By Ayo Lijadu
When a dog wags its tail, it is no news, but if ever a tail is seen wagging the dog, then that becomes the greatest news item the world over.
The reason is simple, the dog, (with its body mass constituting more than 99.9% of itself, less the insignificant percentage left to its tail), obviously has everything to its advantage, (brain power and physical power), to control and wag its tail at its pleasure.
The point being made with the illustration of the dog and its tail is that, as far as the power equation is concerned, as it is in the animal kingdom, so it is in the human kingdom. The Lion is the King of the Jungle. The bush rat cannot dare to move within miles of where it knows its king resides, talk less of flexing muscles and boasting that it can do and undo in the kingdom where the Lion King resides. For with the swipe of the Lion’s paw the bush rat will become dead meat.
Since the advent of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ascendancy to power barely two months ago, we have seen the bizarre happen, (as far as the power equation is concerned), between citizen Asari Dokubo and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in this Federal Republic of Nigeria, where the incumbent President is assumed to be both the de jure as well as the de facto Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, having sworn on oath to uphold the rule of law and order all over the Republic.
On at least three different occasions, Mr. Asari Dokubo has publicly threatened the lives of individuals and ethnic nationalities, doing so both from within the nation’s seat of power, (with the seal of the Nigerian Presidency as his backdrop), and from without, while openly brandishing an assault weapon(AK-47) on one occasion, to drive home the seriousness of his threat. All of these bizarre unlawful and felonious offences were captured on video, went viral on social media as well as the national news media channels, but not once has this one individual been investigated, arrested, and charged by any arm of the security agencies for the crime of threat to lives and breach of the public peace and order.
In all of the above mentioned bizarre actions of Mr. Asari Dokubo, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has kept mum. Even the video that surfaced revealing that this individual maintains a private army whom he is seen and heard asking to prepare to unleash mayhem on his and Tinubu’s imagined adversaries who behave “anyhow” has not elicited even the least “slap on the wrist” kind of reprimand from the President.
Silence, it is said, means consent. By President Tinubu’s very loud and deafening silence on this Asari Dokubo’s rascality and impunity, would one be wrong then to come to the conclusion that this rascal of a man has the tacit approval of Mr. President? If Tinubu’s government, on barely getting into the seat of power, can go after the former Central Bank Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, with all the ferocity of state power at its disposal, with only a civil offence of possession of firearm as the only charge brought against the ex-CBN Governor, that has necessitated his being incarcerated for over one month now, is his offence greater than that of Asari Dokubo who came brandishing AK-47 in public and threatening the lives of an entire ethnic group in a viral video? Does Asari Dokubo have an official licence to possess and carry about an assault firearm of the calibre of an AK-47? Exactly what pact does President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have with this distasteful and nauseating individual that he has allowed him to continue to disturb the peace of this country unhindered? The President should let us know.
In both the animal and human kingdoms, what we know as natural is that it is the one that has absolute power at his disposal that determines who flexes muscles in his vicinity. The Lion cannot be present in his territory and the bush rat will be boasting, huffing and puffing, and threatening the subjects of the king of the jungle. Likewise the dog cannot decide to rest its tail in his moments of quietness, and the tail decides it wants to disturb the peace of its owner and then begins to wag the dog. In the power equation, whether by physical strength, body mass, or by brain power, the dog’s tail does not have the capacity or the ability to wag its owner.
However, in President Tinubu’s Nigeria, we see a nonentity and non state actor, (with no recognisable, approved, neither officially assigned security portfolio), gallivanting contemptuously and audaciously, threatening fire and brimstone, in the face of a sitting President who, with all his paraphernalia of state and executive powers, appears to have been struck deaf, and dumb, and paralyzed with fear from taking expected and appropriate actions to curb this felon.
So in the face of this obvious incongruity, it is pertinent to ask these questions: Between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Mujahedeen Asari Dokubo, who is the Lion, and who is the Bush Rat? Who is the Dog and who is the Tail? Is the lion surrendering it’s power and authority to the bush rat? Or the dog allowing its tail to wag it?
Nigerians need to know so we can be sure to know who, between the two is the defacto and the dejure President of the Federal Republic.
- Ayo Lijadu is a veteran actor, former Presidential aspirant, and later Senatorial candidate of Kowa Party for Lagos East senatorial district in the 2019 General Elections. He features regularly in the daily TV soap, Tinsel, and writes from Lagos.
