When we say there is no dull moment in Nigeria, some people think we needlessly exaggerate happenings here. When an international body rated us as a country with the happiest people on earth some few years ago, those who do not know about us think it was because we soak our sorrows in alcoholic beverages and chew our pain in a cacophony of laughter. However, that is not the full story. There are no dull moments because we have perfected the art of laughing at our folly no matter how bad things have become. Because we have such a high record of self-inflicted tragic moments, we have simply refused to be bogged down by the harvest of pain. Instead, we shrug them off until they become part of our national architecture that, with time, pale into insignificance. Nothing shocks us anymore. We always expect the unexpected to happen without any earth shaking consequences. We giggle at our failures and foibles while we snigger at our successes with minds filled with doubts. Together, we are our own natural disaster. There is always a bigger story behind every story.
In truth, ours is a never-ending story of benumbing possibilities. For example, one had thought the celebrated peace pact among the warring factions in the Peoples Democratic Party had placed the party in a good stead to unleash a sucker punch on the All Progressives Party with its bumbling adventure in governance. No one could have imagined that the Ali Modu Sheriff faction had one or two aces in its sleeve to upset the apple cart. Unfortunately, before the ink could dry on the documents of the peace pact, the PDP is yet again swimming in the pool of shame. At the Wadata House, the combatants are back to the days of the long knives with a potential deleterious effect on the fortunes of Africa’s erstwhile largest behemoth. How, by the way, did the PDP shoot itself in the foot? The stories are as varied as the hydra-headed crises that plague it. We had thought the stage-managed convention in Port Harcourt would inject some sanity and redirect its path. Well, we were wrong. This crowd of egotists just did not give a damn if the party eventually goes into extinction. That could be the only explanation for the ding-dong game playing out at the Wadata House Headquarters of the PDP.
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Nonetheless, it is not surprising that this writer’s repeated warnings count for nothing. The oligarchs at the PDP just could not take a step away from self-destruct path. Now, it appears the APC has it exactly where it wanted it. With a centre shred down through the middle coupled with balance of force, money and grit, the PDP has itself to blame. It is intriguing that the Senator Ahmed Makarfi led caretaker committee had accused the APC of planting Sheriff to destroy it. You wonder if these folks are talking about the same Sheriff that was welcomed with pomp and panache when he defected to the PDP last year with a guaranteed huge war chest and popularity in Borno State. Could it be the same Sheriff that was, some few months back, heralded as the best candidate for the party’s chairperson’s seat? Did the APC also ignite that passion to foist Sheriff on the other protesting members who saw the danger very early and warned against it? Now that the PDP has found itself in this uncomfortable cul-de-sac, is it right to point one finger at the ruling party while the remaining four fingers point right back at its foolery?
In all honesty, the farcical drama playing out in the PDP could not have been the only exciting news in a country where mouth-gaping events unfold at the speed of light. There was no way one could have forgotten the tragic loss of two of Nigeria’s best indigenous coaches within a three-day interval. Painful and heart wrenching as the deaths of Stephen Okechukwu Keshi and Shuaibu Amodu were, nothing could be more disturbing than the characters that gathered at their doorsteps to, as it were, dance on their graves. Yes, truckloads of ennobling and humbling things were written, and would be written, about the departed national coaches who excelled to some degrees during their terms on the job. Expectedly, the records of why and how they left the jobs were also in the national archives. However, it was a wicked twist of irony that Amodu died some hours after he signed Keshi’s condolence register in his apartment in Benin, emphasising the imperative of a befitting burial for a departed colleague. Little did he know that the Grim Reaper was waiting to consume his own life. The next day, Amodu was six-feet down under. His script was completed. He is gone like the wind.
Yet, there is this other part of the story that those who shed crocodile tears on the demise of these two great sports personalities would have loved to be buried with them. While government officials savour extravagant lifestyles in spite of scarce resources, it is a grave injustice that Keshi and Amodu, who toiled day and night with attendant risks to their health, were actually being owed millions of naira in salaries and emoluments by these same set of people. Speaking with reporters shortly after Amodu’s burial, Governor Adam Oshiomhole said issues of Amodu’s unpaid salaries were speculative and what matters was that he left a good legacy. Does this sound familiar in Nigeria’s dictionary of condolence?
