‘’We are all in the age of the Coronavirus – politically and clinically, at home and abroad.’’
By Jimanze Ego-Alowes
TUE, FEB 25 2020-theG&BJournal- Senator Ike Ekweremadu? Remember the dude? He was once ”a go to man” from the Eastern political firmaments. Ekweremadu has been in the National Assembly longer than human memory may easily recall. To give him his due, he’s been discharging his duties some creditably.
Watching him from some distance, one is persuaded to conclude that Ekweremadu is a consummate politician, of sorts. For instance, as far as researches show, Ekwermadu has not made too many, if any, enemies. He gets about his ways and means with the ease of dolphins riding the waves. Yet, in that contrived smoothness, or is it blandness, Ekweremadu comes out as a well branded Lord of the political game. One can recall that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar bested him for Peter Obi as a running mate. However, Ekweremadu never let that muddy his waters. Maybe, if the Atiku-Obi ticket had sailed through, Ekweremadu would have been surfing more dark and encumbered political waterways today. But the Atiku-Obi ticket collapsed on its historic mission. Today, Ekweremadu is back as a humble, a common senator. Ekweremadu, we may recall was for long runny seasons, a Deputy Senate President. That is on paper, he was the 6th or so most powerful Nigerian then alive. Lately however, he has been ”missing in action.” It is almost like he diapauses, has gone into frozen, breath preserving, state.
But things seem to have changed. For instance, just today 24th February, Ekweremadu suddenly washed up on a Channels Hard Copy television show. Well, it is good to see him looking chubby, youthful, and even eternal, as most government pickins are wont to. Expectedly, Ekweremadu answered almost all questions lobbed at him very creditably. In fact, his level headedness and penetrative insights showed up in full measure. So we salute him.
But he missed out on one point. According to him, he assuredly knows some persons from across the country – of his generation – who if given presidential powers will treat every Nigerian equally, without regard to color, race and tribe. Really? The fact is that no such persons exists – given our current configurations. Repeat no such person exists, save in Ekwermadu’s imagine-nations.
With all due respect, Ekweremadu got it fancifully wrong there. Political hustle is not a morality play. Political power [not office] is a power gambit, disintegrating towards war. That is the good part. The more frightful arm, is that politics – especially in the third world – could easily go nuclear. And the fact of nuclearized or nuked politics, is what we are living right now. APC and its helmsmen, or is it herdsmen, have turned Nigeria into a fissionable state. Today, it is completely risky to be Nigerian or in Nigeria.
Returning to Ekweremadu, the points in issue need to be well appreciated, and are as follows. It is of no import whether or not sitting President Muhammadu Buhari is nuke-capable, or as physicists would put things, fissionable. The salient point is that Buhari could go or has gone nuclear. So the question of importance is what allows the fissionable status of and under Buhari. But that is even the wrong question. The right question is, how can the political chain and reactions be so organized that no man elected president can go nuclear however he so desires it. The issue is not and has never been Buhari. Nigeria’s central failure is in her design. From the dictator and genocidaire General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria has been designed, perhaps absentmindedly, perhaps inadvertently, to be a political province of the north. A political magic? Boy things happen. That is all I have to say for now.
Anyway, how and why this happened need not detain us here. We have treated it in sufficient detail in our book, ”Why and How the Yoruba Fought and Lost the Biafra Nigeria Civil War,” published by The Stone Press.
However, the summary is this. The Southwest, and perhaps the North-Central and the South-South – as key parts of the axis partners that won the war suffered what Thucydides insistently warned against. Thucydides is an ancient Greek power, not office, theoretician. Kids like Peter Drucker, theorize on offices and such ”humors.”
In enlisting to win the war, the Southwest absentmindedly or otherwise, played Drucker not Thucydides. That is they enlisted to be made tributaries after the war – to enter the conquered peace enslaved. It appears, perhaps on the wisdom of hindsight, perhaps as part of the law of unintended consequences, perhaps…. But whatever it is, it appears that the Yoruba signed sealed and delivered to a treaty: ”that whatever the benefits to us, the cost to us joining to defeat Biafra shall be our enslavement.” Otherwise there is no other way to explaining the insanity going on as a country.
The details are clear and are beyond argument. To give just one pointer. It is not for nothing that while all the world and the rest of the country are asking for restructuring, the north is only interested in further unification. That is a sure sign it is their empire and they are jealous about its ruthless consolidation. Luckily, all empires are built to be dismantled by their internal logic. This is the way of the universe. Rome. Germany. Britain. Contemporaneously, one can hear the paw-falls of the undertakers to the American Imperium.
To repeat, from General Gowon to Abubakar, Nigeria for all practical purposes has been converted to a political fiefdom of its north. And like all empires it shall subsist no longer than its best buy by dates. All empires are by logic built for collapse.
What therefore follows, in logic and practice, is that no straight order can come out of this crooked timber of which the Northern Nigerian Islamic Empire is to be constructed. For instance, as Ekweremadu whined, a part of the empire ploy was to exclude the Igbo from all security top brass. But the neither Southwest nor any other part of the country, save the Islamic North should celebrate. The ”exclude the Igbo ploy” is a testing the water decoy. Its strategic target is not the Igbo. Excluding the Igbo is a tactical move. The grand purpose is to make way for the day, when on the logic of the excluded Igbo, all others but the Islamic North would have signed and sealed the historic precedence to be excluded themselves. From there, the rest follows. Of course it is an old Ottoman movie and model. It is a template for those who don’t have the brains to separate their religions and their politics.
Therefore, to expect that any man can emerge from this hunched society and play straight is against human nature, logic and historical experience. It has never happened and shall never.
The only way to get a straight statues, or even statutes, is first of all to fish for straight timbers of constructions. Senator Ekweremadu, you get that? Ok, you remember King Solomon? It was for the same reasons, of first things first, of most important things first, or all is lost, that King Solomon gave up on Israel. And went where? To Lebanon. And why? He was in search of timbers, straight sturdy timbers of construction. The import and genius of Solomon is this. He came to knowledge that immediately you miss out on the foundations and their constructions – both in designs, materials and materiel, there is nothing you can tinker with the roofing etc. to correct for this foundational deficits and deficiencies. So, to make sure he doesn’t waste his, or the Lord’s time, Solomon embarked on a long terrific journey to get it right. From Israel to Lebanon and back in King Solomon’s days is the equivalent of firing off to Saturn and back. Yet, King Solomon went about it.
Ekweremadu, as is with the construction and servicing and managements of temples, so also it’s with the constructions of nations and epochs. The roots are the solutions and the solutions are in the roots.
In other words, the Ekweremadu dream of a certain Nigerian who if given power will be non-fissionable is a pipedream. It can neither hold water nor bear reality.
To summarize, our dear and long serving Senator Ekweremadu, let it then be known as follows. Without a balanced federation, willingly entered into, it is indicated that we all have come to a common grief. That grief is that the best days of Nigeria are behind her. Things are simply go to get worse.
Anyway, it’s nice to sight you in public glare all over again. It is been quite a long absence. I was even tempted to crawl over for an embrace, but my family physicians flashed a warning. We are all in the age of the Coronavirus – politically and clinically, at home and abroad. All else is in humor.
Jimanze Ego-Alowes (PhD) is Author and public commentator
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