Connect with us

Opinion

O Godwin, How Art Thou Fallen?

Published

on

By Femi Fani-Kayode

O Godwin, where are your backers, protectors and soldiers today? You enjoyed the ride and thought it would last forever. Yet now its all over.The hunter has become the hunted and the tormentor has become the tormented.

The troubler of Nigeria is now the troubled and the source of our collective pain and tears will himself feel pain and shed tears.

How great and mighty is our God and how faithful He is to His promise and to His word.

O Godwin, with your cheap green tie, fading suit and wry smile you poked your greedy, grubby little fingers into Nigeria’s eye.

Like a drunken sailor and feckless dullard you boasted of your strength and wielded power with impunity as if there were no tomorrow.

Now reality has hit you in the face and you stand shamed, bowed, bloodied and naked before the world. You caused the death of many. You made men and women take their own lives.

You caused mothers and fathers to regret having their children. You caused Nigerians to strip themselves naked in public places and rant, rave and lament about their suffering and hardship.

You caused women to weep for their men and men to weep for their women. You caused millions to lose their self-esteem, self-respect and dignity and to sell their souls to Satan to make ends meet.

You brought a great and mighty nation to its knees and turned 220 million proud, hardworking and noble people into powerless, pitiful and grovelling paupers and beggars.

You caused law-abiding, loving and dutiful youths to turn into violent arsonists, terrorists and subversives out of despair, anger and frustration.

You caused men and women to burn down banks and public buildings and you caused Nigerians to lose their life’s savings, beg for bread and walk the streets penniless with no more than 200 naira in their pockets and to their names.

O Godwin, son of Emefiele, like Lucifer Son of the Dawn, you have finally fallen.

Like your father Beelzebub, you have been thrown out of heaven and now comes your judgement.

Misery, suffering, torment, tragedy, prison, the sulphur pits of Gehena and the raging fires of hell await you for the great evil that you wrought against our nation and our people.

You turned a resilient, hardworking and enterprising people into one of hopelessness, despair and desperation.

You turned a nation of achievers and giants into a country of fickle, feckless and hungry dwarfs.

You turned a courageous, resilient and loving people who have excelled in every field of human endeavour and in every part of the civilised world to a nation of never do wells and failures with no self-respect and no dignity.

You caused men and women to curse God and pray for their own death out of disgrace and despair. You caused millions to question their faith and the very existence of God as a consequence of their misery and suffering.

You made us the laughing stock of the world. You castrated Nigeria, wounded our souls, maimed and subverted our democracy, undermined our security, humiliated and disgraced our leaders, taunted and mocked our incoming President and sent many innocent souls to an early grave.

You shattered many dreams, broke many hearts and caused many to perish and die before their time. Protected by corrupt and evil men and goaded on by a power-obsessed cabal of sick, sadistic and evil monsters and tyrants, you thought you owned Nigeria and even had the nerve to attempt to run for the Presidency.

You thought our nation was for sale and you believed that satan ruled in the affairs of men.

Yet millions prayed for your downfall and removal. Millions more are praying for your detention, investigation, incarceration and bitter end.

Never has a man been more hated in our entire history as the hateful, merciless, callous, wicked, treasonous and treacherous tyrant and traitor that goes by your name.

You believed that money was greater than God and you thought that your repugnant and villanous reign would never end.

O Godwin, I have never wished a man ill in my entire life but in your case I make an exception.

May your pathway be filled with sharp thorns, the horrors of the night and pain and may the Angel of the Lord pursue you along a dark and slippery path.

May your story and end be a graphic example and instructive reminder to the evil and wicked that man is nothing before God, that earthly power is ephemeral and transient, that all power belongs to the Living God and that the Lord alone rules in the affairs of men and forges the destiny of nations.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Opinion

Rivers Crisis: A Note of Caution by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan

Published

on

By

I am aware that the local government election taking place in Rivers State today, October 5, has been a subject of great interest to political actors.

