“When a representative of the oppressed absorbs the ideology of the
oppressor he becomes more ferocious and dangerous than the oppressor in
defending that ideology” – Dr Edwin Madunagu
I remember I used this quotation from Dr Edwin Madunagu when a certain
leader from the South East Nigeria decided to abandoned all the things he
stood for in his prime to embrace the ideology of his oppressors because
of hate and politics of the stomach. I took time to remind the leader in
Igboland all the things he spent his life fighting for and only to dump
them for selfish reasons when it mattered most. I cannot disclose who
that leader was because he is no longer alive to defend himself.
Before settling down to put these words on paper, I tried to dig into the
background of this character and Political bigot called Mr Femi Aribisala.
I wanted to find out if his name is attached to a single achievement in
advancing the cause of this country for the better. I wanted to find out
if he has taken any risk at all in his life to achieve a cause. I wanted
to find out if Femi Aribisala has given leadership to his family,
community and Nigeria. I wanted to find out if he has any pedigree at
all. My aim of doing this is this: If Femi Aribisala had been a great
man or an achiever he would have no need to try to pull down a great man.
This is because nobody who aspires to be a great man will seek to bring
down another great man. In fact, the only way you can become a great man
is to admire great men. I could only find little achievement to ascribe to
Femi Aribisala’s name in my search.
Femi Aribisala has been trying without success to pull our leaders and our
great party down with his scurrilous drivels every Tuesday in his column
in one of Nigeria’s leading Newspapers thinking that he will succeed
probably by chance. But this wind chaser of our time has always failed in
this ugly mission. Femi Aribisala must have read the book: 48 Laws of
Power. One of the laws in that book says the only way to destroy a great
followership is to bring down the leader. This ugly man with his ugly
project has been trying to tarnish the reputation of our great leader
,Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This wind chaser thinks he can sway the tide
of public opinion against our leader with his useless postulations and
renditions. This man who lives in the past has been applying a 10th
century solution to a 21st century problem. Femi Aribisala has failed and
failed woefully.
The problem with Femi Aribisala is that he wasted his youth without
achieving anything. What he did not achieve in his youth is what he is
trying to achieve at more than 70. No, you cannot reverse the hands of
the Clock. Time lost can never be recovered. Sycophancy is not a trade.
Nobody goes to the university to learn sycophancy and praise singing as a
course. If you cannot make it in your 40s and 50s forget it. The truth
is that Femi Aribisala works for PDP just to make up the lost glories and
opportunities of the past. But must you earn a living by shooting others
down? Must you ride on the back of great men? No, success is not an
event? It is a result of years of hard work and commitment to the welfare
of the common people.
Femi Aribisala may not know this man called Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and
why he is what he is today. When the likes of Femi Aribisala are
sleeping, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is working. This man is trying to cut
an Iroko tree with a kitchen knife. Femi is trying to dig 20 meters well
with bare hands. I want to throw these questions to Femi Aribisala: Do
you know the man you want to bring down? Do you know his level? Do you
know his followers, his friends and associates around the world? Do you
know his capacity? Do you know his network and contacts? Do you know
what he controls? Do you know the thousands he has groomed and
established? Do you know how many leaders he has brought up? When will
you ever know the capacity and the strength of the man you are fighting?
Eniti o mo Oba lo nfi Oba sere (Is he who does not know the real king that
toys with him). I advise this noise maker to stop the noise and go back to
do the real work that will make him get to the level of Asiwaju BAT.
This man who invests in the wind has been talking about the outcome of
Ekiti and Osun elections. He and his gang in PDP stole Ekiti while we
slept. When thieves at our gates got to Osun they met us awake even at
3am in the morning of August 10, 2014. In Osun Femi and his robbery gang
came with helicopters, guns, bombs, jackbooths, tanks, etc but ordinary
people with bare hands stopped their open robbery. Iyiola Omisore, a fake
and bad product could not have gotten 50,000 votes if not because of Femi
Aribisala’s gangsters and vote robbers. In the State of Osun Femi
Aribisala and his forty thieves came to steal and to destroy but were
stopped by the rugged will of a determined people. They shut in the air,
marched on the streets, bought votes in thousands, scared APC supporters
to their homes and oppressed the poor but they were not enough to stop the
courage of the people of the state of Osun.
Femi Aribisala has turned a blind eye on the excesses of PDP in the past
15 years in Nigeria, he cannot see the rot in Nigeria, he cannot see that
PDP wants to turn Nigeria into a one party state; he does not see the
changes everybody sees in his South West and beyond where APC is holding
forte. Aribisala, choked in his petty jealousy, hate and greed cannot see
that he has a long way to go to join the class of Asiwaju BAT. The
articulation of the breath and depth of his pretty politics, and
mediocrity tells us at once that Femi has no respect successful people.
Your intelligent and duplicitous lies lacked elementary norms of decency
in every aspect of life. I am at a loss why you are fighting and judging
our great leader and APC by innuendo, speculations and gossips. When Femi
Aribisala wrote about how APC lost Osun, I ran away with the thinking that
he is still displaying his imbecilic sense of articulation once again. We
are still investigating how this political leper got 292,000 votes in the
land of the late Chief Bola Ige.
Great men discuss ideas, average men discuss events and little minds
discuss people. Femi Aribisala is no longer a young man. I guess he
should be in his 70s. When a man in his 70s behaves like a 15 year old
boy, my people call that person, Efulefu. Is Femi Aribisala an efulefu?
Time will tell.
Joe Igbokwe
Lagos.