By Lanre Adewole
Last Monday, the grief of the verbose former governor of Cross River, Professor Ben Ayade over his political conservatorship in the hands of his handler and president, Bola Tinubu, boiled over. He cried out.
Ordinarily, politicians should not deserve anyone’s compassion, particularly former governors. Only a few of them do not wear the god complex like a badge of honour in office.
In fact, whenever any of them is agonizing especially over forced political seclusion, exclusion and imposed segregation from power mainstream, knowing their high-handedness while in charge, mocking their seeming deserving retribution, should be seen to be in order.
Because that is what God Himself will do.
Psalm 2: 1-5 says “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us’.
“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak into them in His wrath and vex them in His sore displeasure.”
Was it not the same Ayade as governor that used the Nigeria Police to arrest and detain a journalist, Agba Jalingo, for 179 days? And even when his no-case submission succeeded at the trial court and was discharged and acquitted of the cyberstalking case brought against him by the Ayades, the family of the former governor won’t back off, still using the ever-available-for-a-fee Nigerian police.
Just in March this year, police “succeeded” at the Court of Appeal and the intermediate court remitted the matter back to the federal high court for retrial, despite the accused being earlier freed of the criminal defamation charge. Curious isn’t it? Well, the journo is challenging the ruling at the Supreme Court. The official target put on the journalist back by the Ayades, has been running now for almost four years.
The report termed as cyber bullying by the Ayades was even about his in-law: wife of his brother and the then-god of Calabar felt he should prove his omni-whatever.
But the Ayade lamenting his treatment by Tinubu as a political invalid and electoral liability in a mere senatorial race, isn’t anything near the lion-hearted again. His tigritude seems to have disappointed and disappeared from him. He can no longer pounce or even bark. He whines now, like a cornered cat.
He “wept” about his three-year forced hiatus from political patronage from the centre. And now, the same Abuja which he surrendered his political future and fortune to, has also kicked him to the kerb in a senatorial race he thought would bring him back to the ruling party’s mainstream. He has become a yesterday horse rider who nobody steps out of the way for as a mark of reverence. It seems someone somewhere wants him very derelict before rescue and rehabilitation.
Maybe it is good for yesterday’s men of means and leverage to taste the hopelessness and helplessness their greed and ill-will towards the masses, foster upon the populace. Just three years of forced disconnect from the trough of people’s wealth and sob stories are everywhere. And to think Ayade is just 58 and had even been elected to the same senate for four years before his two terms as governor, making a total of 12 unbroken years in public offices at both legislative and executive levels.
What should a man want again? With his solid academic background, why can’t Ayade see going back to the classroom to give back, as a better means of impacting humanity? Must it be politics and public offices? Did he accumulate all those degrees, including a switch between pure science and law, to while time away in the Red Chamber of the National Assembly, which has become somewhat of a hospice for former governors, mostly with troubling ailments that keep them away from plenary for months while on medical vacations abroad, missing crucial votes on urgent national matters?
But, well they are mostly in the ruling party and completely untouchable.
And it isn’t even that the Bible-quoting Benedict (the ex-Gov’s full first name) is a political powerhouse anymore.
While rounding off his gubernatorial jaunt, he was badly trounced by Jarigbe Agom for the Cross River North senatorial seat. Now, as a political nobody, how did he plan to change the outcome of his planned rematch? The president weighed his “home boy” and realised he’s got no weight. He brought an “outsider” in Agom, to come and fly the party’s flag. And our man’s tear ducts burst at the seams.
I find a particular line intriguing in Ayade’s lamentations; “I dare not question his (referring to Tinubu) authority, but I challenge his conscience. According to 1 Timothy 5:18, the labourer deserves his wages. Therefore, I am worthy of a reward.”
Brother Benedict, only God is unquestionable (Daniel 4:35-36), and even the scripture is about God’s sovereignty, not that reasons for a thing can’t be sought from Him. Making gods out of men like you sound here is why privileged and graced mortals beareth rule over the less fortunate, like their Maker. If you are still relevant enough in just a third of the whole space you once governed, you won’t need a man to decree your political future either into relevance or obscurity. Nigeria is a multi-party democracy still, despite the unmitigated and unmistaken efforts to have a “sole” presidential candidate heading into the 2027 contest.
For you to lose the same contest as the incumbent governor is all one needs to conclude on your political capital. It currently worths nothing.
