When others, constrained by scruples, could only whisper their conspiracy theories , ‘the mother of the nation’ asked for cameras. What followed was even by her standards an epic. In that melodrama, she reveled all her parts – warmth, emotionality, irreverent spontaneity, crudity, daring aggression. She wouldn’t join her dithering husband in skirting around, she dived headlong and wallowed in it . In being more simple and less sophisticated, a certain license to disregard the bounds of propriety is assumed. Artlessness becomes sincerity. And peevishness can become virtuous unpretentiousness. Loyalty was being redefined as worship. Dame was an emerging political Juggernaut

The Niger Delta militants were not cowards. They operated clandestinely but didn’t need masks. The morality of their enterprise before amnesty was their pride. But the Avengers are ghosts. Troubled by the glare of the unrighteousness of their present endeavor , they took to the protective shield of anonymity . Anonymity, paints the picture of cowardice.

You would think that an EFCC that has just come out of slumber would be helped to stay awake and alert. That its new found vigour would gladden even hearts worried about neutrality and due process lapses. Because some lofty aspirations are only desirable as superstructures on a foundation of firm deterrence. Only an agency inflicting some determined damage on impunity has the chance of being polished beyond vindictiveness and de-wormed of political bias. The EFCC has sloughed off lukewarmness.

Every father owes his children a little marriage talk. Fears and idiosyncrasies, regrets and dreams , magic and blunders will intermingle. Political correctness won’t feature. The father wants for them – a head start. If the father thinks marriage is blissful but sacred , and divorce is a catastrophic last resort , his wisdom would be cautionary. Age sees beyond the shimmer of youth . It has witnessed the death of too many fantasies. Old eyes may dim from wear but the benefit of retrospection makes the old, despite its tears, more reliable. Hindsight ,they say, is perfect vision.

Jamaica. Bahamas. What happened to us? We became rich, and foolish? Before our athletes started running for inconsequential countries like Qatar, our teams at international meets had started having more officials than competitors. We once dominated the sprints and gunned for boxing medals. Now, we are in Brazil with one real sprinter , and only one boxer. Prayers are good.

Magu started well. Ribadu had so much zeal, the public treated his penchant for flagrant transgression of rights with levity. Magu is a great improvement on Ribadu. Ribadu attended to widespread rot with uncommon but unchecked enthusiasm. And the public responded with uncritical goodwill and doting adoration. That honeymoon era is gone. After Ribadu, the EFCC lapsed into willful docility. Farida’s agency fell into the hands of its enemies. And they smothered it . Corruption then was treated with the sort of sympathy normally reserved for addictions.

Dogara has continued like a master whose dignity a disgruntled house boy cannot touch despite his most audacious tantrums. Because the combination of malicious rascality of a wasp and the indignation of a cheated nation cannot ruffle the feathers of an emerging political principality.

Nuhu Ribadu, was a ray of hope. The salt that came to stop the rot. A public desperate for salvation embraces eagerly. He contained the temptations that swept away pretenders. He sparkled where others had dimmed. We squelched our doubts.

Thuggery is the reason our politics is not for everyone. Thuggery furnishes the apprehension that suffocates and debilitates politics in Nigeria. It impoverishes choice. Some families think only the suicidal opts for politics. And it cripples the very act of selecting from a wretched menu. Voters stay home to stay away from trouble .

Zong was in 1781. Blacks were goods. But long after, long after that practice of decanting blacks into the sea for commercial reasons, blacks are still dispensable. Disposables. Perhaps now, nuisance. The police in America are well trained . But training often polishes the brain and not the heart. Many liberal philosophers are racists. Everywhere, blacks are considered poorly endowed mentally, and prone to uncontrolled emotions. Congenitally stupid. White women have borne crushing oppression for ages. But it hasn’t rendered them insensate to racial prejudice. Black males are their peevish brutes. So white policemen can adjudge them criminal minds. And shoot them. The owners of the slave ship Zong drowned their goods.

Ikpeazu, the Ambode of Abia. Sprang from nowhere, chosen by the gods. The deity that decreed him can no longer summon the winds. So he has been left like a tailless cow to suffer the menace of flies. It must be harrowing. These implacable flies dancing harmlessly like butterflies but stinging like charmed bees. Uche Ogah, the quiet and unassuming dove. Now reeling out dance steps dictated by a practiced but invisible drummer. The mastery of the ability to stampede federal bureaucracy. Frightened Ikpeazu has learnt to fly frantically, without perching. Abia, a hive of determination and industry, forced into a week long sleep .

Governor Fayose is truly unrestrained. And once touched the child that bubbles beneath erupts. Our society has degenerated. But defecating in the open has managed to remain repugnant. Statesmanship requires measurable moral continence. But a governor with an inflated id, fixated at the oral stage, will do anything for self gratification. Tantrums should be beneath governors. But not any given to thrill seeking acts of irresponsibility. Impulsivity means consequences are never thought through. Without discretion, a leader of the opposition becomes a mere perpetually howling tout. Such a leader trivializes the role of the opposition, reduces it to noisy rabble rousing.

Anywhere else, a junior minister would be wary of a spat with a senior minister in public. But this is Nigeria, where decorum is scarce even in very high places. Defiance often attracts applause that should belong to reason. Ordinarily, President Buhari should be left to sort out his kitchen. But conducts that border on rascality have a way of reinforcing the tendency towards general lawlessness in the polity.

The Niger Delta Avengers have left a trail of kept promises and a crippled economy. They are in unambiguous terms, economic terrorists. They have tried to hide their sophistication with a fig leaf of poorly scripted twitter feeds. They pretend to defend the interests of the people of Niger delta but are not ashamed to publicize their diabolical affiliations with corruption. The Avengers may indeed be naïve and reckless. But those, whose surrogates they are, who have instigated this violence , are cold , and criminally manipulative.

Patience Agbaheme has been consumed. Religious extremism and ethnic bigotry haven’t had their fill. Religious murderers and arsonists have for so long enjoyed unmitigated impunity. Soldiers of God. That impunity fortified the hedges of apparent legitimacy mischievous interpretation of religious duty built for a most wicked act. That ordinarily horrendous unconstitutional act of chasing and hacking to death suspected blasphemers. Sinners executing people for God. A Kano mob in the throes of religious passion, rejected all pleas and, smashed a woman’s skull. ‘Saints’ cleaning up ‘filth’ for God. But these murderers are neither perverts nor deviants. Despite all the ‘shock and horror’, they can’t even be described as daring. It had to be in broad daylight. It was nothing that sinister and didn’t have to be done clandestinely. Her husband and perhaps a thousand others were made to watch. Death for blasphemy in Kano? Why is it now so so shocking?