As they probably would say in Benin streets, Epa Clark has moved on! Epa Clark is no other than Pa Edwin Clark, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s proud godfather.
In the build-up to the election, Pa Clark was all storm and thunder, growling the worst of Armageddon, should his cherished godson not get a presidential anchor.
To be fair, however, it wasn’t a solo show from the old man from Kiagbodo, Delta State. He was only a proud conductor of that fierce South-South orchestra, raucously cheered by its rapturous South East alliance. Re-elect Jonathan — or else!
Well after, it has turned a damp squib — at least from Epa Clark’s front. The old man who carried out his own fair share of the Attahiru Jega demonisation project, in the fond hope perhaps that a more pliable personage could somewhat help a doomed presidential cause, would appear a changed man. The project was simple: whip up a pre-retirement leave campaign, make it gather traction and with that, particularly with the gullible segment of the public, railroad Jega out of office!
O, such halcyon days of electoral and electioneering mischief, when there was no dull moment! But right now, it is all quiet on the Kiagbodo front. Could Epa have had a most stunning conversion on the way to political Damascus? Hardball just wonders!
Well first, after the hurly burly was done and the battle was lost and won (apologies to the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth), Pa Clark declared: he won’t kill himself simply because Jonathan lost an election!
Now, does that remind you of the three witches laughing at the tragic Macbeth’s expense, after the “impossibility” they predicted: Birnam Wood moving to Dunsinane; and a man “not born of woman” had eventually slain Macbeth — Macduff, Macbeth’s conqueror, was strictly not “born of woman”, having come through Caesarean surgery! Talk of the full emptiness of political witchery!
Epa himself must have been stunned by the concrete smoke of his ensemble’s threat; and its stunning instant diffusion, when the chips were down. But even more stunned would have been the presidential godson, at Epa’s virtual disavowal, after his loss.
Well, more was still to come. Epa latterly has been blazing from both sides of the hip, saying how nice his godson had been but how gutless he had been in fighting corruption. But did Pa Clark know all these when he and his lobby threatened the heavens would fall if Jonathan was not re-elected? And if indeed he knew all of these, could he in all good conscience have pushed the election of someone too gutless to rein in corruption, and by corruption, everything was falling apart?
Even if he had prevailed, and things still continued to fall apart — the corruption monster undoing everything — how would he even have looked his godson in the eye, knowing he was far better off outside government? Even now, how would he regard his hurt godson, when next they meet, having said such brutally hard uncomplimentary stuff about him, the godson in whom the Epa was once well pleased?
It’s all in the course of politics! Epa, the godfather, has simply moved on. The poor godson must deal with it!
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