Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye's Peep Into Nigeria's Looting Culture

By DAN AMOR

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is not only a quintessential Nigerian writer and journalist, he is, undoubtedly, one of the most formidable literary and social critics in the country today. Ejinkeonye, whose birthday is today (May 27), is not only a wordsmith of note whose diction, and images capture the experiences and nebulous fancies of the Nigerian condition, he is also one of Africa's most celebrated newspaper columnists and public affairs analysts.

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The Fury Of 'First Ladies'

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
We are indeed in very perplexing and stressful times. As a people trapped in diverse, debilitating contradictions, occasioned by obvious failure of leadership and character on the part of those directing the affairs of our clearly rundown country, the much we should expect from the growing tribe of First Spouses, First Concubines, First Children, and even First Uncles, Cousins, and Nieces, of our clearly unprofitable rulers, wallowing in flamboyant idleness and having all their unspeakable excesses serviced with state funds, is to, at least, allow some measure of humility and moderation attend the way they flaunt their sudden and limitless privileges before the rest of us.

Stella Obasanjo

It does seem that in these parts, we are most adept at creating grotesque legitimacy for the totally absurd after which we   advertise it with indecent fanfare. At the end of the day, we end up providing  delicious specimens for bellyful mirth for the civilized.

I would certainly not be bothered one bit if I never got to see the wife or concubines of any governor or president until the expiration his tenure. I do not edit a society tabloid whose passion it usually is to discover the current colour of lipstick that adorns Madam's lips or the latest revealing blouse with a plunging neckline she wears to dimly-lit balls.

*Mr. And Mrs. Obasanjo

My candid opinion is that we can do with one ruler at a time. Let the wives of our rulers spare us their clearly unappetizing presence and retreat to their houses and be good wives to their husbands and good mothers to their children. For the umpteenth time, they should please remove their mostly over-bleached, over-made-up and over-dressed selves before our faces so we can find the presence of mind to bear the pain and anguish their husbands are unleashing on us.

We are almost forgetting that the Constitution has no provisions for the so-called office
 of the First Lady.

*Lucy Kibaki

I am not bothered, for instance, if the president's wife has a battery of special assistants, senior special advisers, and even press secretaries attached to her "office", so long as their salaries and allowances are paid from the private purse of her spouse. The state can pay for her security, we can overlook that, even though her "office" is not backed by any constitutional provisions.

So when recently, Lagos lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo, issued a statement alerting the nation that the Publisher of Midwest Herald, Mr. Orobosa Omo-Ojo, whose paper had carried a story titled "Greedy Stella", had been arrested by detectives from the "D" Department of the Ondo State Police Command, on the orders of Mrs. Stella Obasanjo, I almost thought it was not happening in real life.

*Mwai And Lucy Kibaki With George And

Laura Bush In Washington

Unfortunately, my desire to obtain a copy of the Midwest Herald that week to see how it looks like could not be gratified. The real tragedy in the incident, however, was that the mainstream media proved themselves incapable of appreciating the dangerous signal the ugly development portended and decided to treat the report with levity. Well, let's wait until a "First Son" or "First Concubine" decides tomorrow to seal off the premises of a "national" newspaper, and then, our eyes would then open to the street wisdom that every monster is the product of a gradual, undiscouraged evolution.

Incidentally, this new piece of scandal was treated with amazing seriousness by the foreign media, and I could imagine the well-remunerated 'experts' at the Image Laundering Project office submitting fresh, well loaded requisitions to enable them adequately whitewash the stain the sorry event might have registered on the "model" regime in Abuja. Indeed, Mrs. Obasanjo, like every other Nigerian, was perfectly justified to feel pained if she was unfairly represented in the media, but should an aggrieved person respond to a perceived wrong by perpetrating a more insidious wrong? Are the courts in perpetual recess in Nigeria, or are we just witnessing a raw exhibition of "my-husband-is-in-charge" mentality here?

*Unruffled? Mwai And Lucy Kibaki
Dance To Usher In The New Year 2007
At The State House, Mombasa

And the fact that the poor publisher is still in detention, nearly one month after his arrest, should alert us all to the devastating evil that is gradually taking root in the nation.

Now if this incident in Nigeria represents a huge baggage of shame, what happened in Nairobi, Kenya, during the same period, where this "my-husband-is-in-charge" mentality was raised to an insufferable level by Mrs. Lucy Muthoni Kibaki, one of the wives of Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, has no counterpart within the boundaries of civilized behaviour.

Mrs. Kibaki, with her ferocious body guards, had invaded, the Muthaiga residence of the outgoing World Bank country representative, Mr. Makhtar Diop, where a private farewell party was being held in his honour, to complain that the music was too noisy and was robbing her of her sleep.

*Festus Keyamo: Against Stella
Obasanjo's Excesses

Diop was a tenant of the Kibakis. They were still his neighbours, and probably often exchanged pleasantries each time they stayed in their private residence, next door to the one rented by Diop. And Kibaki's children were also guests at the riotous party that disturbed Madam's sleep.

