Bode George Photo: Sun News Publishing

“Bode George finally comes of age” was the title I had chosen for today’s piece, but I changed my mind about writing about the fresh-from-prison PDP chieftain. For I think too much ink has already been spilled on the ‘Lagos Boy’ and the post prison carnival the PDP has been holding in his (dis)honour.

Suffice it to say, however, that I was impressed with the interview that my colleague, Shola Oshunkeye, a former CNN African Journalist of the Year, had with Chief Bode George.
One thing that interview thought me was that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is actually bigger than I give him credit for. That is why I feel the Jagaba should not have bothered to make a response to that open confession by a politician already over-awed by the ACN chieftain’s intimidating profile. For me, more than anything else, that Bode George interview was more of a confession, and tribute to superior mastery political power.

My late father used to say that the child who is unable to recognize his superiors has yet to grow up. It has taken Bode George two years sojourn in jail – in addition to his 60-something years to recognize his political superiors. Yes, it is pretty late, but it’s better late than never. So, everyone should join me in welcoming him to the club of the grown ups.

Of course, that is not in any way agreeing with his allegation that it was Tinubu who sent him to jail. Yes, a Lagos High court convicted him, but even if we humour the opposition by agreeing that Tinubu and Fashola are same of the same (apologies Jimi Agbaje), I do not remember seeing anywhere it was written that the charges against George were trumped up. I also know that there were a couple of appeals that were lost before Bode George fully settled down to prison realities. I cannot say specifically for now, but I suspect that the laws under which George was convicted probably existed before he went to NPA.
And what is this talk about Tinubu buying up everybody? Does he have more money than PDP? We know vision is a crime in PDP, but must we continue to blackmail a man for his foresight? Why do they want to make Tinubu feel sorry for making friends and keeping them, not using and dumping them as the others a wont to do?
But, like I stated earlier, this article is not about Bode George. A lot has been said about him already.

I prefer to give him time to reflect, sober up and readjust to life outside of Kirikiri. I don’t want to treat him like his PDP (not People Destroying People) who threw him straight into campaign rallies from prison cell. For what they are doing to the poor man is setting him up to repeat the same mistakes that took him to jail in the first place. Let the poor man think things over first.
And while he is at it, I’d like to address my mind, instead, to Senator Mohammed Abba-Aji, President Goodluck Jonathan’s liaison officer to the Senate.

As a journalist, worse an Igbo journalist, I have two reasons to be angry with Alhaji Abba-Aji. In one instance, the presidential aide had told us that he would advise the president not to sign the Freedom of Information Bill recently passed by the House of Representatives, a bill which has been, rightly or wrongly, tagged a media law and should, therefore be dear to my heart.
The flaks were still flying in Abba-Aji’s direction when, few days later, he dropped another bomb: no vacancy for Igbo presidency in 2015.

What the summary of Abba-Aji’s utterances come to is that (1) I can’t get the conducive atmosphere to practice my profession and (2) my ethnic group can’t hope to rule Nigeria any time soon.
I should be very angry with the presidential aide. But I am not. In fact, I still consider him my friend – having met him several years back, when he was still in his Victoria Island office calling the shots at the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF). I was still a young reporter at The Guardian then. It was also through him that I met Chiroma, another friend who, at the last count, was a media aide to Governor Modu Sheriff of Borno State. However, the last time I was in the same room with Abba-Aji was in the build-up to the 2007 election when some PDP leading lights in Borno were consolidating efforts to deny ANPP’s Gov. SAS a second term in office. But I still continue to regard him as a friend.

However, it is not because of this said friendship that I am refusing to join the army of those calling for Abba-Aji’s neck to be placed on the guillotine. No.
As for me, I believe Abba-Aji only voiced the truth we have always known existed, but which no politician, for reason of remaining politically correct, has been sincere enough to say.
The very day Jonathan emerged on the scene as Yar’Adua’s running mate, I knew that getting an Igbo president on the platform of the PDP had blown away with the wind. Many politicians – Igbo and non-Igbo also knew that much. The only hope of it ever happening was if Jonathan was so weak as VP that he did not emerge a favourite candidate to succeed his boss at the end of 8 years. And for a long time, it seemed that was going to be the case.

