Cicero, the irrepressible Attorney General and orator from Esa-Oke where, according to him, not one single vote was cast for the PDP in the last general elections, is in trouble. The salvos from PDP elements, AD elements, intellectuals, and ordinary progressive Nigerians should worry the old politician. Right now, however, he appears to be oblivious of the seriousness of his predicament and is savoring his verbal gymnastics with Chief Sunday Afolabi, the interior minister, who had inveighed against him for having been biting the PDP, the fingers he had been "eating" from. In a recent statement, Cicero denied "eating" from the PDP, explaining that he had been called by our Messianic president to serve, not to eat. Besides, he said he could not have been "eating" since the Nigerian political landscape was devoid of anything edible to him. For the politician who has been credited with coining unforgettable phrases like "Siddon look" and the "five fingers of a leprous hand," Chief Afolabi is the clear underdog in the war of words. No wonder then why the PDP Youth Vanguard joined the foray in defense of Afolabi’s metaphorical use of the word "eating."

From the vantage point of the Internet, I am watching the tragicomic drama unfolding. To be precise, I am watching the trial of Cicero: an accomplished politician, a legal luminary, a born orator, a poor student of history, and ultimately a tragic hero. I am watching as the old man destroys the bedrock of his own titanic legacy, brick by brick and myth by myth. I don’t know what the children of Oduduwa have done to Olodumare to be so kind to the hegemonies. For one of the avatars of Yoruba politics to be exposed as working against the interest of progress in the land is confounding. A superstitious friend has attributed this to "Asasi" (to suggest he has been betwitched.) The Yoruba people, never short of proverbs, would say of Cicero’s volte face: "afefe ti fe, ati ri furo adie funfun…." (The wind has blown, we have seen the anus of the white hen….) Cicero’s anus, the metaphorical one that is, reeks of putrid smell that has engulfed his political career and threatens to sink him in an abyss of ignominy.

Contrary to Cicero’s statement that there was nothing for him to "eat" in politics, there is a lot to "eat." Let’s face it: what is politics in Nigeria today but "Waki and die?" It has not even risen to the level of "you chop, I chop," among the politicians themselves, talk less of getting to "I chop, the people chop." Someone had called Nigerian politics "amala" politics. Judging from the excesses of Nigerian politicians and 419 operators, politics appears to be more profitable than 419. There is a sense in which we can say that politics is the ultimate 419 in Nigeria. The United States Government realized that and came to the conclusion that Nigerian leaders had been too busy "eating" to be serious about fighting corruption. So it would have been different if Cicero had said his principles forbade him from "eating." Saying that there was nothing for him to "eat" in politics was an exaggeration. From the Senate graft imbroglio that led to the fall of Okadigbo and his cohorts; the "helicopter bridge" in Abeokuta; the Edo Ricegate; the "speakergate" in Oyo state… there are signs of "eating" written all over our beleaguered land. In case you’re wondering about the "helicopter bridge": it is the eight wonder of the world bridge constructed over Ogun River in Abeokuta with no access road to it. Imagine a bridge that was completed and commissioned months ago that is not being used because no motorable road leads to it. Helicopters can fly over the bridge, though. Since there are not many helicopters in Abeokuta, only birds fly over the bridge now. It stands to reason then that I should change the name of the bridge to "Birds’ Bridge." I, a human being, drove on the bridge recently, against all advice, and I still rue my foolhardy. Mungo Park could not have had it rougher finding the source of River Niger than I did trying to find the Third Ogun River Bridge. As I drove on footpaths that led to the bridge hemmed in by tall weeds, I "praised" the vision of the ingenious people who thought about the bridge only Birds could use easily. Well, that is a story for another time.

Nigerian people fought for democracy with the hope that it would produce good leaders who would shun personal aggrandizement and promote the good of the majority of our people. In Nigerian parlance, our people fought for democracy because they believed it would yield dividends. When democracy is threatened in any way, it is our responsibility to protect it with our sweat and blood. It is our historic duty to keep the marauding Nigerian military at bay. Only good governance and the will of the people can keep those mountebanks who retarded the progress of our country for decades away for ever. We must go to war with any politician who threatens democracy as well. The earlier our "eating" politicians realize that, the better for all of us.

Now back to the erring politician whose activities are under review- Cicero’s metamorphosis from an elder statesman into a conscious or unconscious errand boy of the oligarchy, the vermin that has brought us to where we are in Nigeria today, is heartrending indeed to those of us who hold him in high esteem. Up until he was called to the rocky powerhouse of Abuja a couple of months ago, he was one of us. He reasoned like us, he talked like us, and he acted like us. Now Cicero, baba mi agbalagba oye (high chief) is directly opposed to the tenets of Egbe Afenifere, of which he is a staunch member. Now True Federalism, Resource control or derivation, and Sovereign National Conference are anathema to him. Now those calling for a sovereign national conference have no moral justification if they supported the Abubakar transition program. Hear him: "anybody who took part, whether partially or fully in the 1998/99 transition programme, cannot in all honesty, make such a call." Of Afenifere’s continued demand for a Sovereign National Conference Cicero reportedly said: "Afenifere, whether together with the Alliance for Democracy (AD) or separate from it, agreed to take part in the election based on the 1999 Constitution which was imposed by the military and we sponsored candidates in the elections."

