Adedibu, Half of Ibadanland, the man is no more

Is it really dead?

Ten years ago, when I was informed that the despot General Sani Abacha had died, I was walking off Tottenham Court Road into Goodge Street, the street itself looking for a place to sit down because the story was unbelievable.

I also asked for the meat left behind to be slapped with the best side of a shovel just to be sure that he had really departed.

Earlier in this evening, I caught a whiff of news that Alhaji Lamidi Akanbi Ariyibi Adedibu, half of Ibadanland that the uninitiated erroneously describes as one person had kicked the bucket but I was not sure the cat had exhausted its nine lives and did not have a joker life to spare – well, it would appear he had used them all up.

The legacy of works reviled

Probably all that can be written about Alhaji Adedibu has been written that speak no good of a man so bad that the mourning of his demise unleashed thugs on the streets of Ibadan – the evil men do does live after them.

But like a beach whale, the evil he unleashed in Ibadanland shall slowly have live ebb out of it till he becomes part of the unpalatable history of Yorubaland.

Once again, there may be many who would not speak evil of the dead, they should not at the same time speak lies of this man, there was no reason to revere him apart from the perversity of the patriarchy of old age, but that is Nigeria..

He was an unconscionable menace, an executive hoodlum with the basest intents and a thorn in the sides of everything that tried to rise as progress in Yoruba politics.

Gone and well gone

At the death of Chief A. M. A. Akinloye last year, a man whose legacy includes nurturing people of Adedibu’s ilk it would appear the only notoriety they had not gained was that of immortality.

The man shall be committed to earth tomorrow, as a Muslim, on the 15^th anniversary of the June 12^th nullification of democratic results debacle; we might well begin to rid ourselves of those whose presence has haunted Nigerian for decades, who in death shall have gone forever.

However, I write this to bury Alhaji Adedibu not to praise him, but he would only be so well eulogised in lyrics of the musician (Alhaji Odolaiye Aremu) who praised him years ago – he summed up the man in words I cannot better.

The tribute

Adedibu, half of Ibadanland that the uninitiated erroneously describes as one person

Death that taunts before it strikes

Wicked man per excellence

The son of a witch who buys on credit and still demands a bargain

The man who deliberately harms and yet commiserates with his victim

The man who owes you and you dare not ask to be repaid

The heir rejects his inheritance, Adedibu appropriates it

Akanbi who demands two pence from a man with only two and a half pence

Adedibu went to the Ibadan city centre and came back with several chickens

He did not buy them (the chickens),

He did not steal them (the chickens),

And nobody gave them (the chickens) to him as gifts,

The chickens just ran into a monumental calamity!

Nigeria: Paying the dead and billing the living

We mourn the Pa

Ijebuman a fellow blogger highlighted in his blog today two issues that caught my eye before I went to work this morning.

A well-respected (read, I don’t even know the man from bingo) Yoruba leader died recently and anyone who had two feet trundled to his residence like they all do, to belabour the grieving survivors with condolences.

In fact, it is customary to find that the survivors are pre-occupied with the entertainment of dignitaries than having time to recollect their thoughts, their memories and their affections of their dearly departed.

Pa Abraham Adesanya who has through his works and deeds acquired a rarer title that ranks in precedence above the proletariat chief or even the now common Otunba that everyone seems to have, is to be revered and buried in incredulity.

Sir Who and Dame What

Before, I get to that point, I have also noticed that certain Nigerians are exhibiting titles of Sir and Dame – the last time those were legally acquired in Nigeria was before 1963 when Nigeria was not yet a republic.

It makes me wonder who is now conferring knighthoods (Sir Mike Mbama Okiro) and damehoods (Dame Patience Jonathan) on Nigerians and how long we have to wait before someone ends up with a peerage. I would suppose these are Catholic orders of chivalry and I doubt they are to be presented as personal titles.

Ijebus do big burials

Pa Adesanya is an Ijebuman and whilst the Ijebus are quite thrifty and enterprising, it is common knowledge that you cannot borrow anything from an Ijebuman for business, education or investment but you will earn the best lines of credit to conduct a burial.

With that in mind, it is probably not surprising that his burial would cost a whopping N150 million ($1.3 million, £670,000 – Ijebuman’s estimation) - that could buy immortality.

Now, anyone has a right to spend as much as they want to ensure they have properly put a man 6-feet under and done that securely; what is irksome is this is really taxpayer’s money, 6 state governments in the South-West of Nigeria are contributing $216,000 each for his burial; the electorate probably have no say in deciding if this is ethical, legal, legitimate and right.

The few in orgy

As the selectively invited cavort in an orgy of festivities celebrating the life of this great man that would last 5 days from Monday the 19^th of May till Friday the 23^rd of May when he would be committed, one could almost say the cacophony of the troupes of well-heeled professional mourners might just end up being a ceremony that would wake the dead and end the party.

The man who suffered such poor health for the last 4 years of his life probably might have found better use before his death for that large sum of money and probably he would have offered himself for cryogenic storage till some medical breakthrough had been developed to restore both his health and youth.

But we cannot afford to celebrate the living when the ceremonies of the dead attract more fanfare, pomp and pageantry.

Frankly, I do not understand my people at all, but as far as they are concerned, they have their priorities right, you have to bury the dead well and no expense should be spared.

Adedibu lives

Ijebuman goes on to wonder how much would be set aside for Lamidi Adedibu who I wrote about last year, a man beyond the law and a complete menace to societal calm but perversely revered.

He took ill recently and the governor of Oyo State paid his medical bills up to the tune of N5 million, and on the matter of one of the senators of the state not putting forward any finances towards his hospital bill; he boasted that the three senators representing Oyo State were all from his room, such is the influence of the man.

Then a group of supposedly enlightened people meeting in a suburb, north of London, as Adedibu Beneficiaries in the UK – It really does beggar belief – claim because of his recovery, God still wants to use Adedibu, I am speechless.

Why Mo Ibrahim Prize can never consider Obasanjo

Commending African leadership

When Dr. Mo Ibrahim announced the Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, there were many including myself who scoffed at what looked like a man desperately trying to court publicity through seeming altruistic goals.

The question arose about why heads of government would strive to win a prize for governance and leadership when they have at their gluttonous command the treasury of state which many have looted to the extent that all that was left was the stench of thievery.

Putting aside unwarranted scepticism, the prize which is almost four times the Nobel prize seeks to honour aberrations to the African norm when it comes to governance; we are still at the fundamentals where people in power are yet to realise that they are supposed to exercise all means to deliver security, health, education and economic development to their constituents, and eventually democratically transfer power to their successor.

Ibrahim Index of African Governance

In any event the one-time President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano has taken the first award of the prize as he has also transitioned into a respected elder-statesman called upon as envoy or negotiator.

Beyond this, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation published last month, the Ibrahim Index of African Governance; an African-sponsored initiative of rating 48 Sub-Saharan African Countries on 58 data points in 5 broad categories of Safety and Security; Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Development and Human Development.

In the broad scheme of things with data profiles accumulated in 2000, 2002 and 2005, Mauritius comes first, South Africa comes fifth, Ghana comes eighth and Nigeria thirty-seventh which is below Zimbabwe at 31.

A comparison between this 5 countries shows an interesting picture of poor governance.

Once again, we need to disabuse perception and deal with the facts as they are apart from the fact that this now a study sponsored by an African with the interest of Africa at heart – it should not be so easily dismissed as governments are wont to with Human Rights Watch reports, Failed States Index Surveys or any other purely Western sponsored analysis.

Obasanjo’s Legacy as Adedibu’s lackey

It is poignant to know that the data profile taken in 2005 was also the sixth year in office of President Olusegun Obasanjo and it is a great indictment that he has failed to deliver progress in any of the broad categories beyond which he is also failing to move into the position of a respectable elder statesman.

Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo recently took out a full-page advertisement in a national newspaper on the occasion of Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu’s 80^th Birthday and in it he praised the venerated but shameless political thug with words that read thus “Why for God’s sake must we seek to change a good product? Chief Adedibu has evolved overtime into a good political product. Humanity now has an opportunity to catch a veritable glimpse of the strongman and the generalissimo whose exploits had engendered a new passion for politics and nation building.”

This flies in the face of responsible conduct and honest commentary, now, there is every need to respect and honour our elders, but this should be borne out by conduct that becomes the maturity in age of the person, not just because the person is advanced in years.

In respect to dignity, honour and gentlemanliness, Alhaji Adedibu comes considerably shy of the mark, but an intractable carry-over of our tradition allows for a man of his ilk to be feted by all the great and the “good” even as the traditional ruler of Ibadan, the Olubadan openly blames both Obasanjo and Adedibu for formenting violence with impunity in his realm.

More interesting to note is that Obasanjo has exploited Adedibu’s kind of banditry to political ends on the former and pecuniary advantage on the latter and Obasanjo even went on to say that Adedibu cannot be reformed and should be accepted for the kind of man that he is.

Chief Adedibu has not paid customary homage to the Olubadan, - this is contrary to Yoruba customs and amounts to an abominable act of insubordination which has penalties yet to be invoked - rather he instigated attacks on representatives of the king and defied his authority along with frustrating the work of the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), and impunity allows for him to take tribute and homage when he should be shunned, disgraced and humiliated.

We can safely say that Obasanjo would never be in the running for the leadership prize, the carcases of his mismanagement of Nigeria still reek of rotten flesh to the high heavens, in retrospect, it is a shame that we ever had him as president because the promise of 1999 is no less a catastrophic disaster in 2007.

References

The Oscar for Best Leader in an Actor's Role?

OBJ Leads Praise Singers For Adedibu, Calls Him A Good Product

Nigeria: Afenifere Berates Obasanjo Over Comments On Adedibu

Obasanjo, Beasts, Jungles, and You

Olubadan blames Obasanjo, Adedibu for Ibadan violence

Tables from the Ibrahim Index of African Governance – The links below are PDF files

Safety and Security

Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption

Participation and Human Rights

Sustainable Economic Development

Human Development

HRW Report - A must-read for all patriotic Nigerians

A democratic deficit

A number of mentions of the Human Rights Watch report on Nigeria 2007 have been made on television recently with the interviewing of Ojo Maduekwe the Nigerian Foreign Minister and Wole Soyinka the Nobel Laureate in the last few days.

Whilst there are many who would go on the defensive when Nigeria is criticised, it is important to review the criticism with the view to learning something useful from the perspectives of others.

A number of blogs that I frequent have already commented on aspects of the report, and from what I have read, anyone who has had the privilege to exercise a democratic right in Nigeria should and must be incandescent with righteous rage at the way some so-called godfathers have peddled influence for their own ends.

Biography of a mob

The report which reads like the biography of leaders of an irate mob is utterly disconcerting at best and extremely outrageous at worst, the summary of the report begins with “Nigeria is mired in a crisis of governance”, an understatement - the compilers have more than enough evidence to maintain that stand without prejudice.

The broad areas of analyses in this report covers political violence and quite a few aspirants were eliminated through assassinations mostly in Western Nigeria; corruption exemplified in Godfatherism (sic) where potentates of corrupt and suspect means believe they own Nigeria or parts of Nigeria with the electoral demographic at their beck and call; and entrenched impunity through the abusing of the rule of law and separation of powers along with the lawlessness of law enforcement.

All these topics receive scrutiny that cannot be discounted, as some of this information would be joined to portfolios that would help determine if Nigeria is a safe and secure place in which to establish partnerships for political, social and economic development.

