In the university environment, we have what are called post-approval comments. These usually come after an issue has been concluded, and it is not meant to change the soul of the issue, which has been done and dusted. Borrowing from that practice, I wish to present some post-mortem comments in connection with PMB. I had promised not to write anything about PMB since he is no longer in a position to defend himself. However, there are certain post-mortem stories and developments that need to be documented for the present and future generations, and that is what I intend to briefly capture in this commentary.
We all recall that BAT, our dear President, had ‘audaciously’ promised to continue from where PMB stopped. You will agree with me that Tinubu has actually kept this promise in all its ramifications. He has scientifically continued with the mass pauperisation of the people; he has catapulted cronyism and nepotism to the centrepiece of our governance (or misgovernance) framework to the extent that some foul-mouthed folks think that we are now in the Federal Republic of Lagos; he has deftly captured all the arms of government such that ours has become a one-armed government. The commanding heights of the economy have been fully cornered, and we are continuously fed with a tasteless diet of promises and more promises, from one gigantic project to another, and national unity is being mouthed while all actions and activities are to the contrary.
We now know that the Buhari government, which nearly set up a ‘ministry of fake news and hate speech’, was the author and finisher of those concepts, which they swiftly weaponised. You will remember all the efforts by the great LAI to control social media, including hitting X below the belt. Well, the wind has blown, and we have seen the ‘nyash’ of the fowl and affirmed that Reverend Fathers actually wore some trousers beneath their soutane. In an effort to outshine themselves by breaking ‘news’ and showing who was closer to the taciturn despotic democrat, some of his boys have started talking. Garba Shehu confirmed what every right-thinking fellow knew all along: that the story of PMB being chased away from his fortified and rocky abode by mere rats was manufactured; it was Grade 1 FAKE news. It was obvious because even a roadside chemist could produce a guaranteed money-back concoction that could defeat the meanest and dodgiest of rats.
It is no longer news that PMB’s corpse was imported and checked in through customs rather than immigration. Like many of the Nigerian and African elites, he died abroad. Femi Adesina, one of those who professed undying love for PMB and surely made it BIG in the process, told a scandalised nation that if PMB had been treated in Nigeria, he would have died a long time ago. Femi had written all he could to assure us of the ‘integrity-ness’ of PMB, but he did not feel that it was an anticlimax for a person who promised to end medical tourism (he had ‘asked why I should indulge in medical trips abroad if we cannot make our hospitals functional’) and who commissioned a N21bn VVIP wing of the presidential clinic to be brought in as cargo from a London clinic (not even a hospital), which boasts of 900 doctors, where Nigerian taxpayers coughed out 4000 pounds sterling daily and where he shared space with another former Nigerian ruler! The irrepressible Chidi Odinkalu called on ALL the current ‘dealers’ to build functional hospitals if they did not want to be ‘categorised’ at death. He forgot that with our unrepentant-import-repentant syndrome, it is a sign of prestige and honour to die abroad!
One issue that followed PMB and refused to die with him was this Fulanisation agenda. The way and manner he ‘deodorised’ the treasonable activities of some murderous Fulanis and elevated their cows above humans in freedom, dignity and protection created that irresistible impression that he had a Fulani agenda. Of course, we have been told authoritatively how they imported some Fulani militia to facilitate their ‘victory’ in 2015. At his death, Alhaji Buba Galadima gave us another earth-shaking exposé: that PMB was recruited into the presidential race (after he had wept on national TV and vowed never to do it again) to stop the OPC from dismantling the Fulani empire in Ilorin. It was not about serving the people of Nigeria; it was about protecting the Fulani interests.
There were some other post-mortem developments regarding PMB. The issue of how he died in 2017 resurfaced, with a copy of the alleged tribute by the queen pasted all over the place. The University of Maiduguri was renamed after him, even though ALL efforts to rename in Nigeria had failed, even though the renaming of Ozuomba Mbadiwe Street in VI by people who were probably still in liquid form when that street was first named has been seamlessly effected; the argument that what was buried was not PMB in Islam because green was not an acceptable kaftan; the issue of whether he was still married to his former first lady or not (the promoter of this story later apologised); and a resurgence of the news about the Lekki Massacre, reminding all of us that the evil that men do lives after them (at times, even with them!).
As you can see, I was not the one who broke ALL this ‘news’, and as such, I did not break my public vow not to say anything about PMB after his death! Nigeria, we hail thee!
Ik Muo, PhD, Dept of Business Admin, OOU, Ago-Iwoye. 08033026625