The predicament of Afenifere and Yoruba leaders who decided to participate in the Abubakar transition program was expressed clearly in a news report of the interview granted by Chief Ayo Opadokun and Kofo Akerele-Bucknor and in the communiqué issued after the key meeting at which the decision to participate in the Abubakar transition program was reached. I will quote this verbatim as reported in the Vanguard:

Opadokun, secretary general of Afenifere, had reported:

As if Cicero’s volte face on the issue of Sovereign National Conference was not bad enough, he released another antic from his repertoire in consonance with the agenda of his handlers: contrary to his previous stance on true federalism, he did an about face on resource control/derivation that would support true federalism. Now, to him, those southern states clamoring for resource control are unpatriotic people who should be defeated in the court of law. So a couple of weeks ago he filed a suit in the supreme court against the thirty six states and Abuja over the true ownership of the natural resources in the offshore territory of the country. A suit G. G. Darah correctly interpreted as being only meant for the South South, the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Haba! Baba Cicero! Didn’t you tell reporters on August 14, 1998 after the end of the meeting of frontline politicians from the Southwest held at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta that the demand for the establishment of a true federal system has already received national acceptance and that "Only those benefiting from the oppressive system are opposed to it? " Didn’t we all hail you on that same day when you vowed that the next civilian government would re-organize the military in reaction to a statement credited to the then Chief of Defence Staff Al-Amin Daggash.

Hear Cicero again after the meeting of Yoruba leaders held at the Premier Hotel on August 3, 1998: "The meeting gave endorsement to Yorubas taking part but not without caveats, One of them is that there should be no going back on having a true federation in which the central government has very few powers.''

Cicero was one of the signatories to the following communiqué issued after the meeting of Yoruba leaders held at the Premier Hotel on August 3, 1998, which is reproduced below:

A conference of Yoruba leaders was held in Ibadan on the 3rd day of August to consider recent political developments in Nigeria and to review the role and place of the Yoruba nation in Nigeria's political future. Senator Abraham Adesanya, leader of Afenifere, the conveners of the conference delivered a keynote address at the conference. Among the key issues considered at the conference were the following:

d) The formation of political parties and participation of Yoruba in post military political process.

1. The Yoruba people of Nigeria, living in Ekiti, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo Oshun, and Oyo states and Yoruba people in other states of Nigeria have the right of self-determination. To that end, Yoruba people affirm their right to be ruled only by leaders of their choice freely chosen in free and fair elections based on universal adult suffrage.

2. The conference affirms the commitment of Yoruba people to true federalism. In this regard, it calls for the urgent convening of a Sovereign National Conference to restructure Nigeria.

3. The conference notes that whereas 80% of the population of Kwara are Yoruba and a sizeable live in Kogi State. Their location in the North Central Zone is an incongruity that should be rectified immediately. The conference therefore calls on the Government of General Abdulsalam Abubakar to effect necessary boundary adjustment to make the Yoruba people of Kwara and Kogi states belong to proper zone of the South-West where they rightly belong.

4. This Conference affirms that military rule in Nigeria should be terminated finally and irrevocably not later than 29 May 1999, and calls on the present military government not to renege on its promise.

5. This Conference rejects the draft 1995 constitution because it was produced by an unrepresentative assembly which also had about a third of its members and principal officers appointed by the military and because it does not conform with the principle of federalism.

6. This Conference demands that Military Administrators, Commissioners of Police and Directors of the State Security Service (SSS) and other security agencies should serve only in their states of origin.

7. This Conference calls on all Yoruba to participate fully in the ensuing political process that will lead to the termination of military rule. For this purpose, Yoruba with other like-minded groups and individuals, should enter into alliance for the formation of a countrywide political party.

8. This Conference calls on all Yoruba to resolve that Abiola's death should not be in vain by totally embracing the crusade for the realization of the principles of June 12, which are: power shift, justice, equity, fair-play and democracy.

9. The Conference urges that henceforth, all Yoruba must resolve to put the corporate interest of the Yoruba nation above personal interests and ambitions, and to stop all forms of collaboration with the forces inimical to the interests of the Yoruba people.

10. The Conference calls on the Federal military government to release all those convicted in the alleged coups of 1995 and 1997 as well as all political detainees still being held.

11. That henceforth the principal voice of the Yoruba nation shall be Senator Abraham Adesanya.

Should we then assume that Cicero is benefiting from the "oppressive system" because of his recent anti-people actions or how can we reconcile his stance on resource control with his stance on true federalism?

