By Dele Sobowale “From the sublime to the ridiculous, there is only one step” – Thomas Paine, 1739-1803, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ. “The records of some of his predecessors in office bespeak a greedy trail. When they go abroad they first ask: What is in it for me? What is there for my family? […]

Adams Oshiomhole, the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, is not my friend, neither is he my enemy. But, I always feel sorry for any individual who, through years of brutal struggle, sweat and tears, finally reaches the top where fame and fortune await him but loses a lot on account of a flaw. Oshiomhole might not realise it, he is an endangered person in Nigerian politics generally. Like a man who had strapped on a belt of explosives in a crowded room, Oshiomhole constitutes a risk to himself and others around him. There is probably no other political figure who daily multiplies the number of his political adversaries as the Chair of the APC. He seems to have forgotten the warning made repeatedly on this page that in the political game, “a man alone hasn’t got a chance” (Ernest Hemingway, 1898-1961). Increasingly, the man who should be the second most important rallying point for the APC, after Buhari, has now acquired the image of its  uncontrollable destroyer sowing discord everywhere , attracting maledictions from members who should be subservient and uniting the rank and file against himself. He most probably will not last until 2023 unless there is a revolutionary change in his approach to leadership.

For the first time since 1960, Nigeria has been ruled by a government which had solved none of the problems it met, but had multiplied them or made them worse. The self-proclaimed Giant of Africa is not only “the wretched nursery of discord among its citizenry and the miserable object of universal pity or contempt” (apologies to Alexander Hamilton: 1757-1804), it is also a hopeless abode for its citizens and a present danger to all the nations of Africa and the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. The recent closure of our national borders smacks of utmost desperation by a government which had, from its inception, mismanaged the Nigerian economy. It is only the latest in a series of measures taken by a government headed by someone who does not even pretend to understand economic principles. Like most of the wrong-headed measures, there is suspicion that it was taken to serve the interests of a small circle of insiders who, knowing about the closure in advance, had stockpiled rice and “made a killing”. They predictably “killed” Fellow Citizens while smiling all the way to the bank. The heavy price we are paying for rice today is enriching those close to the Rock who were aware the measure was coming. Corruption has now assumed a new face – contrary to what Professor Sagay thinks. He is not an economist; so it could not have occurred to him that Nigerians have been fleeced to the tune of billions of naira by rice producers close to the seat of power.

By Dele Sobowale “A political party deserves the approbation of [Nigeria] only as it represents the ideals, the aspirations and the hopes of [Nigerians]. If it is anything else, it is merely a conspiracy to seize power – “US President Dwight Eisenhower, 1890-1969. In 2013, just as the association of strange bed fellows – CAN, […]

Forgiveness to the injured does belong; for they ne’er pardon who have done the wrong.” John Dryden, 1631-1700. VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS.