BY BENSON OKOBI-ALLANAH
WAY back in 2007 when I was anchoring Q & A, Question and Answer for The POINTER Newspapers, an interview page assigned to me by one of the past General Managers of the media outfit, Mr. Bosah Iwobi, that brought me face to face with the high and mighty in the society, I happened to interview a woman in Benin, one Barr. Mrs. Abigail Agbolanhor from Benin-City, Edo State, who told me in the course of being interviewed that her mother hated her for being a lawyer.
I had pondered why such hatred will come at all from an educated mother over her child for studying a course many strive to study. But that was a woman opposing vehemently her daughter’s choice to study the course she believed was for advancing and improving the innate ambition in some people with the tendency to be telling lies, those who have telling lies naturally in-grained in them. What a wrong way of running into conclusion!
I recently encountered Dr. Okunola Williams at an occasion in Asaba where both of us were among the special guests.
Dr. Okunola Williams who came all the way from Akure, the Ondo State capital for the event, stunned me while discussing state of the nation with him before the actual commencement of the event which was basically an edifying academic discourse when he said he could be anything but definitely not being a politician. We were both seated side by side and on the same high table.
‘I have my reasons, Mister Ben. It’s one area I will never venture into.’ He told me.
I was not going to let him go just like that. I had to press hard on him to let me know why he says he greatly abhors being a Politician; a money-minting trade even the least educated in the country is busy uprooting obstacles standing on his way to go into. He was blunt on his stand, not having the least reservation on what he said. His repugnant posture on mentioning politics was un-obstruct-able assuming there was any effort made by anyone to make him eat his words.
To Dr. Okunola Williams who runs a medical center in Ondo State, there is a lot of indiscipline in politics and in being a Politician, too much lies-telling, too much corruption, gossips, propagandas, impunity, unnecessary, empty and undeserved arrogance, Aides groveling on their Principals’ feet, booth-lickings, eye-service, greed, stealing, killings, rituals, bloodthirsty elements in political garbs, shamelessness, bigotry, maneuverings, money-stashing in politics etc. All these are characteristics of politics, Nigerian politics; let me not globalize it, because there are some in other climes practicing it the way it ought to be practiced. He describes politics as a calling only an infinitesimal few practice without harbouring, or being associated with dirty hearts and worthless and economic-derailing deals in this country called Nigeria, saying that only few of them are willing to genuinely pull themselves up by their bootstraps to see that the country becomes better.
He describes the whole hullabaloos being expressed in the country today by the oppressed as a result of profound impunity, greed, and ethicist believe and corruption being exhibited by our so-called leaders and other politicians most of whom he said are known for their hocus-pocus rather than pointing and discussing the best way forward.
He described most politicians as pathological liars, maverick deceivers who act as if the country personality belongs to them, or it is their inheritance. And others he described as vendors of fake news and professional orchestrated propagandists, saying in Nigeria, politics has overshadowed the tenants of true religious practice as most Clergymen now decorate, protect and fortify with prayers and blessings (as they claim) politicians during thanksgiving after massive rigging in elections.
‘In Nigeria we tend to overdo things, especially things that negatively impact on the helpless masses and the nation. And when you trace the geneses of all these, you discover that there are all coming from our politicians, no other people are chiefly responsible for our predicaments today than the so-called politicians. Only few of them that have the fear of God in them are the only ones making some few positive impacts. Countries grow through true democratic processes and practice, but in the case of Nigeria, the reserve has become the case. If we have allowed the whites to pilot the affairs of Nigeria just like they did in South Africa, we would have been better for it today. I know the South-Africans paid dearly through apartheid policy before finally gaining their independence, but they are today comparable to some advanced countries of world. No pain, no gain as the saying goes. But we were so much in a hurry to become self-independent, liberate our country from colonial rule when we had not the expertise, the know-how, and were all chronic know nothings in political administration, and were very immature for it; but because we were very eager to throw the gate for looting opened, targeting our treasury, place the cart before the horse, they (the whites) allowed us to be let loosed like the proverbial dog that refused to listen to the owner’s whistle. Less than six years we were granted independence, we ended up in a military coup, disgracing ourselves.’
He says till now we are all still groping in the dark with our so-called leaders’ eyes fully opened, and even with the lights still shining. He maintains that each of the leaders has one black spot or the other attached to their political portfolios whether as an elected Civilian President, Military Head of State or President that came in through power-ousting, Governors, National Assembly members, State Houses of Assembly members, Local Government Chairmen, appointed Commissioners, Ministers, etc, adding that all their political stewardships rendered are not without blemish except for very few of them that have the fear of God in them and conscience that have been performing, though at a very low ebb considering what accrues to their states by way of Federal allocations.
Dr. Okunola Williams says many of our leaders brains created for proper reasoning have been prolapsed, shifted from their normal positions hence the political will to act accordingly and reasonably appears to be lacking and missing totally at the same time in most of these politicians.
He says all these things that have ways of slowing down the progress of the country put together made him to be very unwilling to join politics and abhors being branded as one, saying that he thanked God Almighty who made it possible for him to belong to a profession he is today contented with, stating that it is those with innate ambition inspired by greed and tendency to go into full-scale corruption that clamour to be politicians, however admitting that some of them, an insignificant number of them though, work for the progress of the nation and welfare of the masses.
‘It is not by giving the masses 10kg of rice, distributing salt, wrapper or tins of tomatoes that will not even last for a month we are talking about. What I’m trying to say is leaving a legacy behind that will be referenced on many years to come even by our yet-to-be born children. Many companies in Nigeria today have gone moribund, how many of our Governors are making efforts to have them revived to take care of the teeming youths roaming the streets of our cities looking for jobs; do they ever talk of that? Cities are without good roads, most rural areas are inaccessible all as a result of bad roads or absence of one in some communities. Some riverine communities cannot be reached as there is no bridge. You as a journalist live in the city; I don’t think you have ever been to the interiors to see what I’m trying to explain here.
‘Unfortunately, oppressed Nigerians clap and doff their caps for these political oppressors who enslave them in their own country. You go to events and see this bunch of fools in the name of party supporters, hailing, dancing and taking vantage positions in other to be seen and recognized. They call these politicians all forms of head-swelling names, praise them beyond decency and out of proportion, and you begin to wonder if they at all feel the pains being melted on them by these politicians they fall flat on their bellies and grovel on their feet to worship.
‘My friend and colleague in the medical profession told me it is hunger they (the politicians) subject them to that compel the masses to be engaging in such sub-human behaviours, saying you and I (referring to himself and my humble self) as we are now cannot be found condescending so low because we want cheap favour from politicians. It is sheer hunger that placed them in such human-debasing stance and condition. You are not to be told as a Journalist; you people who report happenings in the country will not pretend that you don’t know the level of suffering in this country, unless of course you are trying to pretend over it. Where do we start from now? Is it the high cost of living in the country today that have placed many people on condition to be feeding ones in a day, some begging for food, some becoming homeless as a result of their inability to pay their rents, or the outrageous transport fares being charged the suffering masses by commercial drivers with no means of addressing the situation coming from governments, or our hospitals that have been left ill-equipped because they (the Politicians) do not make use of them as they can easily fly out of the country for their medical routine checkup, or their children who they forbid schooling in Nigeria because they have access to universities overseas, or the many power- generator manufacturing companies they are in-charge of or have shares in, that have been robbing us of steady power supply because they connive with these electricity distribution companies to throw us into darkness so that their firms will thrive. There are just too many anomalies we are being faced with in this country.’ Dr. Okunola Williams said with acerbity.