However, as in everything about Jonathan, ‘good luck’ soon set in. God took Yar’Adua away and divinely upturned PDP’s zoning arrangement. It was almost unthinkable that anything, other than Jonathan taking over from Yar’Adua, would happen. Though there was, again, an Abba-Aji underhand hanky-panky in the whole equation, Jonathan went from VP to Acting President, and the, President.
Thereafter, for those of us still dreaming of an Igbo presidency, the only window still open was to keep praying that Jonathan would decide not to run for the office in 2011. Whatever little hope we had was thus killed off the moment he decided to contest.

Now, it is very clear that if Jonathan wins next month’s election and decides not to seek a second term (which he is entitled to, by the way), it would be too selfish of the PDP in the South to want to retain the presidency. The North would want it, and VP Namadi Sambo becomes a natural first choice. Even if Jonathan decides to discountenance whatever he said in Kenya at the recent AU summit and goes ahead to seek re-election (and actually wins, and stays till 2019) it would then be in human to expect the North (at least in the PDP) to elect to stay out another four years – or eight years. That would mean that it would only have ruled for only two years, in 24 years of democracy. Haba!
It was this projection that a select group of Igbo leaders, like Prof. ABC Nwosu, saw and resolved that it was in the best interest of Ndigbo to have Babangida (who had promised to do only four years and hand over to a South easterner in 2015) or any other northerner (who would do eight years and hand the baton over to an Igbo President in 2019).

However, when they saw that the chance of a Babangida presidency was very slim, they decided to cut a deal with Jonathan to take care of Igbo interest, before they could support him. However, ABC Nwosu’s voice was drowned out by an army of court jesters who railroaded the Igbo behind Jonathan, without extracting any promise of even an extra ministerial slot for Ndigbo the government that would emerge after May 29, 2011.
So, long before now, I knew there would be nothing like a PDP Igbo president in 2015 – unless, of course, God decides to personally re-zone it again in 2015 as he did last year.
What I am saying in essence is that Abba-Aji merely said what we all knew already. It is the truth, no matter how bitter it might taste to my Igbo brothers. So, I am sorry to disappoint those who have been sending me text to tackle the presidential adviser. What I get from their stand is: Yes, we’re suffering, but don’t tell us we are suffering.
So, if Ndigbo do not get the presidency in 2015, it would not be because Abba-Aji advised against it. It would also not be because Jonathan hates Ndigbo. It would be because Ndigbo hate themselves and have continued to play only democracy of the stomach. Individual stomach, that is.

That takes me to the issue of the FOI Bill. Now, who out there thinks that it would take an Abba-Aji advice for Jonathan not to sign the bill? The worst Abba-Aji can do is to delay passing it on to Jonathan. But then, Jonathan would have to be in the state that Yar’Adua was as at January last year not to know that the bill has been passed and he’s the one delaying it.

But then, something at the back of my mind tells me that we will never even get there with this bill – not with the Senate now reeling out fresh conditions before they can consider the bill. Meanwhile, is anyone forgetting that this bill actually got to Obasanjo’s desk for accent? Did he not send refuse to sign? Did the National Assembly invoke its statutory power to over-ride the president? No. They took it back and started afresh instead. And after another four years, the Reps have passed it - probably out of anger with a system that betrayed them and is now denying no fewer than 80% of them return ticket.

But the red chamber is a lot more conservative and would not readily rock the boat. They know that even if they are out-manipulated today, it is only a matter of time before they are reabsorbed back and reassigned to one agency or the other to continue partaking in the looting bazaar.

So, I will never join in the celebration of this FOI bill thing until Jonathan signs it. And on the tortuous joining to that signing, I can’t see any hurdle by the name of Abba-Aji. Rather, the huddles I see are in the form of the Senate deciding to cannibalize and vandalize the bill. I see the senior servants and the bureaucracy working to frustrate it. Abba-Aji is no where in the picture, even if he is wont to over-bloat his own relevance.

But there is something instructive in what the Borno politician said about the bill: the establishment does not want the bill to see the light of the day. Abba-Aji only echoed what they are thinking in government circles. Just imagine what would have happened to NNPC and all the other government departments and agencies currently playing hide-and-seek with Senate over their 2011 budget.
So, Abba-Aji did not speak for himself. He spoke for the system in which he operates. He spoke the truth. And the truth, as they say, is very bitter. He is a honest man. And there are not many of his type any where in government.