Mrs. Kibaki had reportedly stormed Diop's house in pyjamas, with boundless rage, demanding that the music must stop. She charged ferociously at the man, as she attempted to unplug the electrical connections supplying power to the sound systems. According to The East African Standard of Monday, May 2, 2005, a day after the incident, "the party was graced by the top cream of the diplomatic, donor and private sector circuit."

As would be expected, the Kenyan press were unsparing of Lucy Kibaki in their reports the very next day after her disgraceful outing. The East African Standard captioned its report on the incident, "The Shame of First Lady." The report in Daily Nation was no less-scathing. Angered by these reports, Mrs. Kibaki dressed in a pink blouse and blue jeans trousers, jumped into her 4WD, a Toyota Prado, and raced down to Nation Centre, the corporate headquarters of the Nation newspapers, accompanied by body guards and the Nairobi Provincial Police Chief, Mwangi King'ori. Her anger had received additional fuel with later reports that she had visited the Muthaiga Police Station to report the Diop's incident dressed in casual white shorts.

And so as she stormed Nation Centre by 11.30 pm, she was clutching a copy of the Standard where she had earned a front-page lead due to her embarrassing action. Her photograph on the front-page as she raged and raved was very unflattering. Once she got to Nation Centre, she headed upstairs to the editorial department and disrupted operations for five hours. She announced that she had come to protest the unflattering reports about her in the press.

"You reported that I went to the police station wearing shorts, what is wrong with the First Lady wearing shorts? I put on skirts and even bikinis when I go swimming. We are a decent family, humble and Christian. You have tried to discredit me since I became the First Lady," she yelled. 

*Meanwhile, A Man Looks For

Dinner From A Lagos Dustbin

Complaining about how the media refer to her husband in their reports she charged: "In the news you call him Kibaki as you did when he was campaigning, when will you learn to call him the President, [and] start respecting him?"

Then she turned and yelled at the provincial police boss that came with her:

"Does the Police Commissioner (equivalent of Nigeria's Inspector General of Police (IGP)) know that I am here protesting? Call him. He should be here with us."

And immediately, the officer went out, radioed his boss, and within some minutes, the Commissioner, Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali, was there with them. Indeed, Mrs. Kibaki was an unmitigated nuisance. She went from table to table, shouting, complaining, threatening, and even occasionally laughing.

Suddenly, she noticed the KTN cameraman, Clifford Derrick, recording her and she went berserk. Said Derrick later: "She just walked up to me and slapped me hard. I was terrified."

Yes, she attacked him and attempted to take away the camera from him. As this went on, none of the police chiefs moved an inch. According to the Standard, the "Central Officer Commanding Police Division (OCPD), Julius Ndegwa, watched from a distance, as he communicated on his pocket radio." 

Mrs. Kibaki's action has been greeted with unsparing condemnation. Derricks is considering legal action, especially, against the police, for failing to protect him from the angry woman.


Lucy Oriang, a Daily Nation columnist, called on President Kibaki the following Friday to save Kenya's honour by curtailing his wife's excesses.

I agree totally with Ms. Oriang, because, till now, Kibaki is yet to make any comment about his wife's unedifying outing. It does seem that for his government, what his wife had done was acceptable. The only reaction I have read from the authorities in Nairobi was the one some days after the incident by Dr. Alfred Mutua, government's spokesman, who was quoted in Kenya Times as dismissively saying: "The Kenyan government and its people is known for many things and a particular incident cannot cost the country's image."

If you ask me, this is the most unfortunate statement to come out of Kenya since the Mrs. Kibaki affair.

I also must add here that as much as I condemn Mrs. Kibaki's crude behaviour, I must admit that I was thoroughly sickened by the nuisance constituted by Diop's party. They have no right to rob Mrs. Kibaki of her sleep. But her reaction to the inexcusable disturbance caused by Diop and his guest has now overshadowed what was clearly unambiguous advertisement of irresponsibility on the part of the World Bank staff. His action is as detestable as that of Mrs. Kibaki who has vowed to fight her own battles and confront those who disparage her and her family.

"Every day you write lies about me, I will come to the newsrooms and you will see me in my true colours. I'm annoyed beyond control," she bellowed at Nation Centre.

Somebody should please advise Mrs. Kibaki to rather deploy this energy to keep herself away from behaviours that embarrass Kenya boundlessly.

--First Published May 2005

Enough Of The Obasanjo Family, Please!

(First Published November 26, 2008)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye           

Last Saturday (Nov 22, 2008) I wanted to purchase a copy of Bitter-Sweet: My Life With Obasanjo, by Mrs. Oluremi Obasanjo, the woman who is sparing no effort just to underline her belief that no matter what anyone, including even Gen Olusegun Obasanjo himself, thinks is the case, the truth she would want everyone to see and swallow is that among the countless women swarming the Obasanjo harem, she is the only one qualified to be called his wife.  Others, she insists, are mere concubines.

To buttress this point, she reminds us on page 91 of Bitter-Sweet, that while broadcasting the profiles of leading members of the Obasanjo junta just before he handed over power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1979, “the NTA showed me, and my husband, and our five children then, as the officially recognized and properly married wife, the wife of his youth he swore to keep forever.”

