By Suyi Ayodele
On our way we are going to fight
On our way we are going to war
If it happens, we die on the battlefield
Never mind we shall meet again
Kóláwolé agbára únbẹ
A lè ja o
Fuji icon, Abdulrasaq Kóláwolé Ilori, popularly known as General Ayinla Kollington, waxed the above lyrics in his 1986 album, E Bá Mi Dúpé.
Kollington left the Military as a non-commissioned officer. When such a man says he is heading to the front lines, his relations have every reason to worry, given his limited or non-existent experience he possessed in real combat.
But the fuji crooner’s case is far better than the position of Femi Fani-Kayode (FFK), former Minister of Aviation, who, on Sunday, warned the United States of America, USA, that there would be war should the Big Brother, US, make good its threat to intervene in Nigeria’s plight in the hands of insurgents, militarily.
Here is what FFK said about the impending military action threatened by President Donald Trump of America: “… if he carries out his abominable threat, there will be a war. We shall not leave the country, but we will fight it out with them…”
When a man promises to give you a cloth to wear, our elders caution that you should first look at the rag your would-be benefactor puts on. What is FFK’s pedigree that he would threaten war with the US? Who prepared pounded yam for him and asked him not to worry about the soup with which to eat it (ta ló gún iyán fún un tó ní t’obè ò sòro)? Could it be that the Ile Ife-born politician listens more to the lyrics of Kollington above? Or is there an intoxicating spirit somewhere ministering to his sanguinary needs?
FFK’s father, the Late Chief Victor Babaremilekun Adetokunbo Fani-Kayode, known simply as Remi Fani-Kayode, was elected the Deputy Premier of the defunct Western Region in 1963. His principal was the late Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola. Remi Fani-Kayode was so powerful in the Akintola administration that he was nicknamed, Fani Power. He was, indeed, a great power wielder, consummate politician, brilliant lawyer and alternate Premier of the most cosmopolitan region. He was romanticised such that friends and foes feared him.
But on the night of January 15, 1966, some young military boys under the leadership of the late Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, decided to overthrow the government of Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s first Prime Minister. When the soldiers struck in Ibadan, capital of Western Region, the man known as Fani Power was picked up effortlessly!
Accounts of that mid-night raid across the capitals of the three regions of Nigeria and Lagos, say that Chief Remi Fani-Kayode did not fire a single catapult at the mutinous soldiers who came for him! Neither did he scratch the skin of the soldiers with his fingernails. Remi Fani-Kayode simply obeyed as he was thrown, like a bag of Kano onions, into the trunk of the van the soldiers rode to his place.
Those who witnessed that era and who knew Fani Power, say that FFK is nowhere near his father in terms of reach, boldness and dexterity. Yet, when the old Fani-Kayode saw guns, his ‘boldness’ evaporated as he begged for his life and led the rampaging soldiers to the residence of his principal, Akintola, where the late Yoruba Generalissimo was said to have shot several times at his assailants before he was overpowered and killed.
Almost six decades after his father surrendered willingly to a few Nigerian soldiers that came for him at the dead of the night, FFK is boasting that should Trump make good his threat to send troops to our shores, “We shall not leave the country, but we will fight it out with them!” Pray, from whom did he inherit the boldness? Has he ever used a catapult to kill a lizard before such that he would boast of a full-blown war with the US?
How did we get to this stage in our nation’s history that the American President, Trump, would have to warn our government to wake up and halt the ‘genocide’ of Christians in the country, otherwise, America would rise to the occasion?
In a series of tweets over the weekend, Trump threatened to send military help, promising that he would be coming to Nigeria “gun-a-blazing.” I checked the semantic implications of the phrase, “gun-a-blazing”, and my dictionary says it means: “to do something with great energy, force, and enthusiasm or be very aggressive…”
Ask me a hundred times, I will tell you that Trump means business. Yes, the motive may not be altruistic; it can never be, not with the Western world. But his choice of diction indicates a man who will do what he has said. And, sincerely, I pray that it doesn’t get to that level. Should it happen, the jubilation among Nigerians will make the jubilation when General Sani Abacha expired to pale into insignificance. This will be so, not necessarily because Nigerians are less patriotic. But more because the present administration has not demonstrated any strand of leadership in protecting the lives of the people!
Trump went ahead to say: “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it is going to be fast, vicious and sweet.” Other top Pentagon officials and political advisors of Trump had also spoken in that direction. It appears an American interest is at risk in Nigeria. The signs are ominous enough for any serious government to ignore. More worrisome is the fact that the Tinubu government’s vuvuzelas who are always quick to respond in aggressive manners to this kind of threat, are loudly silent!
The US, we all know, does not joke with its interests, anywhere in the world. Moreso in “a disgraced country” like Nigeria as Trump christened us. Who do we blame for this? Nobody should be naive enough to think that the US is talking because it loves us. Something is at stake; something that is of a huge benefit to the US, I dare say! So, how did our cock demystify the comb on its head for the Fox to play with? Remember the fable of the cock and the Fox?
Our mothers told us that at the beginning of life, the Fox feared the cock because of the redness of the comb on the cock’s head. The Fox believed that the comb was fire, and it avoided the cock, accorded it its due respect.
But when a man has what it does not value, it gives it out cheaply. For whatever reason, the cock, one day, approached the Fox and told the Fox that it had no reason to fear him because the comb was nothing but a soft mound of flesh. To prove that, the cock asked the Fox to touch the comb and when the latter did and was not scourged, it descended on the cock and made a feast of it. Of course, chicken venison is usually delicious, and the Fox does not forbid a good meal. This is why the cock, and other of its avian family members, are delicacies for the Fox.
