Shame is overrated when you’re in power

If you are a Nigerian and has ever been rightfully accused, prosecuted or persecuted for something wrong that you did, we are sorry, please forgive us. Life is changing and so are Nigeria’s rule of engagement. That which was once the subject of shame is now more or less a garland of honour depending on […]

If you are a Nigerian and has ever been rightfully accused, prosecuted or persecuted for something wrong that you did, we are sorry, please forgive us. Life is changing and so are Nigeria’s rule of engagement. That which was once the subject of shame is now more or less a garland of honour depending on your proximity to power at the centre. Time and space would not permit us to go into details of this social evolution, suffice to say that, they range from words changing classification to alternating meanings to include premeditated criminalities. 

In the political spectrum of Nigeria, shame is overrated. The concept of right or wrong is going into extinction like Esperanto. On these pages, we had discussions on the miraculous life story of our beloved president, Bola Ahmed “Adekunle” Tinubu. His political trajectory is well chronicled and appreciated by his many supporters, the curriculum vitae he presents to the general public qualifies him as an enigma wrapped in a conundrum. 

This is why nobody in their political rockers should question our president’s personal details. He is not obliged to share them with the rest of the Joneses having presented it to chieftains of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to be made Lagos State governor. When he infused it into the chemical components of the All Progressives Congress (APC), he got a seal of approval that earned him the presidential slot. By the calculation of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) votes, he won the presidency of Africa’s most populous nation making him the standard by which other Nigerians are measured as long as he is addressed as the President.

Lately, our president failed to convince an American judge to keep his personal records classified from his political arch-rival, Atiku Abubakar. The presiding judge was so unimpressed with the request, that he cautioned Tinubu to stay clear of his court henceforth. 

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In reality, our president is not afraid of his shadows; those things would follow us wherever there is light and disappear in the darkness defying any court orders to do otherwise. Our president is uncomfortable revealing his personal details to Atiku, an arch-rival described by his enemies as a sore loser wielding magnifying glasses in search for evidence of Tinubu’s possible genetic modification to stave off the guilt of a sore loss. 

Atiku, a man of faith, forgets that God works in mysterious ways and that a man born with male features could turn out to be neither male nor female. In the world where gender acronyms are evolving, only Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is able to keep tab.

Atiku’s lawyers would like us to believe that Bola A. Tinubu that attended the Chicago State University (CSU) is female while the one who graduated is male. It’s the conundrum of hitting a delete button and using a white-out fluid to fix errors. Tinubu’s friends say these things don’t matter? They depose that the current occupant of Aso Rock was a senator, two-term Lagos State governor, super political godfather and now president of Nigeria elected on the slogan of renewed hope. As husband, he is blessed with children to prove his masculinity while his current wife, a ranking former senator is Pastor Oluremi Tinubu. Tinubu’s friends say this is all that matters.

Atiku, a university proprietor, wants to expose Tinubu’s CSU certificate as fake. Before eyes moved to the back of the head, that was enough to disqualify a president. It was called fraud. Not anymore. 

Indeed, for many of us whose only contact with American sophistry is through videos and literature, it is educating realising that American diplomas are only symbolic. They could be altered by any Oluwole artist in that suburb of Lagos fancy imitates fact. If you had a creative mind, you could design an American diploma (or the lack of one) to suit your imagination. And there goes all the explanation needed to defend Tinubu’s redesigning of his American college diploma.

An American court official even explained to the rest of the world that forging certificates is ‘a Nigerian thing’. Now, if you are Dr Oluyinka Olutoye, the famous Nigerian-born and educated American surgeon that made headlines for a pioneer invasive surgery on an unborn baby, this generalisation could make you drop a scalpel. But politics is not surgery and nobody should lose sleep just because the president of Nigeria is accused of forgery. These things have no bearing on the ability of a Nigerian president to pursue operation renew hope.

If you were on the list of the 43 Nigeria-trained nurses under scrutiny for certificate forgery in America, you must be afraid. In America, nurses are prevented from inventing certificates, nursing pedigree, unlike Nigerian politics, cannot be politically transfused. 

President Tinubu has not injected a life-saving infusion into Nigeria’s debilitating socio-economic ailments, but he has promised to do so and his friends say we should count on it. At any rate, any Nigerian trying to use the educational route to escape the harsh realities of our climes to the UK must have more than their admission letters and visas as entry requirements. 

They must pass spontaneous oral examinations set by Charlie’s Customs to verify that they are actually knowledgeable about their proposed course of study. Their clearance examiners need not be experts or qualified examiners – just ID cards as HM’s agents. In addition to breaking SAT records, prospective education migrants would do well to update their records of the ever-changing resume of their president. Having the knowledge of the exact date, time and circumstances leading to the addition of ‘Adekunle’ to Tinubu’s Wikipedia profile would be added advantage. 

Nobody should attribute these ridiculous discriminations to Tinubu’s blissful travails. They are mere coincidental repercussions that could be obliterated with a presidential visit to Buckingham Palace. After all, it worked with King Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE. 

If anybody is worried that they might be subjected to the 80s era of being strip-searched at global points of entry, they should be comforted because President Tinubu is building a new Nigeria; one that shows its full potential in mercurial exchange rates, the resurgence of insecurity and wanton disrespect to lives and property among others. 

Nobody in their Tinubu senses should forget to blame Atiku Abubakar for bringing the image of Nigeria into disrepute with his persistent litigation aimed at air-drying Tinubu’s dirty linens in public. Atiku was in Aso Rock for eight years as Obasanjo’s deputy and Tinubu’s supporters would like to ask what he forgot in Aso Rock that he wants so desperately to retrieve. Observers should count two birth dates, attending a school before it was established as exclusive miracles granted to Tinubu.

If Atiku had left Tinubu to his well-earned and politically-protected secrets, Nigeria could have been spared the global shame, ridicule and odium to which his persistence has subjected the country and its citizens. That is what Tinubu supporters would want us to stick to and who are we not to listen to them. As IBB once said – Tinubu is not just in government, he is in power and shame is overrated when you are in power.