MUDA had four wives. To their neighbours, all was well. There was never any noise of fight from their expansive compound. People envied the man . He must be a good man. He must be full wisdom. How is he able to make four women live under the same roof without broken jaws or endless stream of swear words and Yoruba curses? There must be something he knows about women that other men don’t.
Then one day, Muda went on a trip. It was not the first time he was going on a long journey but that particular trip shook the community. What happened? His wives, all four of them packed out of the house. Yes, all of them, in one day, moved all their personal belongings out of the matrimonial home. Everybody was shocked and while their neighbours were still trying to wrap their heads round that, news broke that all four wives had remarried. What?
Abomination?
What kind of evil women are these ones?
What kind of evil had Muda done that four wives would leave him in one day?
Terrible things must have been going on in that compound.
How could four women carry out this kind of domestic coup?
Did Muda not have any redeeming feature, nothing to speak for him?
And they all moved on, just like that?
Poor Muda, how will he survive this?
Well, Muda returned from his trip, took a look at his empty compound and went to ‘war’.
Muda’s problem is like the ill wind blowing through Lagos. It may look like it is calming down now but those who should know say it is just simmering. Simmering storms make me uneasy because when they burst out of the simmer, they do more damage. So, will this Lagos storm blow the Lagos system any good? Indeed, will Lagos remain the same after Mudashiru Obasa and Mojisola Meranda?
Where are the Lagos elders? Note that I have not included the leaders. It is not yet their turn. The matter on the table involves the ones whose grey hairs arrived with age and wisdom. I strongly believe that what Lagos needs now are men of depth, men and women who have fallen and risen, old ones who have learnt what made them trip and have learnt strong lesson from past mistakes. The Lagos market is in an uproar and only calm-spirited elders who can rationally, clearly look beyond the storm that can calm it down.
This storm is about the members of the Lagos State of Assembly, their rejection of their leader, how they effected his eviction and the political implication for all concerned. This is the story of how a Speaker held sway as first among equals for nine straight years and somehow lost the confidence of 37 out of 39 members of the House.
What he did or did not do that made it easy to oust him must definitely be studied, then carefully guarded. The simmering storm may one day go after those things. The crux of this whole storm is how the Lagos honourables sent their leader packing without briefing Baba, the overall leader in Abuja. They even installed Rt Honourable Mudashiru Obasa’s replacement nicely, seamlessly. None of them said ‘Shall we tell the President?’ It was only when the President heard and threatened ‘The Other side of Midnight’ that everybody’s dance steps changed.
Lagos Lagos, Lagos, how many times did I call you? Your politicians are disrespectful. They cannot call someone their godfather, enjoy his largesse, ride on his back into desired posh political offices and then start doing bad bad things behind his back. Lagos, you have not done well, so kneel down there, raise your arms, close your eyes and face the wall.
Now let us beg the godfather himself.
Mr President, these ‘children’ have erred but all we can offer is ‘ebure’, the porridge of appeasement. Please forgive them. The knife has already done its worst, throwing it away won’t heal the injury it inflicted. True, the Speaker of a House of Assembly like Lagos cannot and should not have been removed without first informing you. And no, that has nothing to do with any high- sounding tenet of democracy. Each community has its own unwritten laws. Those lawmakers, just like Muda’s wives in the story, knew how they got to Alausa. That we have replaced the Mr in their names with ‘Honourable’ does not mean they are now bigger than their breeches. A river that forgets its source risks drying up.
Sir, it is you elders that say that you do not spank a child on the day that he breaks a plate, you wait for when he spills a bowl of water. Why don’t you let the Lagos honourables get away with this big sin while we give them ‘combined honours’ punishment when next they trip, and it won’t be long, trust me sir. If you as the family head descend into the face-off arena with them on this, the mud spatter will muddy up both the centre and the excellence. You will be accused of bullying and oppressing. We all know who has whose testicles. Wait until when those boys will feel the maximum pain. This is their day in the sun, their season of prostration and kneeling is just around the corner.
The difference in the age and wisdom of a father and his son cannot be bought in the market and what Lagos needs right now to stabilize it is wisdom, patience, plenty of patience. This is a marathon, the kind that a two-minute man cannot bring into bed with a hot-blooded fine girl. All eyes are on Lagos. The stakes are high. Nigerians are watching keenly. They may be distracted by the IBB book launch drama or the Osun Limited Series, but the real award-winner is the Lagos one.
Dear, Mr President, the colourful social media is waiting for the Lagos drama to come to a head so they can feast on it, shred the hard-earned reputation of all concerned. Somehow, I have this strong feeling that if the wishes of the witches concerning Lagos come to pass, nothing will remain the same. Indeed, I sense a very concentrated mix of ‘efun’ and ‘eedi’ being cooked by some very dark powers here.
The kind of ‘efun’ that brought PDP’s 16-year reign to an abrupt end, the kind of ‘eedi’ that made PDP forget the man who held their party together when every rat and rabbit was attacking it . In recent times, I also saw this ‘eedi’ deal with a man many once admired as he careened from one verbal tragedy to the other. It is a kind of spell that holds its victim by the throat until it is too late. Those who are ‘eyeing’ Lagos had been waiting for a moment just like this.
The ridges and breaches the resolutions I heard are being hatched will bring frighten me. Lagos struggled to remain Lagos at the last elections. Votes that used to roll in without the ruling party breaking a sweat was sweated for in ways Lagos had never done. Even the sacred ‘oro’ came out in the afternoon. Visitors and guests threatened openly to take over the palace. When a baby decides to be born in the market on a market day, he invites everybody to come and look at his mother’s sacred place. If the real elders of Lagos, not the dealers and opportunists, do not handle the fallout of all these carefully, the dark powers will have the last laugh.
As for the former Speaker Obasa, like Muda, this bush meat has escaped. There are lessons Hon Obasa must learn from Muda. What he is holding is just the skin of the tail of the rabbit. Okete ti boru, as our fore bears would say. If four wives left a man’s domain with all their children and wrappers, does that not mean that he did not lay his bed well? Only the ancestors know what you did to deserve that kind of group abandonment.
Things must have been really bad for 37 out of 39 members of them to have left the former Speaker’s camp like that. But we will not summon them to the market square to tell their sides of the story. Something tells me that would lead to opening a truckload of can of worms. Lagos, and indeed the world, cannot afford that kind of ‘discovery’. Let us limit our shame to what can be managed within the premises of the palace.
Uncle Obasa, you have had a good run, been more favoured than many, there is no need to set the family house on fire to prove a point. That your room is now being occupied by another is not reason enough to bring the whole house down. Since you are also not a young man, I will implore you to join the elders, drink from the stream of patience and let us move on. Going to war is not looking good on you and I am sure you definitely do now want your name to be linked with a difficult election in 2027.
Lagos has stood strong for long, too long as far as the dark powers are concerned. They had been itching for a piece of the action. A little crack is all they need.
- Egbemode, is former President, Nigeria Guild Of Editors, former Commissioner for Information, Osun State, her syndicated column, Intimate Affairs, appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Sundays. She can be reached on egbemode3@gmail.com.