It is sweet to be a champion! Ex-champion is a pill too bitter to swallow. Never to become an ex-champion is one of the prayers of Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye (aka Daddy G. O.), General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, that has never failed to receive a thunderous” Amen.
But no champion reigns forever! Hence, the Yoruba saying: “Oba mewa, igba mewa”. Ten rulers, ten different dispensations. No reign lasts forever, no matter how sweet or bitter. Hence Orlando Owoh, one of my idolized musicians, crooned: “Igba o ki n lo bi orere/Aiye o ki n lo bi opa ibon/Bi oni ti ri, ola o ri be/L’o mu Babalawo d’ifa oroorun.”.
Life is not a straight journey. It is full of ups and downs. The empires of yesterday are no longer the empires of today; never mind the vexatious, even needless, superiority contests between this or that traditional ruler over issues that have become anachronistic.
The great colonial powers of yore are today mere shadows of their former selves. Talk of Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Great Britain, Napoleon Bonaparte’s France, the Austria-Hungary and Ottoman empires, Imperial Japan and Adolf Hitler’s Germany! This is not to talk of the ancient empires of Rome, the Greek city-states, Sparta, among others. Or of the glory and civilization of Egypt and other African empires. All that is history!
In one century alone power, influence and glory moved from Europe across the Atlantic, signifying, according to Google, “the historic shift of global dominance – economic, military, and political – from European empires (primarily Britain) to the United States, accelerating after World War 1 and 11. This transition marked a shift from a Eurocentric global order to one led by American ideals.” Thus did the US become the hegemon of the world!
But the imperial reign of the US, which culminated in the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991, is already waning. Power and influence is shifting to the Indo-Pacific, with China the new hegemon waiting in the wings; be it sooner, be it later. The US will kick; it will bark, it will even bite, but not only does the wheel of history grind inexorably, every move to prevent or delay it hastens its advance!
Better, then, to learn from Ola Rotimi’s “The gods are not to blame”, adapted from Sophocle’s “Oedipus Rex”. The oracle’s advice which, to his chagrin, Odewale found out too late to be true, is that the harder he tries to run away from what the gods have ordained, the nearer he gets to it. That empires rise and fall; that kings come and go; that organizations wax strong and wane are not only the facts of history, they are also the immutable laws of nature.
Disdaining history changes nothing. Before our very eyes, and within the lifespan of a generation, we have seen the rise and tottering of South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC). Today, the political party of iconic Nelson Mandela struggles to maintain its hitherto intimidating hold on power through a Government of National Unity with erstwhile foes; and there is no assurance it will sustain its slim edge for too long.
If South Africa is far away, what of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which was so powerful at a time that it boasted it would hold on to power in Nigeria for 60 years? It managed only 16! Today, the octopus that once prided itself as the largest and biggest political party in Africa has all but fizzled out.
At the last count, the two state governors that still answer PDP’s name are one leg in, one leg out. Once they find a suitable SPV (special purpose vehicle, which political parties have, regrettably, been reduced to in Nigeria), they, too, will jump ship. Factionalization and defections have ruined the party. The Nyesom Wike rump that enjoys INEC’s official recognition is not better than a mere appendage of the ruling APC.
Yet, this is the same party that once bestrode the polity like a colossus. Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo boasted that there was no way the PDP could lose the elections, given the number of state governors it controlled at the time. Various reports had put the number of PDP governors between 28 and 31.
Obasanjo also robustly defended the defection of state governors and leading politicians into the PDP. He saw nothing wrong with it. There was no threat of Nigeria becoming a one-party state then! The tactics Obasanjo employed to instigate the defections are even cruder than the ones the sitting president, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is being accused of employing. Yet the same Obasanjo and other opposition politicians are the ones alleging a one-party state today!
Obasanjo went on to wonder how his interviewer could imagine that his party, which controlled such a preponderance of state governors, could lose an election to other political parties that had been reduced to near-nothingness. Yet, the same politicians today boast they will beat APC, which boasts 30-something governors, in next year’s election! Should Tinubu win in 2027 – just like PDP did in 2003, – the opposition will allege rigging!
But that is not my mission here today! Tinubu’s recent boasts, similar to those made by PDP leaders some years back, makes me wonder. Tinubu at the moment enjoys what PDP leaders enjoyed at the zenith of their own power years back, but it did not last forever. Tinubu speaks today like Obasanjo spoke twenty-something years ago, but who is Obasanjo today?
Do our leaders learn from history? There is hardly a Nigerian politician today that has not fallen into the pit of statements made in the past that have now returned to haunt them. Take, for instance, Tinubu’s election campaign pledge on power supply, which today haunts him! Or does he not feel embarrassed by it? And shouldn’t that have been enough of a lesson?
Mark my words, a day is coming when the APC of today will become like the PDP of today or even worse. Quote me! It will then be amusing to rewind and enjoy today’s boasts of Tinubu and other APC leaders. Just like Tinubu says today that he welcomes – and rejoices – at the self-inflicted misfortunes of the ADC, so also will new sheriffs in a future to come mock him and his party. It will happen! Quote me! This is not incantation or divination; it is the uncanny ways of history!
The wisdom of our elders says when digging a pit for others, be careful not to make it too deep, in case the digger eventually ends up in his own pit. If you are a Bible person, read the story of Haman and Mordecai in chapter seven of the Book of Esther. What if today’s afflictions of the opposition await APC down the line?
Then I asked Google the meaning of “What goes around comes around…” This is the response I got: “What goes around comes around is a common proverb with no single, definitive author, though it gained popularity in the United States during the 1970s and appeared in the 1974 book, Donald Writes No More, by Eddie Stone. It is a modern idiom for Karma, rooted in the concept of reciprocity, similar to “as you sow, so shall you reap”.
Is it not true that PDP is already reaping what it sowed? And will APC also not reap theirs in the fullness of time?
Google traced the origin of the concept to Hindu and Buddhist teachings of Karma, and ancient Egyptian beliefs in “Ma’at”. It also has parallels in the Biblical principle of sowing and reaping quoted above (Galatians 6:7).
Similar expressions were attributed to writer Wilson Mizner when he admonished us to “Be kind to everyone on the way up; you’ll meet the same people on the way down”. Another equivalent is the Russian saying, “As the call, so is the echo”.
What do we make of all of this? It is that “actions, whether good or bad, will eventually have consequences that return to the person who initiated them.”
What, then, is Karma? According to Google, it is “the universal spiritual principle of cause and effect, where an individual’s actions (physical, verbal, or mental) determine their destiny in this life and future existences. Often interpreted as ‘what goes around comes around’, it means good actions yield positive outcomes while bad actions lead to negative consequences…Karma is generally categorized into three types based on timing: immediate, intermediate or future results.”
It would appear that immediate Karma is often not as common as future Karma, which is why people generally behave unmindful of its potency.
Look around, and we find that Nigerian leaders are often more sober, more level-headed, more reasonable, more aware of the needs and suffering of the people, less cantankerous, and less aloof when they are out of power than when they are in the corridors of power.
Are there specific demons in charge of Nigeria’s seat of power that take hold of them when they are in power, like one-time presidential spokesperson, Reuben Abati, once posited? Are there demons responsible for the deaf ears leaders everywhere – even in churches! – turn to wise counsel, pushing them to be garrulous and carry on as if what had a beginning will not have an end? Yet have we witnessed death terminate tenures that seemed perpetual! And, tell me, where are yesterday’s men and women of power?
So also will this pass – whether we like it or not!
* Former editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-chief of The Westerner news magazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.
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