By Dele Sobowale

“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in jail, with the chance of being drowned” – Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784.

Being on a speed boat is worse; you get drowned before any rescue effort can succeed. I was forewarned of the danger involved in this trip to Abigborodo. However, there was an incredible claim to be verified; and I have developed a mania for testing claims made by government officials; out of an abiding belief that “every government is run by liars”.

Skepticism has been my armour against being fooled by official pronouncements – until proved to be true. So, on Wednesday, June 27, 2012, I first of all jumped on a plane. In Nigeria, being on any of the flying coffins, called planes, is also being in jail with a chance of getting blown to bits.

But, road travel offers no totally acceptable alternative – especially the Sagamu-Benin Road – you could be permanently disabled. The flight was Arik Air scheduled for 1.20 pm to Benin, in Edo State; but my destination was Abigborodo, in Delta State. For all I knew, it might turn out to be a one-way trip…

Don’t blame yourself if you have never heard of Abigborodo. Unlike the fellow who walked shoeless out of Otuoke, this town’s most famous son is so self-effacing, he had forgotten to place the town on the international map. And, that was what fascinated me about the place.

It is the sort of place which leaves you wondering, if you get there alive, that is, how anyone can crawl out of that remote area of Nigeria to become, first, a medical doctor; then a governor of the state. By now, you probably can guess that Abigborodo is the home town of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan—the only home town of a governor in Nigeria which today cannot be reached by road.

The point had been raised by one of the Commissioners during the retreat in Warri – which I gate-crashed with the help of Uncle Sam – that the governor cannot drive to his home town. To me that was carrying sycophancy too far. It was too good to be true. So, I was determined to verify it. Hence the trip by air, road and water – three terrible risks to take in Nigeria of today.

Gov Uduaghan

Lest anyone thinks this is another case of Lawan running a solo show, I went to the Publisher of Vanguard, Uncle Sam and told him why the trip was being made. If the claim made about Uduaghan’s place is true, it would have confirmed a point made by a former Governor of the South south, during one of our conversations.

The former governor had lamented the “double tragedy of minorities in top positions, both in public and private sectors – President, Governors, Ministers, Chairmen and Managing Directors etc”. According to him, when minorities eventually reach the top, they are often afraid to favour their own people, who invariably have been marginalized, for fear of annoying the majority who might gang up on them.

To some extent, President Jonathan, Governors Yakova of Kaduna State, Jang of Plateau State, Suswan of Benue State and Uduaghan are victims of the tyranny of majorities – defined as Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Ibo at the national level as well as the majority tribes in some states. So, it was a trip meant to verify how far a Chief Executive from a minority tribe can be forced to neglect his own peoples’ self-interests and still be the subject of hostile attacks.

They simply cannot win; irrespective of what they do. I once drove with Suswan when he inaugurated an Annual Fishing Festival, near Katsina-Ala, meant to become a tourist attraction. Some of what he told me would melt a stony heart. He is still being hounded till today. David Mark, an Idoma, became Senate President in spite of stiff opposition from Benue State. And the list is endless…

Abigborodo can only be reached by motor boat, today. But, that will soon change. The reason for the change will be addressed shortly. Abigborodo, like most island communities, in the Niger Delta, is a rebuke to our collective sense of equity and justice.

It is a community with one foot planted in the modern “Age of oil” as David Halberstam had called out era in his epic THE RECKONING; because the extensive island on which it is perched is an oil and gas producing area – contributing immensely to making all those modern buildings in Abuja, Asaba, Warri, Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Enugu, Jos, etc, possible.

Meanwhile, the other foot of Abigborodo, like other communities, is firmly rooted in the Stone Age. There is no water, no power supply from PHCN, no road, no filling station, nobody owns a car, no motor park, not even okada. Until recently, the only school had few teachers.

The few solid brick buildings now in the place must have sprung up about thirteen years ago – when Uduaghan first became Commissioner, then Secretary to State Government, under Ibori, yet, a flow station, sucking oil and flaring gas, with all the creature comforts provided to the “suckers”, was established in Sapele more than thirty years ago – a mere twenty five minutes boat ride from Abigborodo; which like many other oil producing communities was deliberately kept in the Stone Age by the combined conspiracy of the majority tribes – Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, Ibo (at Federal level) and by the fact that Abigborodo is situated in minority territory in Delta State. The scene was enough to bring tears to the eyes of any objective observer. More on that later.

Uduaghan had suffered a great deal on account of guilt by association; he was Ibori’s cousin and served in the former governor’s cabinet before becoming governor. Conventional wisdom has it that he was imposed on Delta state to cover up for Ibori. So on the way to Abigborodo, I also stopped at Ibori’s home town —Oghara. From what I saw in the two places, the two cousins could not be further apart in attitude and orientation.

It was like Cain and his brother Abel. Ibori, being Urhobo, the majority ethnic group in Delta, could do with impunity what any other governor from other ethnic groups ( Ijaw, Itsekiri, Ika, Anioma, Isoko etc) in the state would not dare; or would only attempt after months of sleepless nights pondering the consequences.

At Oghara, one did not have to be told which building is the former governor’s mansion. At Abigborodo, I stood in front of a modest yellow bungalow, one of the few constructed with cement blocks, and asked to be shown the governor’s house. “You are standing in front of it”; was the reply. Cain and Abel….

NIGERIANS DESERVE THE INSULTS FROM JONATHAN
“I don’t give a damn about it if you want to criticize me from here to heaven..Channels can talk about that from morning till night, all the papers can write about it. It’s a matter of principle”. President Jonathan, June 24, 2012 during media chat in Aso Rock.

“The emperor has nothing at all on”. Hans Christian Anderson, 1805-1875, in The Emperor’s new clothes”.
President Jonathan has just relieved me of a burden by staging that media chat. Those block-heads who have been wasting my time accusing me of hating Jonathan will now have to explain if there is anything to love in a leader, in one of the most vilified countries in the world, refusing to strike a blow against corruption by clinging to a principle which can only be subscribed to by social, political and economic predators.

As usual with GEJ, he was telling only half the truth; or perhaps, even an entire untruth. When he declared that, “I was governor of Bayelsa state, I was thoroughly investigated”, he deliberately forgot to add that the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB, listed him among twelve governors who made false declarations and had to be forced to make restitutions to their states. That, and not any reprehensible principle, is the reason why the President refuses to declare his assets now.

Jonathan is hanging unto a fig-leaf, which he calls principle, to cover his moral nakedness as President. But, Nigerians, my fellow countrymen, deserve the insult of one shareholder out of 160 million, telling the rest of us to “go to hell”. You voted him into office and we will receive four years of such insults.

He’ll be back again in 2015 to insult you more. You deserve it. We, at Unijankara, knew the man all along; we were not surprised. In fact instead of the media chat, or publicized insult to Nigerians, we watched football – which was less infuriating and more entertaining. The commentators even taught us good English!!!