Right from our independence, Nigeria has played major roles in the maintenance of peace and tranquillity on the continent of Africa. We were not just christened Giant of Africa for fun. In the Congo crisis and other crises that threatened the existence of Africa, the Nigerian Military distinguished itself. We restored order in many countries and stabilised democracy in not a few others.
But for the roles of Nigeria in the West Africa sub-region military intervention codenamed the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), probably, countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone would have been in tatters today. Our military personnel distinguished themselves in those campaigns and were awarded laurels by the United Nations (UN).
Also, when the apartheid White overlords held on to the jugulars of our South African siblings, Nigeria was the rallying point. The nation committed personnel and resources to get South Africa its independence. The entire world acclaimed our feats, and we savoured the moments, beating our chests that we are indeed, the Giant of Africa in deeds.
Now, in the year of the Lord 2025, America is issuing us a threat to fix the insurgency ravaging our nation or it sends troops to come and fix it for us in a fast, vicious and sweet manner! How did we get here? What happened to the wonders our Military performed in foreign lands? Why can’t we replicate what we did to help others in our own land?
In answering these questions, we draw strength from the table of the cock and the Fox and more in the moral lesson of an old man and his son on why no man should lend himself as an instrument in any evil machination.
The aged man, according to the story, gathered his children and told them that in all they did, their names must not be mentioned when evils were being planned. When asked why, the old man said that no evil perpetrated by any man would go without a full remittance to the plotters.
Next door, the narrative says, was an equally old man who terrorised the community. But contrary to the projection that no evil man would die without reaping the fruits of his evil deeds, the old, wicked man prospered, had seven sons and five daughters; all of them also prosperous, and he died peacefully.
While his funeral rites were underway, one of the children who took the moral lesson from his father reminded the father that his theory was wrong and cited the case of the dead wicked old man. The father looked at his son and said: “No man who has not been successfully buried can be said to have died a peaceful death.”
The father and son were still at the a-tete-a-tete, when they heard a loud bang from the wicked man’s compound. What followed was a great burst of flames and the corpse lying in state together with the 12 children of the deceased, were trapped in the inferno and burnt beyond recognition! At his funeral, the wicked old man lost all he had here on earth!
The story states further that what ignited the fire was a spark from the gunshot fired in traditional salute to the deceased. The spark dropped in a keg of gunpowder and the resulting flame spread rapidly to the thatched roof, where gallons of palm oil were stored on the rafter, fuelled by the harmattan wind.
The man who relayed this story to me said that it was from that cradle that he made up his mind that never would he join anyone in any evil plot. Such comes back to haunt and harm their perpetrators.
This is what the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration is reaping as Trump threatens military action. It is the reward of the evil voyage of 2014 Tinubu, the late General Muhammadu Buhari, Rotimi Amaechi and Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, as opposition leaders then made, when they approached the US Government of Barrack Obama to block President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan from accessing military fighter jets and other arms and ammunition needed to confront the Boko Haram and other insurgent groups of that period.
Through destructive opposition and the desperation to get Goodluck out of the way, the Tinubu gang sold Nigeria cheaply to the US Government. I have checked the photo of the foursome with John Forbes Kerry, the US Secretary of State under Obama, as they negotiated away Nigeria’s sovereignty in their bid to gain control of power.
Eleven years down the line, that evil voyage has come to collect its IOU from Tinubu. Unfortunately, of the four who sold out Nigeria to the US in 2014, one of them, Buhari, is no more. Today, both Amaechi and Oyegun are poles apart from Tinubu, who is left to carry the ant-infested firewood of that desperate misadventure!
So, what do we do in this circumstance? One, we must agree that there is a genocide of Nigerians across the Federation. This genocide may not necessarily be targeted at the Nigerian Christians; the fact remains that the proportion of Christians killed so far towers far above their Muslim counterparts. Someone, somewhere, is waging a war against the nation and our government remains lethargic!
The second admittance is that in its response to these mindless killings, the Nigerian Government, in the last 11 years of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, has been non-existent. Truth be told, the Tinubu government’s emphasis on politics above the welfare and safety of Nigerians, gives credence to the designation of Nigeria as a slaughter slab. There is no way anyone will be able to rationalise the unfeeling reactions of President Tinubu to the calamities bandits and insurgents are visiting on helpless Nigerians.
This is therefore the best time for Tinubu to show that he has the aptitude to lead this country. He should make no mistakes about it: the US will strike if the situation continues. That will be too bad, not only for the President, but for all of us. The cost will be too much for us to bear. Our government must act, and act decisively.
Rather than asking us to prepare for war against the US as FFK suggested in his response, the Tinubu administration, I suggest, should show more seriousness in the fight against the killings going on across our nation. It is an embarrassment to the nation, and more to the Commander-in-Chief, for bandits, armed with sophisticated weapons, to flood our cities to attend the wedding ceremonies and other social engagements of their ‘commanders’ and our armed forces did nothing!
It is a shame that while the rain and bad roads would not allow the President to visit the victims of the attacks in Benue communities where over 200 Nigerians were slaughtered, the same elements allowed him to attend the state banquet the Benue State Government organised in his honour. He ate, drank, belched and flew back to Abuja, leaving the living to bury their dead! That shows the priority of the president at that critical moment, politics above the people’s safety!
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
