Even by Nigerian standards, her rise was nothing short of dizzying.
Literally out of nowhere – no I take that back; from the remote back bench of the House of Representatives, where she had sponsored no Bill, demonstrated nothing that could be called a grasp of parliamentary procedure nor made any memorable speech, Patricia Olubunmi Foluke Etteh was catapulted to Speaker of House, in Nigeria’s pecking order the fourth most powerful person of the Realm, ranking behind the President, the Vice President and the Senate President.
Elected from a federal constituency in Osun in 1999 on the platform of the opposition Alliance for Democracy, she had switched to the ruling PDP, “the biggest political party in Africa” as it called itself then without research, and held her seat in 2003. She won re-election four years later on its platform and succeeded Aminu Bello Masari in June 2007, when the PDP zoned the position to the so-called Southwest, thanks to her powerful sponsors.
I recall the giddy excitement with which she travelled, entourage in tow, from one town to another, mainly in the Southwest, seeking royal blessings and, of course, basking in the accolade of Nigeria’s fourth most powerful person. Among her devoted followers, that was not distinction enough; with the first three in the national pecking order being men, they had to present her as Nigeria’s most powerful woman.
They had luck on their side. The demure First Lady, Turai Yar’Adua, who knew how matters actually stood, allowed them to indulge their conceit. Something tells me that if this had happened during her time in Aso Rock, Dame Patience Faka Jonathan would have summoned the Speaker and warned her solemnly to desist from pressing a claim that bordered on sedition and ordered her to rein in her misguided followers.
The Dame might not even have needed to go that far. A mere expression of disapproval would have done the job. Fear of courting that famous disapproval was the beginning of political wisdom. Ask those who had the temerity not merely to allege but to positively assert that the Chibok girls had indeed been abducted and spirited to places unknown.
Etteh’s political opponents inside and outside the House did not take kindly to her preferment. Aided by the envious, they mocked her modest educational attainments in and out of season. The more polite among them dismissed her as a mere hairdresser; others given to slanderous talk portrayed her as little more than the indigent hair weaver who plied her trade by the roadside.
In vain did she point out that she was a cosmetologist, qualified from one of the finest institutions in the business — in the UK for that matter, not in some Third World backwater, and certainly not from those fly-by-night Internet-based sites that offer training up to the doctoral level in everything from basket-weaving to brain surgery in 20 easy lessons.
Her adversaries remained unmoved even after learning that she had earned a diploma in law from the University of Abuja, with a BSc in political science “in view.” What this phrase meant in practical terms was unclear. It could mean that she intended to enter the programme one day. Or that she was enrolled in the programme and expected to graduate some years down the line.
The sheer elasticity of that term played into her opponents’ hands; they berated and baited and taunted her endlessly. For a while, she mustered enough support within the House and outside the House to maintain what was always a tenuous hold on the Speakership.
In the end, Patricia Etteh’s fall, occasioned by allegations of sleaze, was almost as precipitous as her ascent had been steep. The main charge was that she had unlawfully spent some N620 million – yes, 620 million Naira, not dollars, and not a misprint — in upgrading her official residence, and had awarded the contracts to her cronies.
Today, that figure would have to be in the gazillions to cause a stir in the National Assembly, even if backed by indissoluble evidence of malfeasance pieced together by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Code of Conduct Tribunal over the learned and not-so-learned objections of a trainload of attorneys manipulating every interstice of law and process to prevent the matter from coming to trial.
What a difference two parliamentary sessions make!
To continue: Etteh’s response that the upgrade was not merely for her official residence but for a “cluster of houses” in which her residence and her deputy’s were the main structures did not move her vocal critics who, claiming to constitute the “Integrity Group” within the House of Representatives, demanded her resignation.. Another group, just as vocal in its support for Etteh, registered far less on the scale of probity and conviction.
It all came to a showdown on the House floor, where one Dino Melaye, doubling as Etteh’s personal bodyguard and stalwart of the pro-Etteh group, displayed kick-boxing skills that only the most accomplished mixed martial arts practitioner could have put together at short notice, nevertheless came out of the dust-up with his designer agbada shredded and his nose bloodied.
But it was too little too late. Following several weeks of turmoil in the House, Etteh resigned as Speaker on October 30, 2007. She had been just five months on the job. Having lost her exalted perch, she did not seek re-election and disappeared from the public view.
Speculations were rife that she was away in London taking a refresher course, preparatory to setting up a world-class beauty parlour where she would employ her skills as a cosmetologist to groom only the richest of the rich, with special rates for her former National Assembly colleagues and their spouses.
Slanderers, all.
Etteh was in fact immersed in legal and forensic studies at Buckingham University, in London, alma mater to an impressive list of public figures in Nigeria, among them the late Chris Okolie, Ebenezer “Ebino Topsy” Babatope and Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola.
With the LL.B. of that prestigious university under her belt, she now has the distinction of being the first trained Nigerian cosmetologist and lawyer of any gender. If that title turns out to be disputed, this being Nigeria, she can withal lay unassailable claim to being the first and only female Speaker of the House of Representatives thus far.
Welcome back, Madam Speaker, new and improved, a study in perseverance. Long, long may you wear your hard-won wig and gown.
You have returned to find Dino Melaye, allowing for the Lamborghini and prime real estate holdings in Abuja exactly where you had left him nine years— engaging in the verbal equivalent of mixed martial arts in defending another beleaguered principal, Senator Bukola Saraki, whom he has declared “un-removable”even as Saraki sinks deeper and deeper in the mire of disrepute with each passing day, taking the Senate along as his hostage.
You will also have discovered that in Abuja, untrammelled racketeering is what now passes for law-making.
NATION
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