Lack of shame kills Oba Àdó (Ainitiju lo pa Oba Àdó) is a common saying among my Yoruba people. Àdó here is not the present Adó-Ekiti, but an ancient Yoruba town that has since gone into extinction like Àpá (the ancestral home of Ogun, the god of iron) and Ìjàyè (the very birthplace of Aare Ona Kakanfo, Kurunmi). However, the legend of Oba Àdó remains till date as a reference for lack of integrity.
Oba Àdó, the story tells us, was the most shameless of all creatures. He harboured neither scruple nor an iota of sense of personal dignity. He raped a married woman and the next moment, presided over a case of a woman caught in adultery. He stole a bag of tubers of yam, and hours later, sent a man who stole a cob of maize to the next jailhouse. Oba Àdó got away with his despicable behaviours because he had among his followers, a gang of equally shameless beings, who, at any given time, were ready to defend to any length, his penchant for perfidious attitudes. Among his supporters were the very uncouth; those with the most abusive and caustic languages. They were hysterical louts, who shot down decent comments about their principal’s indecorous behaviours.
Oba Àdó’s Halleluyah mob abhorred any form of dissenting opinion about their master. Whoever pointed out his unkingly mannerism was branded an enemy of not just the king, but the entire kingdom. He controlled the only means of communication as the town crier announced only the information that suited the fancies of the palace. This was how Oba Àdó carried on till he became a study in bad behaviour.
The modern day replicas of Oba Àdó are the current crop of Nigerian politicians, whose common denominator is their absolute lack of integrity. From bottom to top, or to borrow General Muhammadu Buhari’s edition of the saying: “from top to bottom”, there is no one among them that one can vouch for when it comes to fidelity. And like their forebear, Oba Àdó, the Nigerian politicians of this era carry on without shame. Again, they have on their payroll, a gang of boisterous supporters who are ready to drown any scrutiny of the integrity of their principals in the cacophony of their noisy defense.
Nigerians have been taken for granted for years by the infelicitous political class because among the masses are a set of people, who are ready to call the two-horned devils the politicians are, the Arch-Angels of God! Little wonder that, no matter the validity of the charges against their claim to decency, an average politician here does not give a damn. Their supporters put up all sorts of arguments in their defense. They make references to equally despicable politicians of other regions and conclude that their principals are a bit better. The mob reasoning cuts across every class: the illiterate to the very cosmopolitan!
What we are witnessing now, especially with the presidential candidates and their running mates, is akin to the 1983 political slogan of “omo wa ni, e je o se” (he is our son, let him do it) of the defunct National Party of Nigeria, NPN, in the old Oyo State. It does not matter the baggage the candidate carries; the new doctrine is: “our own is our own”. An elderly female politician told me days back that “omo eni ki se idi bebere ka fi ileke si idi omo elomiran” (no matter how badly shaped your daughter’s waist is, you don’t tie beads round another person’s child’s waist). That is our current reasoning. It does not matter any longer to us the aesthetic values the waist bead is expected to add. We care less if the waist bead fits into the crooked waist of the wearer or not. What matters is the region and ethnicity of the candidate.
Saturday Tribune’s lead story of July 2, 2022 has this kicker: “More presidential, VP candidates claim missing certificates”. Two riders: “How we lost our certificates- PDP’s Okowa, YPP’s Ado Ibrahim” and “Names on our certificates not our present names – Atiku, Yabagi”, follow. Reading through the story took me back to my literature class at the Obafemi Awolowo University. The entire story, as written by Taiwo Amodu of Tribune’s Politics Desk, is a rehash of Athol Fugard’s play: “Sizwe Banzi is dead”. Every literary work, we were told, must have the principle of verisimilitude (true to life). Now, I know that such is not applicable only to literary texts. “Sizwe Banzi is dead” plays up the universal concept of identity, especially in the then apartheid South Africa.
The play depicts the extreme form of desperation among South Africans seeking to work in the white minority-dominated Black nation. Set in a photo studio in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the play depicts a South African named Sizwe Banzi, who has to adopt a new identity of Robert Zwelinzima. Banzi, with the help of a friend, Buntu, steals the identity of a deceased Zwelinzima, by lifting Zwelinzima’s work permit off his corpse and using same to get employed in the apartheid regime. Buntu and Banzi have Banzi’s identity burnt, and transfer his photo to the space in Zwelinzima identity book, thus completely eradicating the existence of Bansi.
Bansi takes these steps to escape being repatriated to King William’s Town as he has just three days to get a work permit or leave Port Elizabeth .To avoid his family members using his old identity, Bansi has to write a letter to his wife back in their King William’s Town, to announce that Sizwe Bansi is dead. He posts the letter to his wife with the new photograph taken in Styles’ studio.
