Metaphor of the tenant

Would you mind this page waxing philosophical today by using the tenant as a metaphor to talk to the Nigerian political elite who seem to always forget that their stay in high political office, as president, governor, minister, commissioner, local government chairman or board member, will be temporary at the end of the day?

They need to be reminded that everything is temporary: when a political office holder’s term ends, he must vacate not only the office and the official residence, but also the position, and is shorn of the authority, prestige, remuneration, and perquisites of that office.

When political office holders continue to act in the manner of the lion, the king of the jungle, who kept boasting in Yoruba, “A f’emi, a f’emi,” which could almost translate to “I am the I am,” that the Christian God calls Himself, they make it look as if they are eternal and forever living beings with no expiry date.

After ruminating for some time, British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose writings prescribed guided capitalism and a free market system, arrived at the rather morbid, but obvious, conclusion that “In the long run, we are all dead.”

Politicians who assume high political positions and begin to brazenly display stolen public funds, and ride roughshod over the people, should remember the political crossfire of the early 1970s in Nigeria between Ukpabi Asika, the Administrator of war-torn East Central State, now known as the South-East region, and Nigeria’s first President, the revered Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe.

Asika described Azikiwe with the derogatory and dismissive phrase, “has-been, ex-this, ex-that, ex-everything else”, to demonstrate that the latter was effectively out of power, regardless of his grand sense (or delusion) of self or importance.

Of course, Azikiwe, in a witty and caustic manner, reminded Asika of his own father, who was an ex-postmaster. He also added that one day Asika himself would become an ex-administrator because “no condition is permanent”, even as he reminded Asika of the ill-maintained roads of the East Central State.

Eventually, Asika left office and practically disappeared from the public space as Azikiwe had predicted, to the extent that when he died in 2004, many Nigerians did not even notice. When a lecturer who taught journalism at the university asked his students if they knew Azikiwe, a pioneer Nigerian journalist, they drew a blank.

This reality of ultimate (or impending?) finality of stepping down from high political power, as Asika and Azikiwe experienced, should eloquently minister to politicians who hug public office as if it were the skin that they would wear till death, the exit door that separates all humans from the life loaned to them by God.

It should teach them that life is ephemeral, elusive, unreliable, or “ti ko layole”, as the Yoruba would say. In other words, no matter how powerful and savvy you are, one day, you will not only vacate the political office, but also life itself.

One of Dad’s old friends was called, “But one day,” an obvious reminder that there is always an end to whatever position a human being attains, and that life itself terminates with death, the door from which there is no return.

When an acquaintance died a few years ago, what readily came to mind was the line, “Everything has an end. Even I have an end,” that his primary school teacher asked him to recite at one of those old-time end-of-year school programmes.

Maybe so that people will understand that no condition is permanent, Americans would often remind anyone who may have forgotten that everything has an end, that even if you started as the first, you could descend to number two, on to numbers three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and 10, and then become the Ace, Jack, Queen, King, and then you are finally out of any of the suits in the deck of cards.

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It also reminds one of the rhymes of how the life of Solomon Grundy ended, after he was born on Monday, christened on Tuesday, married on Wednesday, took ill on Thursday, grew worse on Friday, died on Saturday, and was buried on Sunday.

Nigeria has a coterie of sitting governors, who claw at power as if it were oxygen, by doing everything to re-emerge either as senators or as ministers after their tenures have ended, so that they can be addressed as GSM, a fancy acronym for Governor, Senator and Minister.

Even former military heads of state have re-emerged as civilian presidents, while former military governors have also re-emerged as civilian governors, ministers, ambassadors, legislators, even Senate President, party chieftains, board chairmen or members of government parastatals.

The provision for regular elections, which occur every four years in America and Nigeria, for instance, is an apt reminder to any politician who assumes elective or appointive office that there is always a terminal day for his stay in power in the Nigerian political system.

Even dictators, or military officers who became Heads of State because they, or someone else, planned a coup that ousted previous civilian or military governments, must understand that one day, they too will vacate that office, even if it is also through a coup.

Even though Oliver Cromwell, a leading advocate of the execution of England’s King Charles I, was styled Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland in the 17th century, he eventually died and could not protect himself.

Many years after he had died and was buried, his body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey and hanged as a form of posthumous, but formal, execution. While his body was hanged at Tyburn, his head was lopped off and displayed on the roof of Westminster Hall of the Palace of Westminster.

Politicians who want immortality and a permanent place in the hearts of their people should act well whenever they hold both the power and the trust of the people who have delegated sovereign authority to them.

Obafemi Awolowo, the only leader of government business and first Premier of Western Nigeria, was even in office only during the colonial era, yet he lives in the hearts and minds of the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria for his patriotic services that included free, universal and compulsory primary school for all kids who were resident within the region.

Because of the achievements of his governments and his sparkling performance as Federal Commissioner for Finance and Vice Chairman of the Federal Cabinet led by former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, Awolowo was almost deified by the Yoruba and others who believe in his astute economic and political philosophies.

But, of course, there are some Nigerians who demonise him for the role that he is alleged to have played against the government of the breakaway Republic of Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War, in which many died, and many more were dislocated economically.

If the insensitive politicians of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic want to live “rent-free” in the heads (or minds) of Nigerian citizens, they should find a way to actualise Jeremy Bentham’s admonishment that the purpose of government is to work for “the greatest good of the greatest number of citizens”.