Adedibu and Uba

The report then provides 4 case studies, but none makes my blood boil more than the ones about Oyo State where the political thuggery of Lamidi Adedibu looms large and Anambra State where the whole extent of corrupt aggrandisement is so contractually documented, it must be investigated and brought to a trial in a court of humanity somewhere in this world.

In both cases, self-appointed Mandarins of menace who for all sorts of reasons have clout derived from nefarious and malevolent coercion in the persons of Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu and Chief Chris Uba have believed themselves to be the patrons of state from whom all power emanates such that elections are meaningless because they have the means to produce the results they intend.

Selling your soul to devils

All that is required is some figurehead sycophant who can be a puppet executive governor to be manipulated according to the whims and caprices of these rotten thugs.

What is so disturbing is that these criminals are propped up by a coterie of stupid followers who despite their education, literacy and knowledge of the basic codes of democracy to demand rights that are essential conferred on the executive government in the mandate they receive to govern their state.

Regardless of the means by which anyone assumes office, the incumbent is sometimes beholding to interest groups and patrons to whom they must defer but to have these patrons expect to select and appoint people to government is totally out of order and an exhibition of unparalleled egregiousness.

Supporters of Alhaji Adedibu castigated the governor for not giving his patron access to 25% of the state treasury and not allowing his patron to appoint commissioners and other gravy train appointees who would do the bidding of the patron. The governor eventually got impeached.

Oyo State represents a case of some “gentleman’s agreement” where one of the partners did not follow through on what were the expected actions.

The contract

To forestall this kind of situation where a partner could renege on an agreement, the mendicants in Anambra State drew up seemingly binding contracts.

In what is typically bandits trying to be respectable doing atrocious deals, we find a copy of the agreement signed between Chris Uba (Godfather) and Chris Ngige (Governor) where he commits not to run for more than one term, not to the electorate but to this cretin in a Memorandum of Irrevocable Undertaking – it beggars belief.

Then he is supposed to have sold his soul to his mentor who bankrolled the election and called his mob into action to steal the mandate. The Governor was to exercise and manifest absolute loyalty to the person of Chief Chris Uba – one would think Chief Uba was some god, not many worshippers offer that kind of commitment to God except when they are in liaison with agents of the devil.

A governor as the patron’s servant

He was not to run the government of Anambra State as his personal business but requirements further on in the contract showed that he was to run the government as personal fiefdom of Chief Uba.

A meeting was convened where Chief Uba as the caucus leader assumed authority as the omnipotent commander of all affairs concerning the state with the governor probably not even able to appoint his own cook.

The witnesses to this agreement of the dishonourable included three doctors of whatever, a chief and a Senator Sir Ikechukwu Abana (A title almost reminiscence of a typical Nigerian busker) who seems to have his hands in every uncomely deal in that state.

When the dog of a governor refused to do his mater’s bidding, he was kidnapped and forced to submit a resignation, it had Chief Chris Uba literally waving the paper of the agreement for all to see claiming to be the wronged man.

The culture of impunity

It is impunity par excellence that anyone can be involved in such a corrupt, shady deal and still expect to maintain respectability anywhere in this world – it counts for nothing in Nigeria, they go on to do worse things because the conditions in Nigeria allow for people to get away with murder and by praised for their exploits.

These are no Godfathers, they are agents of the devil, gangsters and pirates who have no respect for anything for the good of humanity talk less of Nigerians and the people they would have us believe they lead.

People like Adedibu and Uba should be languishing in jail, stripped of any dignity and respect they may have and made to do time like common criminals in the medieval times, they are not worthy to be Nigerians and their names should be etched in the tablets of ignominy as a lesson to others who decide to follow their corrupt ways.

It is the duty of an patriotic Nigerian to objectively read and review the contents of the Human Rights Watch report and really decide if this the Nigeria worthy of our aspirations or one which is in need of a revolution of the mindset, ideas and common purposes.

The choice is sure ours to make.

