GANI ADAMS BY GBENGA TAYLOR

How do one dub Gani Adam’s visit to the Nigerian Embassy in Xenophobic infested country of South Africa and the ‘warm’ reception given the OPC National coordinator by the Nigeria Ambassador to South Africa?

Could it be dubbed as an august and auspicious visit or dubious and suspicious move?

Well, much as the visit is in solidarity to the concerns of the Nigerian people affected by the somewhat cruel and irrational xenophobic attacks visited on foreigners by some emotive South Africans, such visit and the attendant grand reception that followed it show how ‘tattered’ the Nigerian foreign affairs had become under the administration of the current but outgoing government of Nigeria that has failed to provide the needed direction and leadership for the nation’s foreign affairs.

The visit of OPC leadership to South Africa under the guise of providing solidarity for and with Nigerians in South Africa in view of the ongoing xenophobic attacks on foreigners in that country portrays Nigeria as a country that would rather promote and encourage some militias and if not social misfits, nay, miscreants to undertake the country’s causes and defend the concerns of the citizenry in some ways. That’s sort of giving legitimacy to illegality.

That’s one of the unfortunate signals this somewhat ‘good’ visit sends to the rest of global community and world leaders across the globe.

Wished Gani’s visit and his comment in South Africa had not become a major news and had been treated as one of those common and/or causal visits by any and every other but ordinary Nigerian to their foreign High Commission(ers) abroad. So sad that this auspicious but suspicious event had become news worthy, carried by both local and foreign media outfits, especially the mainstream news reporting organisations.

To feign that the world does not know who Gani is and what OPC has somewhat come to represent in recent time and particularly in Nigeria is to play the ostrich.

Truth is, there’s an unsavory way Gani and the socio-cultural group he leads are viewed and perceived by people both within the country and the outside world.

Sorry to say that most, if not all groups within the category of OPC are almost viewed alike and judged, if not entirely dubbed as militias.

Today’s OPC and judging it by some of its past and recent activities within the Nigerian body polity can well be lumped alongside militia groups like MASSOP, Bakasi Boys, Niger-Delta Militia Force and others talking arms against the State in the name of fighting for their ‘rights and justice’.

Sorry to note that Gani is somewhat placed on the same pedestal as Asari Dokubo, Tompolo and if not same as Shekau, the leader of the Islamic terror sect called Boko Haram – though he (Gani Adams) has not frontally picked arm against the State but it would be mincing the truth to say that Gani and OPC do not have such capacity and/or capability to undertake such (mis)adventure. Pray such never manifest at this time and in this space. Amen!!! Lols

If this perception of Gani and OPC is true, then his visit is more of disservice not particularly to himself or his group but the national and collective interests of Nigeria and Nigerian people both at home and abroad.

Gani’s visit could well be (mis)construed to mean that this government and by extension, the Nigeria people are supporting and indeed sending homegrown militias (leaders and groups) to ‘warn’ and ‘threaten’ outsiders to beware and in fact be warned of whatever inactions being directed and targeted at Nigerians living and residing outside the boarders of Nigeria.

Methinks the handlers of Nigerian foreign affairs should know how to manage the nation’s affairs when it comes to international relations. Such management must and indeed include the pre and possible fall out of some actions and events taken by certain individuals and some institutional bodies with the Nigeria appellation and brands.

Perception, they say is everything and how the world perceives this visit and by extension the entire nation of Nigeria is a concern to the discernings.

The nation should not by its somewhat docile government and through the somewhat harmless but grossly damaging inactions of its citizens portray the country as bed of and breeding ground for militias and social miscreants.

Egalitarian society must and should encourage and indeed spur on individuals of good social and moral characters to undertake its causes and concerns whenever and wherever, bearing in mind the positive cascading effects of the good standing of such individuals on others within and outside its shores.

This and more is expected and demanded of the handlers and leaders of this country, my country – Nigeria!!!