In defence of Festus Odimegwu

Whoever doubts him is high on something more hallucinating than 12 green bottles or they are doped on President Jones’s Transformation Agenda. With a projected population of 170 million, sixty percent of Naija citizens are aged between 15 and 64 years. Yet, our nation is thirsting for fresh blood as antidote to the official recruitment […]

Whoever doubts him is high on something more hallucinating than 12 green bottles or they are doped on President Jones’s Transformation Agenda. With a projected population of 170 million, sixty percent of Naija citizens are aged between 15 and 64 years. Yet, our nation is thirsting for fresh blood as antidote to the official recruitment policy governed by the Recycling Agenda.
The lack of fresh ideas in governance is responsible for the poisonous effluvia beclouding governance. Daily, our yearnings parody Pete Seeger’s classic, asking – where have all fresh ideas gone? A nation of 170 million ought to be marching forward with the same ideas that make Europe and America the destination dream of every egghead.
The last time I checked, the chairman of the ruining party is an 80-year-old recycled police officer whose track record in public service and capacity to escape justice with impunity earned him the sobriquet of Mr. Fix It. This localized democrat has served every government (military or civilian) since Shamgar the son of Anat abandoned his sinatorial ambition to become president. At the last census, his state produced 3 million citizens.
On the Plateau Da Jonah David Jang’sdeity is a master rigger and sustainer of mathe-matical manipulation. In this man’s calculator, 16 is greater than 19. Yet, he has served in two states as military governor and today sits as leader of a state that is 3.1 million strong according to the doctrine of Makama’s mathematics. Jang’s elder brother in Adamawa, Murtala Nyakoonce served as military governor and rose to the peak of his naval career. He sits over a state yearning for transformation. What transformation is Martin Elechi producing in Ebonyi? Experience is irreplaceable but our ruining party recycles those who fail at winning the people’s confidence at the polls. Musiliu Obanikoro became an ambassador after failing a governorship bid. Richard Akinjide’s daughter lost a sinatorial bid to become a minister.
The ruining party is a generous one, which assures its candidate of a win-win situation. Its best qualification for selection is a record of gross ineptitude, squandermania and capacity to rankle the citizenry. Those who squander looted funds in their selfish electoral ambitions are rewarded with ministerial, ambassadorial or board membership of publicly funded institutions. Ex-convicts become board members of universities. Failed inspector generals are appointed as head of police service commission.
Only a country that has run out of fresh blood and fresh ideas recycle tired brains the way we do. In other climes, those who have served their nation well return to the ivory tower to mentor young blood. That way, their track record of excellence in service is cloned as perpetual legacy while a country lacking in suffi-ciency recycles tired bones.
This nation is a graveyard of ideas and a cemetery of innovation. Those who must make names must find shelter away from our shores to distant lands where their thoughts and inventive minds can grow into maturation even if their final ideas are bought for a mesh and recycled into the global bank of intellectual acreage. Often, they get just a casual mention.
I am thinking of so many – from football stars whose dexterity on the field of play is sacrificed on the altar of an inequitable quota system. The Jelani Aliyus, musical artists, accomplished professionals whose last link to home are the vestiges of their names if they bear local ones. Only weeks ago, Aliyu Pate, an accomplished doctor of internal medicine and infectious diseases abandoned ship as a health minister for a research chair in an American university. His state and indeed his nation need his services; his resignation calls for national introspection but we carry on with impunity.
Ask anyone from Osun State what contribution Olagunsoye Oyinlola made as governor of the state before the courts kicked him out. With his background as military administrator, what changes did he bring to Wahala Plaza? Yet, he spent resources fighting to stay glued on as scribe. A country of 170 million has no room for public office daydreamers. Public office, even at the party level ought to be competitive and allotted based on fresh ideas and a track record of service excellence.
Given all these, how can anyone fault Festus Odimegwu’s declaration and turn it into a political football. In a country with ideas, Odimegwu, who had an impeccable record of excellence in private sector business management, ought to be teaching success principles in the business department of a futuristic university, not rewarded with government handout as board chairman.
His appointment into such a sensitive position for which he had no prior qualification or expertise is another pointer to how we sacrifice expertise for political expediency like the fool who is always thirsty in the midst of water.