheer greed and avarice of wicked public officials.
Now we are told that $1.2b was illegally withdrawn from the Excess Crude Account, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) earned N162b in one year but remitted only N2b to the treasury (no questions, no sanctions) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) withheld N3.8tr between 2012 and this year. There are more, including the $6b, allegedly stolen by former ministers and the N109.7b oil firms royalty, which the Department of Petroleum Resources(DPR) did not send to the treasury. Where was the minister?
Musiliu Obanikoro thought being a minister was going to be a life-long job from which retirement could never be contemplated. He spoke like a mafia boss whose fiefdom extended from Benin to Birnin Kebbi and Aladja to Hadejia. Buoyed by a platoon of soldiers, he personally stormed the site of a housing project in Lagos to stop the work. In Ekiti, he told an army General – General indeed – to follow the election rigging script prepared in Abuja or risk not being promoted. The poor officer – the kind the late songster, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, called Zombie – succumbed to Obanikoro’s antics and turned into a one-sided war a civilian affair that should have been a celebration of democracy.
A few days ago, Koro, as his associates call him, was at a birthday party in Lagos. When his name was announced as one of the guests, many shook their heads – perhaps in pity or admiration or both. One couldn’t really say.
Godswill Akpabio, the former governor of Akwa Ibom State, is now the Senate Minority Leader. Even before the upper chamber begins the very sober work of making laws for the growth of our dear country, it is glaring that we are headed for “an uncommon transformation”, the type that Akwa Ibomites savoured for eight years. Consider this: in just two months, despite passing no bills and going on recess for several days, Senators and House members have shared N12.9b. Just like that.
Where is former Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan? A source told me the other day that His Excellency was away in London for the Wimbledon tennis fiesta. That immediately brought back memories of the Governors Forum election in which Uduaghan was an umpire or an electoral officer (as seen in the video). He later described his role as that of an agent. Fine.
That election, you will recall, ended in a fiasco when some governors said the man who scored 16 votes had beaten the one who scored 19. Governors then became the subject of beer parlour jokes. There was one in which a father asked his little son: “Which is bigger between 19 and 16?” The son replied: “16”. The dad retorted: “Who told you so?” “ Our governor said so on television,” the boy replied. The dad burst into laughter.
Ex-international soccer star and Jonathan campaigner Joseph Yobo has not been seen in public since the May 29 electoral defeat of his favourite. A source said he was away in Europe on holiday. Another swore that the former Eagles captain remained in Lagos, enjoying his bountiful harvest from the recent political season.
Abba Moro, the former Interior minister who was behind the tragic Immigration jobs scam, was one of the powerful members of the Jonathan cabinet. No fewer than 20 youths whose only offence was that they wanted a job died in that bloody exercise. Moro, against all expectations, retained his job. Besides, there was no refund of the about N520m collected from the applicants. He asked Nigerians to consider the tragedy an accident. We did just so?
Moro, going by reports, has put it all behind him. He has forgiven those who insisted that he must carry the can for that inhumanity. A few days ago, a grand reception was held in his honour in his hometown of Ugbokolo, Benue State where he gleefully announced that contrary to the rumour in circulation, he was not arrested for allegedly stealing N21b. He said the purveyors of the rumour wanted to tarnish his record as he never held the purse stringThere you have it, reader. A good debate topic: what maketh a good record?
So much for our former men of power.
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