On Chief Kayode Odunaro

Pius Adesanmi.

After reading a “public directive” issued recently by my friend, Ogbuefi Lere Olayinka , in the voice, tone, and mien of his boss in the drama-prone Ekiti state, I decided that the time has come to remind the public of a phase in the service of Chief Kayode Odunaro.

It appears that my friend, Chief Odunaro, is now working as an aide to a Senator. I have not exactly followed this phase of his career. Sometime last year, I noticed him posting photos of “dividends of democracy” – the usual distribution of okada motorcycles, sewing machines, ero alota, ero elubo, boxes of ajinomoto, exercise books, satchets of garri and pure water, mudus of rice and other stuff that Senators & Reps (and sometimes Governors) distribute as empowerment in a tragic show of pissing on the human dignity of our people.

You steal billions from the people, spend an insulting fragment of your loot to buy “poverty alleviation” materials for them in a rape of the fundamentals of governance and the social contract. Aides who have not read enough books often pollute social media with photos of the launching with fanfare of these distribution exercises. You will tie ribbons around boxes of ajinomoto and HIS Excellency and Her Excellency will come and cut the tape.

We are lucky that Senator Shehu Sani did not tie ribbons around the donkeys he once donated as empowerment to his constituents. I can’t put it beyond Gabriel Ortom to have tied ribbons around his wheelbarrows and cut the tape. I can’t put it beyond the Governor in the north ( I forget which one) who bought coffins for his people to have tied ribbons around the coffins and cut the tape.

Anyway, enough of this digression. I was saying that photos of “empowerment” and distribution of the “dividends of democracy” by the Senator he is currently working for made me lose interest in the current phase of the career of my friend, Chief Kayode Odunaro.

I have preferred instead to preserve very fond memories of Chief Odunaro’s time as Chief Press Secretary to House Speaker, Dimeji Bankole. Every current political aide in Nigeria, from the Presidency to the Local Governments, should be made to study this phase of Chief Odunaro’s career. In my long history of studying and breathing down the necks of political aides, I have never encountered such a sophisticated and elevated understanding of the role of a political aide as demonstrated by Chief Odunaro.

He was a cerebral bridge between the people and his boss. He understood the idea that the he had an even greater boss than his boss: the people, the employees of his boss. People should go back and study the tone of his public press releases to explain his boss. People should go back and study his uncompromising respect for the Nigerian people even in the face of extreme provocation.

It is not easy to serve Nigerians. And it is not easy to serve Nigerians on behalf of politicians who are so corrupt, so morally bankrupt, so visionless, and so totally useless. Many political aides do not understand the right of the people to express these sentiments – even in the crudest possible sense – about their bosses. They will mount high horses and begin to rain down insults on the people.

Chief Odunaro understood that angry and frustrated people would hurl insults at his boss. Patiently and respectfully, he would engage them, knowing that he may not necessarily convert them. It wasn’t that he was not loyal to his boss. He also understood the greater call of patriotism and loyalty to the bosses of his boss. I used to pity him.

I was perhaps one of the most consistent thorns in the flesh of Chief Odunaro and his boss. I showed them pepper. Mo fi oju won ri meje. I was persuaded that Dimeji Bankole was one of the worst tragedies to have happened to NASS: a completely corrupt, visionless and incompetent young flop who betrayed his generation while hiding behind Britico accent. I wrote weekly op-eds exposing him as a thief.

Every week, Chief Odunaro would tackle me. I don’t know where he found the strength to maintain all that civility. He would write rebuttals. He would phone me in Ottawa to complain that I did not seek their own side of the story before the latest attack. He would offer that his boss was willing to explain things personally to me on the phone. I never agreed to speak with his boss. I never changed my mind about his boss. I never stopped writing to condemn his boss to the very end. However, my admiration of Chief Odunaro just increased and increased.

I don’t know why he is posting photos of a Senator’s empowerment and dividends of democracy shenanigans now when he was such a cerebral, sophisticated, and elevated aide of Dimeji Bankole. He would never have indulged in such trivialities during his work for Bankole. He engaged in cerebral debates in explaining the work of his boss to the people.

Our contemporary political aides need to court Chief Odunaro and ask him how he did it while working for Dimeji Bankole. That is how a political aide should combine loyalty to his boss and service to the people.

Many of our contemporary political aides think that loyalty to their boss and respect for the people are incompatible.

Many of our contemporary political aides have only one philosophy: the dog of the king is the king of the dogs. And since, as political aides, they are the dogs of the king, they invade social media talking at the people from high horses instead of talking to the people from the platform of respect and humility.

Imagine the tone of Lere’s press release two days ago. Lere, do you understand that when I read it, my first thought was: just who the freaking heck do you think you are to address a public directive to the people in that tone? Not even your boss should be talking to the people in that tone. They are his employers.

You say that you have intelligence reports that student cultists are about to inflict mayhem and cause public disturbance. Fine. You then adopt an Abacha-like tone, giving orders and directives, banning public association and procession by ALL students, threatening to deal decisively with violators, etc. Whenever a threat to the public is detected in responsible democracies, go and read how the authorities issue statements of caution to reassure the public.

You cannot talk at the people and issue yeye arrogant threats in a democracy. And you cannot even hide behind intelligence to ban the right of all students to lawful association and assembly. You are violating their rights in a democracy. It is your Oga’s duty to reassure them respectfully that while they go about their hustle, they should be vigilant and report suspicious activities and that the administration will do everything to guaranty the safety and respect of all.

Instead of this, a political aide is issuing threats and directives. Shior. This democracy is so disrespectful of the people. You will wake up to Garba Shehu running his own parallel Presidency, issuing statements to often contradict a serving Acting President. Ordering the people around. Then, aides to a state governor will jump up too and begin to run their own parallel administrations on social media – talking at the people and issuing directives.

Then, Saraki and Ekweremadu and their own aides will carry their own come and talk at the people. They will do animal talk that the people are wasting their time.

Because the people have been so battered, they no longer recognize humiliation – not one person noticed Lere’s rude and condescending tone. Only the gods are fighting for them by making sure that their oppressors are humiliating themselves in mud fights.

NASS is fighting the Executive
The Executive is fighting NASS

They are all rolling in the mud, using language unbecoming of their respective institutions.

And “mere anarchy is loosed upon” Nigeria…

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Pius Adesanmi, a professor of English, is Director of the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Canada