The political happenings in Rivers State in the past days is a cause for serious concern for everyone, especially lovers of democracy and all actors within the peace and security sector of our nation.

Elections are the cornerstone of democracy because they are the primary source of legitimacy. This process renews the faith of citizens in their country as it affords them the opportunity to have a say on who governs them.

Every election is significant, whether at national or sub-national levels as it counts as a gain and honour to democracy.

It is the responsibility of all stakeholders, especially state institutions, to work towards the promotion of sound democratic culture of which periodic election stands as a noble virtue.

Democracy is our collective asset, its growth and progress is dependent on governments commitment to uphold the rule of law and pursue the interest of peace and justice at all times.

Institutions of the state, especially security agencies must refrain from actions that could lead to breakdown of law and order.

Rivers State represents the gateway to the Niger Delta and threat to peace in the state could have huge security implications in the region.

Let me sound a note of caution to all political actors in this crisis to be circumspect and patriotic in the pursuit of their political ambition and relevance.

I am calling on the National Judicial Commission (NJC) to take action that will curb the proliferation of court orders and judgements, especially those of concurrent jurisdiction giving conflicting orders. This, if not checked, will ridicule the institution of the judiciary and derail our democracy.

The political situation in Rivers State, mirrors our past, the crisis of the Old Western Region. I, therefore, warn that Rivers should not be used as crystal that will form the block that will collapse our democracy.

State institutions especially the police and the judiciary and all other stakeholders must always work for public interest and promote common good such as peace, justice and equality.

– GEJ

Continue Reading

Opinion

The End of a Political Party

Published

on

By

By Obianuju Kanu-Ogoko

It is deeply alarming and shameful to witness an elected official of an opposition party openly calling for the continuation of President Tinubu’s administration. This blatant betrayal goes against the very essence of democratic opposition and makes a mockery of the values the PDP is supposed to stand for.

Even more concerning is the deafening silence from North Central leadership. This silence comes at a price—For the funneled $3 million to buy off the courts for one of their Leaders’, the NC has compromised integrity, ensuring that any potential challenge is conveniently quashed. Such actions reveal a deeply compromised leadership, one that no longer stands for the people but for personal gain.

When a member of a political party publicly supports the ruling party, it raises the critical question: Who is truly standing for the PDP? When a Minister publicly insulted PDP and said that he is standing with the President, and you did nothing; why won’t others blatantly insult the party? Only under the Watch of this NWC has PDP been so ridiculed to the gutters. Where is the opposition we so desperately need in this time of political crisis? It is a betrayal of trust, of principles and of the party’s very foundation.

The leadership of this party has failed woefully. You have turned the PDP into a laughing stock, a hollow shell of what it once was. No political party with any credibility or integrity will even consider aligning or merging with the PDP at this rate. The decay runs deep and the shame is monumental.

WHAT A DISGRACE!

Continue Reading

Opinion

Day Dele Momodu Made Me Live Above My Means

Published

on

By

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

These are dangerous days of gross shamelessness in totalitarian Nigeria.
Pathetic flaunting of clannish power is all the rage, and a good number of supposedly modern-day Nigerians have thrown their brains into the primordial ring.

One pathetic character came to me the other day stressing that the only way I can prove to him that I am not an ethnic bigot is to write an article attacking Dele Momodu!

I could not make any head or tail of the bloke’s proposition because I did not understand how ethnic bigotry can come up in an issue concerning Dele Momodu and my poor self.

The dotty guy made the further elaboration that I stand accused of turning into a “philosopher of the right” instead of supporting the government of the day which belongs to the left!

A toast to Karl Marx in presidential jet and presidential yacht!

I nearly expired with laughter as I remembered how one fat kept man who spells his surname as “San” (for Senior Advocate of Nigeria – SAN) wrote a wretched piece on me as an ethnic bigot and compelled one boozy rascal that dubiously studied law in my time at Great Ife to put it on my Facebook wall!