References

Criminal Politics – Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria – The Report (PDF)

Criminal Politics – Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria – The Index (HTML)

The summary and recommendations (PDF)

The agreement between Chris Uba and Chris Ngige

Ijebuman - Criminal Politics - a report by HRW

AfricanLoft – Human Right Watch Reports on Nigeria

Alhaji Lamidi Akanbi Ariyibi Adedibu

Celebrating long life

A tradition would only be too evident in Nigeria at the ceremonies that would culminate in the burial of Chief A. M. A. Akinloye who died at 91 in Nigeria last week.

People would be dressed in blue rather than black because this was a life to be celebrated having been full of years, I once attended a wake-keeping in Nigeria of a very prominent man where I observed both this and his children being heartily congratulated for surviving their father rather than being condoled sadly for his death.

However, as soon as the news of the man’s death was announced people flocked to his family residence and had opportunity to write in the book of condolences opened for the event.

The book of condolences (judgments)

One of the entries made must not escape scrutiny and analysis because it corroborates the issue I raised in my blog yesterday about the death of Chief Akinloye and his legacy.

The visitor wrote and I quote – “My father, my mentor, my political architect who by the will of God made it possible for me to have recognition in the political history of the country. You promoted me, you lifted me up and gave me what I can never forever forget in my life, you prayed for me and the prayer had shown in me. Surely, you Adisa Olayiwola Akinloye will rest in the side of Almighty God because you have done very well to people with fear of God, God will not leave you.”

Introducing Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu

The writer was Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, of whom no person of worth has praise or commendation. Of the many articles that have been written about this man, one talks of hoodlums who pledge allegiance to him wreaking havoc in Oyo State where he believes he reigns as potentate regardless of the traditional ruler.

The Chairman of the EFCC – Malam Nuhu Ribadu lamented that fact that many are not angry that the likes of Adedibu are in positions of leadership and these expressions are some of the more polite references to a man who has at one time been called a thug, a criminal and worse – without prejudice.

However, no better illustration can be made of the man than the one that damns him with praise – praise-singing a Yoruba tradition where mere mortals are eulogised to almost deity can well be a two-edged sword of commendation and outright rebuke at the same time.

Praise-singing a deeper truth

One writer recalls one minstrel now departed, Alhaji Odolaiye Aremu who begins with this as translated by the writer thus.

Adedibu, half of Ibadanland that the uninitiated erroneously describe as one person – that says it all, the man has become a law unto himself and an impediment to progress in Yorubaland, like his mentors and sponsors of old.

If in reality, Chief Akinloye did really elevate Alhaji Adedibu to this level of self-aggrandisement and political thuggery, I will speak no ill of the dead, but I would not lie to be nice, rather, silence is golden, but much has already been said.

That song

As for the song and write-up , this is the whole thing as translated with a few notes:

Adedibu, half of Ibadanland that the uninitiated erroneously describes as one person

Death that taunts before it strikes

Wicked man per excellence

Son of a witch who buys on credit and still demands extra

The man who deliberately injures and yet commiserates with his victim

The man who owes you and you dare not ask to be repaid

The owner rejects his inheritance, Adedibu accepts it

Akanbi who demands two pence from a man with only two and a half pence

Adedibu went to the Ibadan city centre and came back with several chickens

He did not buy them (the chickens),

He did not steal them (the chickens),

And nobody gave them (the chickens) to him as gifts,

The chickens just ran into a monumental calamity!

Beware the man

This is the man who thinks he now has recognition in the political history of Nigeria, what woe has befallen us that this man should find honour amongst the dishonourable. The legacy of Chief A. M. A. is personified in Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu.

Other references

Nigeria: Adedibu - 'Etteh is Yorubas' Only Hope' – Where he asks the president to halt a probe into what seems to be an misappropriation of funds in the House or Representatives.

Understanding the political machine called Lamidi Adedibu

When Thugs and Political Godfathers Call The Shots