When I opened what has turned out here to be a justifiable debate on the Adamawa gubernatorial problem, I never believed that it would be this prolonged. More than several readers, even from the diaspora, were in touch with me in diverse ways. Those whose views or opinions that saw daylight here were readers who essentially were ferociously ferocious in their arguments, which they expressed with the courageous courage of their conviction that is their conviction. Even those who wanted me to respect the conceptual anonymousness of the nobility of their thoughts were obeyed and favoured particularly from the perspective of the journalistic morality of the columnist who apparently is never prepared to wreak and wreck the healthy physiological and psychological relationship with his readers – whether they disagree or agree with him or not.
Clearly, I went to Adamawa not because I belong to any political party there or outside there; not because I am in partisan sympathy .with the dramatis personae of the leading parties there; not because Governor Fintiri of the PDP and Senator Binani of the APC who was prepared (and is still prepared) to occupy the Adamawa government house were/are useful to me in any way. I went to Adamawa because what played out there in the gubernatorial election was simply offensive to the main nuance and ounce of democracy. And the contradiction which INEC birthed there will remain an undemocratic plague that is an undemocratic plague.
The Adamawa problem which rightly or justifiably can be called a loud problem INEC created and which it undemocratically tried to address and fastidiously for that matter – has thrown light particularly on the immorality of our male chauvinists towards our womenfolk. The democratic bias against our women was glaringly demonstrated in Adamawa. The Supreme Spiritual Masters of Merit gave me an essential insight into this, but I must run my nib with cautious caution granted me in the spiritual realm – not out of fear, but out of concern as a spiritual leader for the moral genealogy of our democratic circumstance – if I must echo Nietzsche to suit my spiritual temper and nobility of simple thoughts.
In the persuasive rational and psychologically tenable argument on the Adamawa loud problem which is gradually becoming a silent volcano of very muddy mud on account of the presidential election tribunal which is arousing the interests of our respective character peculiarities, Professor Ibrahim Bello-Kano dismissed the highly rationally useful, valuable and valid claim of Professor Ademola Da Sylva, his debating intellectual soul-mate. Professor IBK requested a “third reader, one with the requisite ‘interestedness,’ one way or another” to offer an opinion on the matter, or, better stated, on the kernel of their debate. I offer myself as a “third reader,” debater and umpire all in one who should appear here as one who is rationally rational and valuably valuable in the utmost degree.
I begin my disagreement with Professor IBK by stating that his claim that Binani is bereft of the required intellect or intelligence to lead Adamawa as governor is speciously specious and it goes against the grain of the information at my disposal. More importantly, his is the view or opinion of a male chauvinist from a region that rejects any and every idea of a feminist monarchy and feminist chieftaincy which Binani, the daring and courageous woman of guts, represents. IBK was merely putting forward the argument of his region’s aristocratic, undemocratic high-minded male privileged and derogatory rejection of the womenfolk, which is anti-woman-kind and anti-human-kind.
“The havoc this prejudice can wreak, once it is unbridled to the point of hatred, particularly for morality and history,” to employ Nietzsche’s words, can be better imagined than described. President Buhari who rejected Binani’s route to real political power in Adamawa is not intellectually and cannot be intellectually better than Binani as the president’s conceptual transformation of this country in social, political, economic and educational terms has glaringly shown. In any case, Buhari’s rejection of Binani is apparently in line with IBK’s anti-women prejudice. Binani’s error in invoking her party’s leader’s acceptance of her in her strategically-unripe and flawed gubernatorial acceptance speech, either originated from her hubris or from her strategic misunderstanding of the moral genealogy of her president, our president, who told us a number of times that his wife’s place in his presidency and Aso Rock was/is either in the kitchen or in the bedroom – as a matter of fact, in both.
Binani and her strategists were/are not clever enough to know that Aisha is not to Buhari what Abigail was to John Adams, the first Vice President of the United States and the second United States President (from March 4, 1797 to March 3, 1801) of this fabulously fabulous and stupendously stupendous country that has been leading the world in many areas since its foundation. John Adams hearkened to his wife Abigail who protested against those who denied women their rights in America. Through her, John Adams remembered to do what must be done to “remember the ladies in America.” He generously and rationally, as an utmost political philosopher and statesman, recognised women’s civil, ethical and political rights which Buhari and his presidencynologists have stunningly denied Binani.
The point I am advancing may make me a male suffragist. But what does it matter? I have read and seen a number of feminist manifestos outside our shores. I have been captivated and captured by their positive sentiments on behalf of our Binanis. On this issue we must reject Nietzsche’s quote thus: “The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason, he wants women, as the most dangerous plaything.” Maybe IBK and Buhari share this sentiment in more ways than we know despite IBKI’s rational recoiling, as we well know, from Buhari’s essential morality- or immorality.
Now the popular sentiment in the open which we fastidiously cling to is that the Adamawa REC called Huduwore, allegedly, the hood of corruption to damn the consequences and gave, “illegally,” Adamawa gubernatorial victory to Binani. The slogan and catch-phrase related to his performance as Resident Electoral Commissioner, are absolutely assimilated with his sense of extraordinary greed linked to his un-substantiated collection of two billion naira from Binani’s camp and strategists. Hudu the hooded one who vanished when everyone wanted his head for brutalisation, has since voluntarily surfaced to state his story. Every one of us with an open mind should read The Nation of Sunday, April 30, 2023 (page 4).
I won’t do a summary of his story for anyone. Go read it and form your opinion objectively. You may discover that everything we must have perceived about him is an illusion, not the reality we wish or seek. Everything we smell well or not that well about the rightly or un-rightly pro-Binani and pro-truth or camouflaging REC, is an aroma of a wishful good or of an un-wishful un-good. Apparently, his distancing himself from his bosses’ or superiors’ right to smuggle questionable Adamawa gubernatorial results into a server-less server of INEC throws a harsh light of criminality on the contradictions and uncertainties of INEC whose moral situation is not unambiguous. Maybe at the end of the day, this umpire has misread, or has misinterpreted and misjudged the Adamawa event and our horrible INEC and its horrible REC who is valiantly on the side of our feminists!
Now let’s give a pause to the debate. Give me the right and privilege to the last remark; give me the right and privilege to the last utterance; give me the right and privilege to the last word – for now. Thanks, my readers. Thanks, DAO. Thanks, IBK. Thanks, Owojecho Omoha. But Professor Sonny Awefeada of Delta State University, who like IBK, Suyi Ayodele, Tuesday columnist of Nigerian Tribune, wants the debate to continue in order for more facts to be unearthed, may not be happy with the pause. I appreciate your controlled gush and gust.
As Nelson Mandela said long ago, “Fools multiply when wise men are silent.” But we must pause until we hear new truths and facts that change our perspective(s) dramatically. I have alluded to Nietzsche again. The umpire, who is this columnist, has the last word. He has not misread or misinterpreted or misjudged the thoughts of his readers as we watch with great care developments in our country. And he is not going to mouth-cuff our debaters. They shall be quoted again and again and again verbatim and in-to-to in no distant time.
Prof. Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.
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