By FEMI ODERE

I have since concluded that if one is to learn to have a glimmer of understanding of the mores, morals, traditions, belief systems, as well as the idiosyncrasies that shape us as a people and define our true essence, the National Assembly is a perfect observatory.

Short of physically spending one’s time in the natural habitats of other ethnic nationalities (which is practically impossible) to have appreciable understanding of their essence and those stated and unstated sociocultural nuances that are responsible for seeing the world around them differently from how an ‘outsider’ sees the same world, the National Assembly, which is the Third Arm of government in a representative democracy is a veritable bastion.

The National Assembly is a place to be for those who are desirous of knowing more about other people because there are hardly any ethnic and sub-ethnic groups that are not represented either in the command echelon of the legislative sanctrum, or the mid-level bureaucratic fortress of civil servants and political appointees, or the low-level support staff and other janitorial services. It is a repository of all ethnic nationalities.

For me, it was a no-brainer when the opportunity presented itself that one’s second journey as a public servant must continue with the Third Estate of the Realm that I must actively extend a hand of friendship to other ethnic nationalities outside my own, considering my shortcoming in understanding, at least to some extent, the sociocultural nuances that make others tick, having spent a huge chunk of my adult life in the so-called advanced country.

The desire to have some handshakes across the Niger, as the saying goes, became particularly compelling for me because this is the first time that an authentic president of Yoruba extraction with intimidating progressive credentials with which the South-West region is well known is presiding over the affairs of the Nigerian nation.

In a nation whose people’s governance experience has largely been conservative, even a tad short of religious fundamentalism, it may not be out of place for them to appear dazed and disoriented as they’re being redirected by a completely new progressive governance template by someone who emphatically said: “Emi Lokan.” Some people who never imagined that a period like this would come are therefore probably going to wonder what manner of man is this “Emi Lokan” ‘father’ and his n’gbati ‘children’ who seem to have invaded the Federal Capital Territory because their “Emi Lokan” ‘father’ is in the saddle as he continues to affect Nigeria in ways never imagined or thought possible.

To be sure, a friendship with Senator Orji Uzoh Kalu (APC, Abia North) was the furthest from my mind, having formed a not-so-endearing opinion of him, based on my unscientific and unempirical analysis, just as I have done with some of the country’s major political players that I’m now beginning to back pedal after my interaction with some of them. In the case of Senator Kalu, an interview during a TV programme where he spoke glowingly of President Tinubu and defended his policies vehemently changed my negative perception of him that I had to walk into his office the following day to confess my ‘sins’ against him.

The conversation, or should I say, the lecture that ensured that day of his deep and long-standing relationship with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the extent that Senator Kalu was instrumental to saving the then Governor of Lagos State from being ‘felled’ by then President Olusegun Obasanjo’s sword, while the other five governors in the region were not so lucky, was mind-boggling. “Obasanjo never forgave me for that until he made sure he sent me to jail,” Senator Kalu said without any hint of bitterness. And time he did serve.

It was also in the course of taking me down memory lane in this long-standing friendship with Asiwaju that Senator Kalu told me his son lived with then Governor Tinubu in his Bourdillon redoubt. It was a spirited conversation in which I asked him why he left the South-East wide open for a Peter Obi to politically desecrate the region. 

And he offered an explanation. It was a teachable moment that once again lent credence to the saying never to judge a book by its cover. We have become friends ever since, as the senator would sometimes tell me his whereabouts and share pertinent information with me. Senator Kalu’s heart is pure.

This purity of heart came in a multidimensional technicolor on his 65th birthday with an 8:55-minute video clip he shared with me some days ago. What Senator Kalu said in the video reflects how his mind works and the things he holds dear to his heart now that he’s about to start the third and probably the last phase of his sojourn on Mother Earth.

The speech reflects an inwardly bound joyful personage as well as what can be termed as unedifying socio-political and economic conditions of his immediate environment that seem in perpetual conflict with his soul.

•Odere is a media practitioner and a Senior Legislative Aide (Stakeholders’ Engagement and Mobilization) to the Senate President.