By Gboyega Amoboye.

|

At the screening of President Shehu Shagari  Ministerial nominees in 1983, a man appeared before the Senate to state why Alhaji Ali Baba must not be cleared for appointment as a minister. The next day, the same man reappeared before the Senate  to state why Ali Baba must be cleared as a Minister. When he was asked why he changed his mind, he said;  “Yesterday I was hungry, today I’m not hungry”.  This 1983 experience flashed through my mind when recently a former committed  spokesman of ex- Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Daniel   Bwala   denounced his former bread winner, Atiku and crawled to President BolaTinubu who was the dart for his arrow when the  soup pot  of Atiku was full of assorted meats.

 It is very queer what politics have become to many practitioners; devoid of candor, colour and integrity . Just recently as well the  reinstated Deputy Governor of Edo State, Philip Shaibu, protegee of Senator Adams Oshiomhole, ex Governor of Edo State, returned to his mentor,  on his knees,  begging for forgiveness to rejoin the APC, still holding the PDP Umbrella. One does not  know the signal people like him are sending to the junior ones by such public show of what the Romans would call  “tanti dedecoris”.

Talking of integrity in politics, Senator Authur Francis Nzeribe had won an election to the Senate on the platform of the Nigerian  People’s Party in 1983 only to cross carpet to the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). He was however unanimously ejected from the Senate for flouting the provision of the constitution preventing that and still in operation. Nzeribe appealed to Justice Fred Ayeagbunam’s Tribunal to ” restore his honour”. But  in his judgement, Justice Anyeagbunam told Nzeribe that “You are not entitle to the honour you do not possess having taken the mandate  of  your people to the party they had rejected”. Shamefully, Nzeribe walked out of the Tribunal. It’s doubtful if the judiciary could still live up to that standard of  judgement. Afterwards, the celebrated British jurist, Lord Denning  defined law as what the judge says it is. This to me means a judge should go beyond merely interpreting the law to ensuring that what is right is the justice.

Yes we are still on Bwala who I always admire for his  unique selling point, eloquence, in the modern day politics.

President BolaTinubu  has always been a personification of  progressive politics  and Atiku, the conservative. So Bwala is wearing the cap of ex-President Babangida’s “a little to the right and a little to the left politics”.

But this  takes me to the parable of the prodigal son in the Bible and the implication it has for the President. A father has two sons. The junior one asked their father for his own inheritance before his death. The father obliged and after squandering it in a foreign land, and became poor to the point of struggling for food with pigs, he returned to the father in tears begging for forgiveness. The happy father gave him the best reception to the consternation  of the steadfast senior brother.

Since Bwala has  been treated to a red carpet reception at the Presidential Villa and made a kitchen cabinet member so swiftly, one may wonder if Mr.President ever thought this could dampen the morale of   loyalists who  were repelling the arrow Bwala was sending from the camp of  Atiku.

If Bwala can betray, Atiku, what is the guarantee that a leopard can change its colour?  Shuaibu has just returned to his vomit in Edo politics. It can happen also elsewhere. No doubt, President BolaTinubu has a unique reputation of transformational leadership. He discovers talents and mentor them. This may account for why perhaps he sometimes leave his flanks open  as his weakness leans on virtues side. It’s very unusual for a Presidential speech to leak out but where friends and foes live together anything can happen.

After all, King Duncan  says of Lady Macbeth that “The love that follows us is sometimes our trouble which still we thank as  love”. Take it from me, soon there may be “trouble in form six”.( An unpublished article but prophetic in view of today).