Next Saturday is presidential election day, and, this being the last Sunday before that “make-or-break” election, readers would have expected today’s column to be about the election. But, once in a life time, a person faces a personal dilemma; he has to choose between two vital duties. Such was my problem when Chief Olufemi Daramola, KJW, Alage II of Omuo-Ekiti called me to announce he would be 80 today. I had choice to make and this is it. Let me quickly explain.

That piece of advice for people all the way down in the value chain of the poultry industry was prelude to the modern management principle of always having Plan B. It was a lesson I learnt in 1970, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, immediately after securing a loan to purchase a house for my family. My former wife, like all the others, had depended on one plumber, admittedly the best in the County, to fix our pipes. The problem was that, this “genius of a plumber” was also everybody’s favourite fixer.

Nothing is more pathetic that when a contestant, out of hubris, and refusal to listen to all sides, loses a contest he should have won easily. President Goodluck Jonathan had just handed over Akwa Ibom State to the All Progressive Congress – on a silver platter.

Blessed are politicians when out of power. They reveal all the things which those in power labor to hide from us. Since December 2013, I had warned My Fellow Nigerians, about the inevitable collapse of crude oil prices and its consequences. Obviously, nobody listened. In May 2014, out of sheer frustration, associated with talking to the deaf, I wrote a column titled SO YOU WANT TO BE GOVERNOR IN 2015.

In that now forgotten long poem, which we memorized in our secondary school days, Kipling listed several instances of forbearance which would, in the end, qualify anyone to be called “a Man, my son”. But Rudyard lived in a different age than our own – which is increasingly becoming the Age of Uncertainties.

“An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher [PHD holder]. A society which scorns excellence in plumbing, because it is humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy, because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

Back in 2010, a few days after late President Umaru Yar’Adua passed on, former President Obasanjo thundered: “Jonathan, you must run; don’t tell me you won’t run.” One would have thought that the man was patriotic enough to recommend someone competent to run the ship of the Nigerian State to us and the world. Two weeks ago, the same Obasanjo launched a book he titled My Watch.

“Once to everyman and nation comes the moment to decide; in the strife between truth with falsehood, for the good or the evil side.”

I met Obong Umana O Umana, October last year at the Catholic Church in Uyo, when he attended the first year memorial service for the late first Lady of Akwa Ibom State, Alison Attah. He had only recently ceased to be the Secretary to the State Government, SSG under conditions still shrouded in mystery. Until then, he was regarded as one of those on the other side by those close to Obong Victor Attah, the former Governor; including me. We got together after the service and exchanged cards. Something told me that this was a man to watch closely. Thank God, my instincts, on matters like this, never deceive me. It is already news that Umana had emerged as the flag-bearer for the All Progressive Alliance, APC, in the state just a few weeks after decamping from the PDP where he had been a member since 1998.

On Thursday, November 27, 2014, the PUNCH, on page 14 reported as follows: “Don’t blame me for naira devaluation – Okonjo-Iweala.” In the report, the Minister of Finance, was quoted as saying that “Nigeria has what it takes to manage its way through. Benchmark for the budget 2015 had been lowered to more realistic $73 per barrel. Never in the history of budgeting in Nigeria had a Finance Minister been so often wrong as Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala had been this year. But before presenting the irrefutable evidence, a quick remark is needed about her self-acquittal from blame for the devaluation. Certainly, the Finance Minister cannot be blamed for devaluation.