By Suyi Ayodele
Counsel: ‘Miss Gibson, in this dwelling on Van Buren Street where you live, which the President owns, is there any means of private access one could use to go from downstairs to the upstairs or vice versa?’
Witness: ‘Do you mean, is there some kind of private stairway or hidden passage by which the President and I could have seen one another without being seen by others?’
Counsel: ‘I will request you to refrain from rewording or redefining my questions, Miss Gibson. I mean precisely what I asked. Did the President have any private means of getting to your quarters or you to his?’
Witness: ‘No. Unless he used a ladder-or the vine that grows on the back wall—but I doubt if the President is, or ever was, that athletic or romantically foolhardy.’
“The spectators in the gallery roared with laughter, and some stamped and whistled.” (Pages 666-667).
The above quotes are from Irving Wallace’s Avant-garde novel, The Man 1964). The episodic novel is about the impeachment proceedings against the very first Black President of the United States of America, Douglas Dilman. Fictional as The Man is, its closeness to the literary device of verisimilitude makes it a compelling and unputdownable work of art.
The closest to its plots in real life is the December 19, 1998, impeachment of President Bill Clinton by the United States House of Representatives of the 105th United States Congress on the allegations contained in the two articles of impeachment bordering on “Lying on Oath” and “Obstruction of Justice” in the Clinton-Monica Lewinsky sexual harassment saga.
Writers are prophets. Irving Wallace (March 19, 1916–June 29, 1990) was one. Thirty-four years after the American novelist wrote the fiction about the impeachment of an American President by the US congress and his acquittal by the US Senate on allegation of s3xual immorality, Clinton came face to face with the predicament predicted in the fiction, The Man.
The only difference, however, is that while the fictional President Douglas Dilman was a Black man, Clinton is Caucasian. Both ‘Presidents’ were saved by the US Senate which voted 66 against and 34 for, in the case of President Dilman; and 50 against and 50 for, in the case of President Clinton. To impeach an American President, the movers of the impeachment must secure 67 votes from the senators.
One interesting thing about the fictional and real impeachment motions in the above two cases is the fact that at the last minute, when the trials were hot in the US Senate, both Dilman and Clinton, against protestations from the counsels, volunteered to defend themselves, their integrity and the sanctity of the American Presidency!
The duo surrendered themselves to the hostile scrutiny of the House Managers, who, during cross-examinations, asked questions that went deep into the beings of the personalities. But at the end of the day, the essence of American Democracy was upheld and the sanctity of the US Presidency preserved. Little wonder that America progresses irrespective of the personal failings of its leaders.
Miss Wanda Gibson in the opening quotes was the suspected mistress of President Dilman. Those opposed to the coming of Dilman, a Black President in the Oval Office, concluded that Gibson and Dilman being singles, and having been close friends for five years, there was no way they would not have gotten into some levels of intimacy.
Gibson’s response under cross-examination above, and the subsequent one (page 669) to wit: (‘Of people like you, Mr. Manager, who might think him too black for me, and me too white for him, and who might cry out that our union would be mongrelizing the Congress, where he was once a member, or the white House, where is now the President…”, nailed the trial and secured victory for Dilman!
I have taken the pain to review The Man here because of its relevance to the current happening in the Nigerian Senate between the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and the senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. Like Dilma who was also accused of sexual immorality against his White House Social Secretary, Miss Sally Watson, Senate President Akpabio is being accused of sexual harassment by a fellow senator, Akpoti-Uduaghan. What do we make of this?
Senator Godswill Akpabio is no doubt swimming in a stormy water which is also infested with wild crocodiles, this time. I want to sincerely believe that the Senate President is not under any illusion that this matter is one that will go away easily.
Again, I also do sincerely hope that Akpabio is aware that it is not only his reputation that is at stake here but that of the institution he represents—the Senate. If he has those understandings, I expect that the number three man in the country will do that which is noble, transparent and allow all due processes to take their course so that justice will not only be done but will be seen to have been done!
At this juncture, I don’t think it is proper for anyone desirous of seeing the end and truth of this matter to pitch tent with any of the gladiators in this case. It would have been a different matter if the two gladiators were not responsibly married. The fact that their spouses had come out to defend them also makes the matter messier.
This is why I think that Senator Akpabio will do himself and the Senate a lot of good if he allows this new accusation from Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan to be thoroughly investigated. And he must allow that! The Senate President must, as a matter of necessity, and in line with good conscience and good convention, first withdraw, or restrain the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, from going ahead with the probe of the alleged misconduct against Akpoti-Uduaghan until the probe of the allegation of sexual harassment is dispensed with.
More importantly, Senator Akpabio must show good example by stepping aside from the office of the Senate President while the probe into the allegation of s3xual harassment is determined! Nothing can be fairer; nothing can be more just. He must personally appear before any panel set up to investigate this matter.
Methinks Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan needs to do a retrospection on why every man would want to get intimate with her.
This now takes us to the coming into the fray of Mrs. Unoma Ekaette Akpabio, wife of the Senate President, and High Chief Emmanuel Uduaghan, husband of Akpoti-Uduaghan. Mrs. Akpabio, in defending her husband, has equally gone to court, asking for N350 billion in damages.
Without prejudice to the matter, I wish to state here that it would have been a lot better if Madam Ekaette allowed Senator Akpabio to defend himself and thereafter seek legal redress. The only exception here is if Mrs. Akpabio wanted to convince us that her husband would naturally come home to tell her if he had any urge towards any woman! That is funny!
Mrs Akpabio said her husband is “a disciplined and a jovial man.” I don’t question that. But I think she should read more of Foucault, knowing that her husband is the third most powerful person in the country, today. Also, and more importantly, the assertion by Ryan Guzman “that every man is a sucker for women with beautiful eyes” could be useful here. She doesn’t have to share the sentiments in the philosophies above!
However, I find it instructive, the warning by Akpoti-Uduaghan, while responding to Mrs. Akpabio, that what would be revealed would shock the Senate President’s wife. Whatever it is, I feel, and strongly too, that Mrs. Uduaghan should have allowed her husband to prove his innocence while she held prayers for the truth of the matter to come out at the end of the day.
But if I find Mrs. Akpabio’s response funny, especially the insinuation that her husband is too “disciplined” to lift another woman’s skirt, the response of High Chief Emmanuel Uduaghan left me dumbfounded! I still would like to ask who advised the Warri High Chief to pen that response.
I have read High Chief Uduaghan’s response a couple of times and I keep asking on each occasion: what sort of man goes to another man making passes at his wife to ask, “respectfully” the libidinous character “…to extend the courtesy and respect my wife deserves while also honouring the friendship between us? We reached an understanding and agreed to resolve the issue amicably.” How ‘amicable’ can such a reconciliation be with a man who wants to explore and exploit another man’s woman?
Jokes apart. The whole issue rests squarely on Senate President Akpabio. He must be civil, civilised and decent in the way he handles this matter. Professor Itse Sagay (SAN) has words of advice for him in this circumstance. He says: “In developed societies like Western Europe, the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, he (Akpabio) would have been asked to step down, but have we developed to that level? I don’t know.” Senator Godswill Akpabio owes this generation, and the ones coming, the onerous responsibility to answer the professor’s poser. Mr. Senate President, I ask: HAVE WE DEVELOPED TO THAT LEVEL?
