The Yoruba concept of the Abobaku (literally, “fated to die with the king”) came into full dramatic flourish with Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman.
The play is the tragic tale of the Elesin, the pampered king’s horseman who savoured, to the full, the lollies of his calling; but balked at his grim duty — dying with the king!
Though the Elesin sought comfort in the British colonialist, Simon Pilkings’s decision that ritual suicide to “follow the king” was “barbaric”, the Elesin eventually killed himself after his son, riled by his father’s “cowardice”, committed suicide to save the “family honour”.
Elesin’s son was a medical doctor trained in the West — and the big irony was that though he had acquired western exposure, the African ethos in him would appear to run deeper than his father’s. That was double tragedy for one — just because someone tried to evade grim responsibility.
The concept of the Abobaku has come in handy with the behaviour of some top political elite in the South West, in the build up to the March 28 presidential election.
Of the lot, the grim fate of Segun Mimiko, the Ondo governor, is the most dramatic; for despite his huffing-and-puffing, in support of President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term bid, the president lost in Ondo State.
Dr. Mimiko’s war haemorrhaging include, apart from the presidential tally, two senatorial seats (out of three) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and five House of Representatives seats (out of nine).
For the South West coordinator of the Jonathan presidential campaign, that was quite some bleeding. Even more: for an ambitious political personage who even postures at some political force in Yorubaland, if not some alternative Yoruba leadership on the political front, it would appear morning yet on political decline day.
In the words of Thomas Malthus, the Mimiko defeat, given its narrow margin (299, 889 to 251, 368) may well be “arithmetical”. But whether it would signify a geometrical decline in Mimiko’s political fortune is buried in the womb of time. For now, however, the Mimiko magic and cunning appear waning.
Still, Governor Mimiko is a politician. If he “dies” with his principal, he knows, unlike Soyinka’s Elesin, that he rightfully commits “ritual suicide”, in exchange for the rare political lollies he had savoured. Satanically noble!
Junking his Labour Party (LP) — to be sure, an act of political treachery — for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), after all came with great benefits. For one, the Jonathan presidency gifted him the Ondo PDP structure, pitting him against the PDP old guard. As it would later turn out, that would work against his success.
For another, he landed the billion naira South West presidential campaign coordination job — surely another poisoned chalice. Again, between him and the PDP old guard — the very same that stole his LP gubernatorial vote, under theancien regime of the late Olusegun Agagu — opened another battle front. The old guard feel they more eminently deserve the coordination job. Mimiko himself has a swagger and gubernatorial chip on the shoulder. Result: working at cross purposes, which leads to brilliant failure.
Besides, Mimiko as political schizophrenic is quite an exciting sight! By wholesale taking LP to PDP, he became the proverbial bat — neither bird nor mammal. His old LP comrade regard him with contempt. The PDP he wants to take over regard him with resent. Something, of course, would have to give. That would seem to explain why the all-mighty South West coordinator failed to win his own polling unit for his principal!
Still, Mimiko is only a politician who, win or lose, is working hard for the money! Pray, what can otherwise respectable Yoruba, particularly the Afenifere elders, say on their Goodluck Jonathan campaign, curling up snugly in Mimiko’s pseudo-paradise?
Would Jonathan pass as the most brilliant and incisive president Nigeria has ever had? Would he pass as the president who has done the most for the Yoruba nationality, in the context of a federal Nigeria? Would he pass as a moral Palladium, of which Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the avatar of these elderly Awoists, would eternally be proud of?
If the answers to these questions are negative, why would the likes of Pa Ayo Adebanjo, Chief Olu Falae (though a latter-day Awoist), Dr. Femi Okunrounmu and Pa Reuben Fasonranti, the factional Afenifere leader, clamber on the Mimiko gravy train, with hardly any regard for their hard earned reputations?
Why would they, by sheer guilt by association, be mixed up in the atavistic display of Gani Adams’s Odua People’s Congress (OPC), in its shameful invasion of Lagos streets, on behalf of President Jonathan? If Adams, with his rather limited exposure and exaggerated self-importance, does not understand the full implication of his actions, particularly the oil-pipeline-in-exchange-for-muscled-protest, should we say the elders too do not?
Of course, their reason is the Jonathan pledge to, should he win, “implement” the recommendations of the National Conference that he staged, but which recommendations had been gathering dust in his office, until the season of the elections.
But how primed is Jonathan to do that? The implementation requires constitutional amendments; and such amendments require both inputs from the National Assembly and also no less than two-thirds of the legislatures of the 36 states?
No prize for guessing right: the real reason is these gladiators, young and old, callow or wizened, are united in hate and spite against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the APC national leader. Not only that: so searing is the spite that they appear to have assumed Tinubu’s progress in politics automatically translates into their own retrogress.
Well, they are entitled to their choices. But there is something patently unwise in cutting your nose to spite your face. You still get to bear the brunt of the ensuing ugliness!
For starters, the Afenifere grandees, particularly those the late Chief Bola Ige used to call the Ijebu Mafia among them, already bear vicarious, if not real responsibility, for electing into the Senate the controversial Buruji Kashamu, an alleged fugitive from US law.
Now, politics is not about electing popes or saints. But it was exactly because Awo insisted on such rigorous standards, of looking out for saints in the public space, that Awoists developed their swagger in Yoruba politics! So, what would Awo say from his grave by his living apostles’ crass lowering of their own rigorous ethos — and for political convenience as cheap as hating the guts of another?
But back to Mimiko, the chief Abobaku! If after all these his political fortunes head south, it would only teach the lesson that there is a limit to spite, particularly in politics. Since his split with Tinubu, his chief strategy has been intrigue, cunning and spite, to corral primordial advantage. But alas! How long can that last in the politics, which is a marathon?
The eventual victim though, is the Yoruba motherland. A land once known for quality representation in parliament is now open to some riff-raff, simply because some leaders go on ego-tripping.
If the Yoruba must maintain their famed sophistication, though their political parties may differ, there must be a consensus on quality.
NATION
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