By Folarin Eddie Wole-Olujobi
It started as a rushing wind. Then the skies turned grey from its usual shining blue colour. We looked up into the heavens and the sun was still standing at its zenith, burning in its own flames and glory.
A droplet of rain metamorphosed into a chorus of showers. We thought the sun would seek abode in the thick, grey clouds but it was her time of the day. She would not want to distort time and seasons!
Then began the strife in the heavens – the Sun and the grey clouds wrestling, and the order of the day was the price.
Like a palace coup, her once friendly blue sky turned grey and storms overtook her state. And so it began, and lo, heavy showers became the lot of April, the month that Nigerian partisans wet their political fields for the usually suspended dividends of electoral contests.
The intermittent showers in the month of Ramadan made it seem like it was going to be dull. The first day was a bore, then the next day and the day after that until Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike’s croaking voice tore through Nigeria’s political airwaves and woke us up from our slumber.
Ambition is contagious. She can make the most powerful men do ridiculous things. Ambition can also sometimes bring to the fore our creativity – she once made a Federal Minister become an Olympian.
For who is so strong that can’t be seduced? She made Amaechi transform from a politician to an Olympian. Not yet done, she possessed his predecessor Wike. His vociferous echoes from March resounded in the Holy month.
The black Ray Ban glasses tried to hide it but it was glaring for all to see; he looked hungry but a buffet would not be enough to fill his belly. He looked weary but a fountain of water would not quench his thirst.
The antidote to Wike’s deprivation is the kind that led Roman nobles to usurp Caesar in the Capitol and topple his images all over Rome.
A powerful seductress, she can make the Cassius of the world believe he is just as great as Caesar. Ambition can make you blind, yes. She can overestimate your qualities and abilities, sing your praises to the high heavens and even make mere men feel like giants. Only the discerning can see through her flattery. But we must be careful in dealing with her for she walks hand in hand with our doom.
Then again, the race to the Aso Rock has attracted a retinue of characters to the track – the unassuming, the desperados, the king makers, the pawns, the self-conceited, and the clowns.
From the great savannah belt of the Great Plains of Hausaland to the thick rainforest covering the slopes of the South, these partisans, buoyed by ambition’s nectar, are moving their campaigns around the country with brains, valour and sinews.
Surely we have gotten to the sieving period of the campaign, where clout chasers and the feeble minded will call it quits; where ambition’s sweet nectar becomes bitter and the reality of their conquest befalls them.
Sometimes people do not listen to the truth because they do not want their illusions and egos destroyed. Instead, they prefer to bask in the folly of their temporary lust and vanities, for that offers them respite and an escape from the tortuous version life has presented.
Rapidly in May, the pack of aspirants increased in number. Tensions are high. A king-turned trumpeter is rumoured to be set for the throne.
The compulsive music of the moment is compelling for the former king to want to become king again. Could it be that ambition has Jonathan by her grasp? Or, has he become a victim of disillusionment? Or, has the Spirit of Cassius led him to believe that he can be as powerful as Julio Caesar?
In Bayelsa he denied it. Secretly, Jonathan had gone to register in his ward. He was biding his time. Then he disappeared and after a while he reappeared again, this time, at the National Secretariat of the ruling party. Even though the discussion we did not know, it was definitely not about the Solar System and Euler’s Law.
As it turned out, Jonathan is in the race in the image of a Trojan horse carefully designed by the Greeks to scuttle the ambitions of the people of Odua.
The comic relief in Nigerian politics is never unending; we would think we have seen it all but the subsequent episodes are wholesome and more interesting than the previous.
Across the spectrum, Wike is wielding his sword against his perceived opponents. He has thrown Peter Obi overboard, sent Abaribe to Calcutta and now he is trying to drown our ageless professional Presidential Aspirant, Atiku Abubakar. But the Waziri Adamawa is not a pushover.
Wike and Atiku will continue their proxy wars this weekend in Abuja and money will speak loudly at the arena, as pockets will be filled with torrents of crisp notes in foreign currencies and many delegates will become overnight millionaires.
Then back in the East where IPOB is on a killing spree. The Igbos have awakened a sleeping giant and filled it with great resolve. What started as an agitation has turned to an orgy of bloodletting. The clamour for self-actualization has lost integrity and fan-fare. Nnamdi Kanu did not come alone; he brought the Grim Reaper alongside him, and wherever he goes, he leaves a trail of footprints of blood.
And across the Atlantic, Russia has turned the tide against the European Union. Russia supplies a significant volume of fossil fuels to other European countries. In 2021, it was the largest exporter of oil and natural gas to the European Union, and 40% of gas consumed in the EU came from Russia.
This is a fact Mr Putin has determined to influence the outcome of his bid to wield Europe’s influence from his backyard. Indeed, Europe’s fetish for Russian oil is a leverage for the occupants of the Kremlin.
In the tail end of May and leading up to the first week of June under the angry, thick grey clouds, we sit by Pompey’s theatre watching the noblemen of this realm plotting their vanities and measuring whose head fits the crown. And the face of the sky looks like the work they have at hand—most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.
The crunch has indeed come!
Eddie Wole-Olujobi, ex EKSU campus journalist, writes from Ado-Ekiti