The excited tribesmen of Nigerian democracy and their giddy slaves have been greased to use attack as the first aspect of defence by calling all dissenting voices “ethnic bigots” as balm on their rotted consciences.

The bloke urging me to attack Dele Momodu was saddened when he learnt that I regarded the Ovation publisher as “my brother”!

Even amid the strange doings in Nigeria of the moment I can still count on some famous brothers who have not denied me such as Senator Babafemi Ojudu who privileged me to read his soon-to-be-published memoir as a fellow Guerrilla Journalist, and the lionized actor Richard Mofe-Damijo (RMD) who while on a recent film project in faraway Canada made my professor cousin over there to know that “Uzor is my brother!”

It is now incumbent on me to tell the world of the day that Dele Momodu made me live above my means.

All the court jesters, toadies, fawners, bootlickers and ill-assorted jobbers and hirelings put together can never be renewed with enough palliatives to countermand my respect for Dele Momodu who once told our friend in London who was boasting that he was chased out of Nigeria by General Babangida because of his activism: “Babangida did not chase you out of Nigeria. You found love with an oyinbo woman and followed her to London. Leave Babangida out of the matter!”

Dele Momodu takes his writing seriously, and does let me have a look at his manuscripts – even the one written on his presidential campaign by his campaign manager.

Unlike most Nigerians who are given to half measures, Dele Momodu writes so well and insists on having different fresh eyes to look at his works.

It was a sunny day in Lagos that I got a call from the Ovation publisher that I should stand by to do some work on a biography he was about to publish.

He warned me that I have only one day to do the work, and I replied him that I was raring to go because I love impossible challenges.

The manuscript of the biography hit my email in fast seconds, and before I could say Bob Dee a fat alert burst my spare bank account!

Being a ragged-trousered philanthropist, a la the title of Robert Tressel’s proletarian novel, I protested to Dele that it’s only beer money I needed but, kind and ever rendering soul that he is, he would not hear of it.

I went to Lagos Country Club, Ikeja and sacked my young brother, Vitus Akudinobi, from his office in the club so that I can concentrate fully on the work.

Many phone calls came my way, and I told my friends to go to my divine watering-hole to wait for me there and eat and drink all that they wanted because “money is not my problem!”

More calls came from my guys and their groupies asking for all makes of booze, isiewu, nkwobi and the assorted lots, and I asked them to continue to have a ball in my absence, that I would join them later to pick up the bill!

The many friends of the poor poet were astonished at the new-fangled wealth and confidence of the new member of the idle rich class!

It was a beautiful read that Dele Momodu had on offer, and by late evening I had read the entire book, and done some minor editing here and there.

It was then up to me to conclude the task by doing routine editing – or adding “style” as Tom Sawyer would tell his buddy Huckleberry Finn in the eponymous adventure books of Mark Twain.

I chose the style option, and I was indeed in my elements, enjoying all aspects of the book until it was getting to ten in the night, and my partying friends were frantically calling for my appearance.

I was totally satisfied with my effort such that I felt proud pressing the “Send” button on my laptop for onward transmission to Dele Momodu’s email.

I then rushed to the restaurant where my friends were waiting for me, and I had hardly settled down when one of Dele’s assistants called to say that there were some issues with the script I sent!

I had to perforce reopen up my computer in the bar, and I could not immediately fathom which of the saved copies happened to be the real deal.

One then remembered that there were tell-tale signs when the computer kept warning that I was putting too much on the clipboard or whatever.

It’s such a downer that after feeling so high that one had done the best possible work only to be left with the words of James Hadley Chase in The Sucker Punch: “It’s only when a guy gets full of confidence that he’s wide open for the sucker punch.”
Lesson learnt: keep it simple – even if you have been made to live above your means by Dele Momodu!

To end, how can a wannabe state agent and government apologist, a hired askari, hope to get me to write an article against a brother who has done me no harm whatsoever? Mba!

I admire Dele Momodu immensely for his courage of conviction to tell truth to power.

Continue Reading

Trending