In our very presence, the 2023 presidential candidates and their vices (no mischief intended here, please), have re-enacted Athol Fugard’s play. Beginning with the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there is no single shred of evidence to show who is the person wearing Tinubu’s mask. His case is a very peculiar one. It is peculiar in the sense that all the issues interrogating his academic qualifications are not new; they did not come up today. As much as one will want to accept the claim that Tinubu lost all his credentials during the time he went on exile between 1994 and 1998, I find it extremely absurd that till now, the former Lagos State governor has not deemed it fit to get the schools he claimed to have attended to issue him new certificates or get a court of law to certify the carbon copies of his former certificates as Certified True Copies, CTCs.
How his supporters find it convenient that the affidavit he deposed to is sufficient enough, baffles me. How they do not want us to interrogate the primary and secondary schools he attended is a shock. How they easily forget that Tinubu spent years in court fighting the late fiery lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi, over the same matter is what I cannot understand. Why no one among Tinubu’s school and classmates in his primary and secondary schools, and the two universities he claimed to have attended has not been able to come out and say: “I knew this guy in school, or this guy was in my class years back”, is a mystery. Equally confusing is that in the year 2022, some folks will want us to be okay with the fact that someone could have attended a university without any evidence that he was once a pupil of primary school and a student of a secondary school. Even an “akudaaya” (a roving ghost) once had relations. When Sizwe Bansi died, he had the courtesy to inform his wife. This is the minimum requirement Tinubu can offer, otherwise, the issue of his identity will remain “like the chameleon feces/into which I have stepped/When I clean it cannot go”, as penned by Kofi Awoonor in his “Songs of Sorrow”.
And as if that is not enough, Tinubu’s VP candidate, Kabiru Masari, also came up with the claims that he lost all his credentials while in transit between Abuja and Kaduna in January, 2021. The “placeholder” Masari, in an affidavit titled” “sworn affidavit for loss of some original documents”, claimed that he lost his Teachers’ Grade 2 certificate from Katsina Teachers’ College and First Leaving Primary School Certificate issued by Masari Primary School, Katsina State (1972- 78). The only difference is that he, unlike his principal, could name the schools he attended. But Masari could have done better than the affidavit. He could have used the time he spent swearing an affidavit to dash to Katsina and have his schools issue him new certificates or get the carbon copies certified. That is what an aspiring political leader, who has respect for the people he intends to lead should have done.
The most intriguing of all the affidavits in town is that of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, aka, Siddiq Abubakar. Like Tinubu, Atiku is also loudly silent about the primary school he attended. He presented to INEC a General Certificate of Education, GCE, and a Master’s degree certificate. While his Master’s certificate bears the name Atiku Abubakar, his GCE bears Siddiq Abubakar. He then proceeded to attach to his INEC form an affidavit that he changed his name from Siddiq Abubakar to Atiku Abubakar in 1965. Lawyers and other legal experts may not have issues with the change of name and identity. I am also tempted not to have any issue with that but for some moral reasons. One, it will be of greater interest to Nigerians to know the difference(s) between Siddiq Abubakar and Atiku Abubakar. Who is Siddiq? What informed the change of name? Which primary school did Siddiq attend? Who were his classmates? Was Siddiq a felon before transiting to Atiku? The burden is on the PDP presidential candidate to discharge and he has a duty to discharge the burden sufficiently so that Nigerians will know which masquerade has been dancing in our political dance arena since 1993.
The 19th of August, 1973 affidavit of change of name of Atiku Abukabar does not state any reason why Siddiq “died” for Atiku to live. This is against the intendment of Athol Fugard, who demonstrates to us why Sizwe Bansi has to die for Robert Zwelinzima to live. Bansi needs a work permit. Can we say that of Atiku? The PDP flag bearer can be silent on his primary school. Nigerians have a duty to ask him who Siddiq is or was. He cannot be silent on that without a stain on his identity!
Atiku Abubakar’s running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa, also joined the league of candidates relying on affidavits as substitutes to their certificates. That Okowa, who, since this political dispensation began in 1999 served as a two-term commissioner, Secretary to the State Government, SSG, a senator, and two-term governor of Delta State, will be swearing to an affidavit of loss of certificates is embarrassing and at the same time nauseating. This is a pointer to his disdain for Nigerians. It does not matter if he named all the schools he attended.
Decency, respect for the people and personal integrity dictate that he should get his “missing” certificates or get us CTCs in their replacement. His “That the original of the said certificate issued to me is now missing, lost and cannot be found” deposition is an insult to our collective sensibility.
From Tinubu to Masari; from Atiku to Okowa; from Prince Abdul Malik Ado Ibrahim of the Young People’s Party, YPP, to Sani Yabagi of the Action Democratic Party, ADP, until they provide reasonable excuses for their missing credentials, Nigerians should take it that what is missing in them goes beyond certificate. They have not lost their certificates alone. They have equally lost their identities and integrity. Until they prove otherwise, we are justified to say that in our candidates, Sizwe Bansi is dead!
