They are all winners --Heard the latest? --About what? And don’t tell me someone’s wife has left him for a younger man because I’m not interested. --Lecherous old man. I come with an interesting and serious gist and you quickly assume it has to do with an eloping wife. Do you ever think of other matters except..? --You rush in here breathless and ask whether I have heard the latest. What do you expect me to say? Is there anything new under the sun? Anyway, so what is it? Or as usual the alarm is another of your way of deflecting the fact that you came uninvited. --It is the governors. --What about them. For all I know a number of them are doing really well in their states—building roads, schools and other infrastructure and paying salaries of their workers as and when due. I can’t see anything bad in that. --Who’s talking about infrastructure and salaries? I say they are making a nuisance of themselves and disturbing the peace of the country. --Haba! Which ones in particular? I know for a fact that a number of them are so preoccupied with their health it is all they could do performing their normal state duties, not to even talk of getting into mischief making. --You surely must be faking ignorance of events of the past few days or you are the most ill- informed person in Nigeria. Where have you been? Mongolia? --Now, take that back. You can’t come into my house and proceed to call me an ignoramus. I will not take that from you. Is it a crime to say I have not seen nor heard anything untoward about our state governors, even the ones whose states have been taken over by Goodluck Jonathan and his soldiers on account of them having been overrun by insurgents? As far as I’m concerned they have been on their best behaviour. --So you approve of what transpired in the last governors’ forum? --Aah! You mean the election of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of River State as the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and the refusal of the anti-Amaechi group to accept the outcome? Is that why you are wearing a long face as if you are bereaved? Cheer up my friend, it’s all politics and in politics all is fair. --Listen to yourself. Just listen to yourself, you mean an election held among state governors that dissolved into disputation and captured copiously on TV was all very well. To use your word, fair. Fair my foot! --Come, come, mind your language, children are listening, no foul language in this house. So if it is not fair, what is it? --Disappointing, disgraceful and unbecoming of their positions. That’s what it is. And as for you, no one is fooled, your cynicism drips all over you. --Leave me out of your frustration and spare me the caustic remarks about what I said. I say the election was fair, even the public show that followed was also fair –it was an election won and an election lost--at least, for all I know they didn’t resort to fisticuff. No one left there with a black eye or a broken head. I really don’t understand all the aggravation on your part. --See, these people are governors for God’s sake. They are expected at all times to be an example to those of us not holding high office by always doing things in a proper way, especially election. --The report I read did not accuse anyone of rigging Amaechi into the chairman’s office. Governor Godswill Akpabio was merely complaining about some procedural matters, you know the fellow is a lawyer; they are fond of nit- picking and going on issues that go to no issues, as the lawyers themselves would say. --You are merely papering over a serious issue of ethics and morality. You can’t spring upon others a procedure that was not agreed on before hand as was done by pro—Amaechi group. He may have won, going by the vote count, but the victory was achieved through subterfuge and deceit. ---Now, watch your mouth otherwise you run the risk of being slapped with a libel suit. Anyway, since when have elections been without some trickery or underhand method? The way you go on I’m beginning to think you are anti-Amaechi, which means you support all the strong arm tactics being deployed from on high to remove him through hook or crook. Give some credit to the man, his victory amounts to facing down unconscionable power and defeating it wholesale. He should be left alone. --What about the import of Amaechi’s victory for the 2015 elections? Doesn’t it presage the kind of elections we are going to have? --How do you mean? 2015 elections would be won and lost and the heavens would not fall. The winners would celebrate and the losers would go home to lick their wounds of defeat and try again another time. --I mean wouldn’t the incident of the aftermath of NGF’s election be bad influence on some do –or –die politician who seeking to win by all means plunge the whole place into, you know... --I don’t see why that should happen. I hate to repeat myself, in the aftermath of the NGF’s election, there was neither blows thrown, nor chairs hauled, nor any one hospitalised for injuries sustained. So in what ways does it harbour any ill foreboding for 2015? Now, don’t let a mere election among over paid and over pampered state governors that did not go down well with some people bring about pessimism and malevolent wishes. It is just the choice of one of them to lead the group. Nigerians don’t like losing in anything, and the anti-Amaechi group are not an exception, which explains their churlish behaviour. They certainly will get over it. I would rather prefer to see the whole affair this way—the fact that they managed to choose one of them without any untoward event, other than the bickering, makes all of them winners. sunday column of sundaytrust, Published on Sunday, 09 June 2013; Written by Murtala Opoola
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 05:30:56 +0000
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