When I called the number on the invitation card for the public presentation of the book (which I didn’t attend), an elderly female voice told me to go to James Robertson Street in Surulere, that I would get the book there. In Surulere last Saturday, especially, on Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, and virtually all the other streets in the area, including Ogunlana Drive, Masha Road, and James Robertson, I encountered one of the worst traffic situations Lagos may have experienced since it began to exist, which served as painful reminder of the abysmal failure of character and leadership that had distinguished the eight-year reign of the subject of the book I was taking all the trouble to purchase.

As the traffic situation worsened, I abandoned the car in one of the streets, jumped onto an okada, and in no time, was in James Robertson Street. Since I needed to get an additional copy for someone, I bought two copies – one hard cover (N3, 000) and soft cover (N2, 000), and there went N5, 000 which I now sincerely believe, after reading the book, could have been invested in a more rewarding and edifying venture!

Now, forget the sensational reviews of the book you may have encountered so far since it was presented to the public at a very poorly attended ceremony in Lagos a fortnight ago. The book contains only very insignificant, highly biased items that could be considered new to what the public already knew about Obasanjo; there is hardly any information therein with the capacity to shock or awe; nothing really exciting, enlightening or edifying about the subjects treated in the entire book. The public appears to have more than it offers.  

Mrs. Oluremi Obasanjo At The Public Presentation 
Of The Book In Lagos

The book is all about a woman’s attempt to rewrite herself into prominence and reckoning in one man’s life, to demonstrate, albeit incoherently, that no matter who the public saw starring with Obasanjo in all those days he hugged the limelight   as Nigeria’s ruler, it was she, Oluremi, that the man regarded as the central figure in his life, despite the countless battering she got from him; that it was she who turned down the offer to live with him in Ota; that her decision to stay apart left a huge void in his life; that he was always pleading with her not to leave him alone; and that despite his brutal actions   towards her, he loved and respected her and only kept the other women as “ponies.” Although, it is known that the author and her husband were separated at some point in time (and she keeps talking, about “when I  was kicked out”) the strength of the book lies in her ability to leave the reader in total confusion about when exactly this happened, how long it has lasted, or whether it has been intermittent.

Instead, greater energy was devoted to show the prominent role she continued to play in Obasanjo’s life, playing down the separation and reducing all the other women to mere fringe elements in Obasanjo’s life. Dripping from the pages of the book is the undying love she retained for her man, and her willingness to receive him back any time he returned from his boundless wandering through countless skirts. The author’s bitterness towards late Stella was so palpable; it could not be assuaged even by her death. And the way she always gleefully announced the misfortune that met the several people that did her hurt speaks volumes about the nature of her heart. And despite all she suffered from Obasanjo (including being detained on Obasanjo’s instructions at the Lafenwa Police Station, “stripped to my underwear”), she, like Carol McCain, still loved him. But she makes a touching confession on page 64: “He is the only man I have known all my life … So when I found out his philandering exploits, I regarded it as the unkindest cut for his breaking   the sacred vow we took at the London Registry.”

Olusegun Obasanjo: The Man At The Centre Of The Storm

He went further to say that due to this multiple sleeping partners his wife was generously hosting with immense relish, he required a DNA test to establish the paternity of the children born to him by his wife, since he was not sure any more who among the three had fathered them. What a family! My heart surely goes out to those hapless tender children, who never asked to be born into the badly mismanaged Obasanjo family, and who would grow up tomorrow to grapple with the serious debilitating doubt over their paternity, raised by no other person than the man they call their father.    

Iyabo Obasanjo: First Daughter Of The Marriage

Senator Iyabo, on her part, is always in the news for the most horrible reasons. When she is not transacting very controversial and ugly deals with a name other than her own, she is being accused of mismanaging committee funds in the Senate. In fact, a newsmagazine once called her on its cover, “The Queen of Scandals,” a tag her mother on page 123 of the book thinks does not befit her daughter. Rather, Oluremi thinks her children are all unfairly having image problems because of “the name, Obasanjo.” And so, the attempt by the EFCC to get Iyabo to explain her role in the scandal involving the Senate Health Committee fund was all done “in a bid to humiliate her because she is Obasanjo’s daughter.” Iyabo, she maintains, was not appointed Ogun State Health Commissioner because she was Obasanjo’s daughter, but rather she had worked hard to earn it. I suppose she expects anyone to believe that?

My problem with this book is that it is a needless effort to advertise raw bitterness. And it would end up dishonouring the same children she loves and defends. But what sickens me most is her attempt to exonerate her children from matters in which the public is even in possession of superior facts. What it tells me is that if Obasanjo had not kicked her out of his life, she would also have been out there today defending him against Nigerians who dared express   disgust at the unmitigated disaster and organized banditry he effectively supervised for a whole eight years in Nigeria, during which corruption was effectively institutionalized and celebrated,  and  the country ruined.  

For her, so long as a person is in her good books, the person can do no wrong. So, why should I bother myself about such a person and her book?

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scruples2006@yahoo.com