By Dele Sobowale
“When women have gone a step too far, they will stop at none”. Henry Fielding, 1707-1754. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 280).
Henry Fielding, the author of world classic, TOM JONES, was an excellent writer and the classical “woman wrapper”. So, he knew what he was talking about. For Fielding as for all men, there is an abiding warning - be careful when your woman (wife, running mate, mistress, girl-friend etc) intrudes too much in your business. Irrespective of whether the business is politics or a church or illegal oil bunkering the odds of a happy ending are very long. Conventional wisdom has it that “behind any successful man, there is a woman”. But, conventional wisdom is not history and the verdict of history has not been too kind to conventional wisdom.
Last week, in the first part, I mentioned three women, wives of Heads of States who interfered publicly in governance. One ended well, two ended in tragedy for husband and wife. In fact, the chances of a wife damaging her husbands’ political career, instead of helping it, are higher than two to one. They are more like 1000 to one. To be candid, I have searched in vain for an example of a political career that was saved by a wife jumping publicly into the fray.
From this survey, it is my conclusion that a wife can only help if the public perception of her is very positive and if the citizenry, in general, consider her as a positive influence on her husband. Otherwise, a synergy develops – the President’s or Prime Minister’s real or imagined faults are multiplied by the personal defects or wrong doings of the wife.
Today, in Nigeria, rightly or wrongly, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, the President’s wife, had become branded with two characteristics – none of which can possibly do her or the President any good. First, every governor in Nigeria, even if some will not admit it, must dread the arrival of Mrs. Jonathan in their state capital. After the experiences in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja, where her presence left people literally cursing “whoever is the cause of this” (as I heard co-victims saying on Ikorodu Road when she held Lagos hostage), it is doubtful if anybody in that holdup, people who lost their daily income, missed business or doctors’ appointments etc, will ever want four more years of that nonsense. The Lagos hold-up almost resulted in the premature death of one of my friends – until he called his doctor who gave him an emergency prescription on the phone!! He will never forget Mrs Jonathan; so will millions of others.
Second, she might have forgotten, but few Nigerians will forget the bundle of lies Nigerians were fed during her prolonged illness abroad – which must have emptied the national treasury of undisclosed sum. When she finally chose to tell the “truth”, it was followed by an extravagant “Thanksgiving” (more like fund raising) Service into which more millions were thrown.
Prince Philip, the Queen of England’s husband was discharged from the hospital recently and his return home called for no more than handshakes from the hospital staff and his official assistants. His wife, the Queen, is more powerful than any Nigerian President. But, he knows that Britain is struggling with economic recession and the masses are suffering. The difference is clear.
Whether Jonathan likes it or not, Mrs Jonathan has become a 2015 campaign issue. And from my point of view, it is an issue which might cost the President millions of votes. The choice is his. Or is it hers?
ASUU AGAIN? ARE NIGERIAN STUDENTS TAUGHT BY DULLARDS? 2
Last week, you were treated to part of a column written in June 2013 predicting another ASUU strike. The current one is the second since 2011. Read what was written in 2011 and send me a bottle of Gulder for accuracy of prediction.
POWER LIES
Protest: Residents of Sakpoba/Dumez Road protesting “No light for six months” at PHCN Office, Benin City. Picture in Vanguard, August 21, 2013, p 7.
One funny fellow, who claims to be living near Brig-Gen. Ogbemudia, had been telling me lies about power supply in Benin – which according to him averages 18 hours a day. I had visited Benin at least twelve times this year, and there is a Vanguard Office there. I know this Jonathan supporter will be exposed eventually. He still has not told me how less than 4,000MW generated can provide all of Nigeria with 18 hours supply everyday. Jonathan’s supporter indeed. By their reasoning we know them. Certainly, he will try to wriggle out of the lie again. With “supporters” like these…
“ROPE A DOPE – ASUU – 4
“We do not know whether there is a special way of passing this Bill that had been begging for attention for years. We also doubt if the lawmakers were equally sensitive to what the non-implementation of the said agreement [emphasis mine] had caused the academic community, students and parents and what it would cause them in the future”.
Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie, President ASUU, lamenting the delay in passing the Bill arising from the agreement reached with the Federal government in 2009.
“It is unthinkable that wisdom should ever be popular”.
Goethe, 1749-1832.
Fuel queues are back; your wife is probably still searching for kerosene; power supply had reversed back to one hour a day. A guy seats in Aso Rock enjoying the “breath of fresh air” which his “rope a dope” strategy has yielded. I dey laugh O!!!
Commonsense is not common. If there is anything funnier than the “rope a dope” strategy, it’s the new twist. You would think Professors and Senior Lecturers in our universities are intelligent; that they could not be fooled. Well, you are half right. They are mostly intelligent; but also mostly not wise. A good lot of the world’s catastrophes had been caused by “egg-heads”.
David Halberstam, in his book THE BRIGHTEST AND THE BEST, the best chronicle of the American misadventure in Viet Nam, had called the policymakers and top military brass, who produced the debacle, “intelligent but not wise”. Back in 1974, when I was reading the book, it had not registered in my mind that someone can be intelligent and not wise. Now I know. Of all the definitions of wisdom, John Milton’s, 1608-1674, is the most apt for this column. According to him:
“To know/That which before us lies in daily life/Is the prime wisdom/ What is more is fume”. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, p 275). Wisdom, is never taught in schools; it is learnt from experience, open mindedness and providential intuition; from being truthful to oneself all the time and not compromising with the truth – however unpleasant. When ASUU reached the 2009 “agreement” with the Yar’Adua-Jonathan administration, the two sides compromised heavily on the truth.
ASUU is now left holding the empty bag. As this piece is being written on June 3, 2011, the Sixth National Assembly had gone into history without passing the Bill. Yet, if the discussion between some of my friends in academia is a reflection of what others did on election days, they also “voted for Jonathan not PDP”. In the end, Jonathan and PDP had colluded to break the agreement entered into in 2009 to get ASUU back to the classroom. That self-deception on the part of highly intelligent people is bad enough.
A look at the composition of the present National Assembly reveals that except for the mini-tsunami in the Southwest, the PDP had again been overwhelmingly re-elected nationwide by people who deceived themselves that they “voted Jonathan not PDP”. Was Jonathan running for Senate, House of Representatives and Governor everywhere?
ASUU members, who might find themselves back in the trenches, can now ask themselves if they were honest with themselves and other stakeholders by keeping quiet until it is too late. To be quite blunt, did they actually expect Jonathan and the PDP to keep their promises? If not, why the self-deceit especially when it is now clear that the calamity Professor Awuzie predicts would come to pass for Nigeria’s education sector? ASUU is now threatening to go on strike again. A lot of sense that makes!! That’s like bolting the gate after all the chicken have fled.
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