One of the greatest threats to our "wuruwuru" democracy is the Sharia. Progressive elements have always kicked against the spread of this legal system because of its inherent barbarity and its capacity to curtail human freedom and infringe human rights. Its unjustness to women and non-Muslims has never been in doubt to those whose minds are not clouded by religious sentiments. Cicero was an indefatigable opponent of the Sharia. But since he became the Justice man for the Messiah, he has found a sudden love for the Sharia. The extension of Sharia law to criminal matters is now constitutional to Cicero? We should have read the hand writing on the wall, though. This was because shortly after becoming Attorney General, Cicero had advocated that mobs should henceforth be cutting or "Bobitting" the penises of campus cultists accused of raping women in order to show that, in his own words, "this is a tough Attorney general."

Cicero’s current position on the Sharia is unfortunate, not only because of its obvious immorality, but also because the veritable Cicero has outdone our Messianic president in the defense of the indefensible. Even though he has been lily-livered in his handling of the Sharia plague, the Messiah has consistently maintained that it is unconstitutional. When the Messiah starts to sound better than Cicero in such matters as the Sharia, Cicero should start to consider retirement. Wallai tallai.

When young people make mistakes, they have the advantage of age on their side to redeem themselves and end up as heroes. Not so for old people. Chief MKO Abiola was vilified by progressive elements when he was a member of the defunct NPN. His late wife Chief Simbiat Abiola lost an election to the Ogun State House of Assembly in 1979. MKO redeemed himself, was elected president, and died a perpetual hero of the Nigerian people. General Akinrinade, as a minister in a military government had stated that telephone or was it air travel? was not for the poor. For this, he was vilified. Then the June 12 crisis came. He fought on the side of the people and suffered personal losses and was finally hounded into exile. Today, he is in the good books of Yoruba people. Cicero should pray that he does not die today. If he did, he would be remembered as one of those who betrayed the masses of our country. He would be in the league of traitors like Lateef Jakande, Ebenezer Babatope, Oladipo Diya, Arisekola Alao, and other poor students of history who got carried away and failed to realize the ephemeral nature of power.

It is quite interesting that Cicero was one of the people who made sure that the Messiah met his comeuppance in the South West during the last general elections for being part of the cabal that scuttled the presidential dream of MKO. Cicero should learn from the Messiah who is now regarded a hero today in Yorubaland because he has learned not to take his people for granted. The Yoruba people have been particularly gladdened by the fact that the Messiah is not totally being used by those on whose backs he rode to power. They understand he cannot totally alienate them either. Cicero need not be reminded that only fools fight against his own people while in power. The power that cannot possibly last longer than six years more. It is like getting rid of the crane that has taken one to the top of a seventy one storied skyscraper. How would one get down? Jump down? Ask people like Olu Onagoruwa, Babatope, Jakande, Diya and Abdulkareem Adisa. These people were goats that went to graze with sheep that turned out to be crocodiles. No one aligns with the oligarchy and brings his or her integrity out unscathed.

Let Cicero pray that the Messiah does not throw him out of his cabinet before he can redeem himself. If he is relieved of his position today, Cicero would be remembered as a failed politician, an inept administrator that could not give us electricity for the period he was charged with that responsibility, but instead spent his time causing trouble in AD to settle a score with those who deemed Falae a better presidential aspirant than him. That was when some of us had thought that the Messiah was unfair to him for expecting him, a lawyer, to make NEPA work. We wanted the Messiah to make him Minister of Justice so that he could give us justice. Alas! Recent events have shown that waiting for Cicero to give the dispossessed and the disenfranchised masses of our country justice is like waiting for Godot. He cannot give us justice because he has been busy seeking to ensure the perpetual exploitation of those who have resources by those who do not. He is too engrossed in the 2003 Project to be effective as a minister. In plain English, he has not been serving the people. I must say though that I am not in a position to know if he has been "eating." But alas! he has been uncharacteristically silent about the extra-judicial killings of OPC members. He has not shown any vision, neither does he appear to have any blueprint as to how to transform the legal system in the country. We heard ad-nauseam his rhetoric about transforming the Nigerian legal system, we are yet to see him take any concrete steps in that direction. Even if Cicero presented us with a blueprint, we still would be wary, for he wasted taxpayers money on the production of his blueprint to transform NEPA which, as we later found out, was not worth the paper on which it was written. The invincible and invisible saboteurs orchestrated Cicero’s failure at the Power and Steel Ministry, we were told.

One thing is clear though, if he continues to fail as Attorney General, Cicero cannot blame saboteurs like he did to explain away his failure at the Power and Steel Ministry. We will just not accept that, period. So far, those AD elders who voted against Cicero’s bid to become the presidential candidate of AD in the last elections have been vindicated. If Cicero could not give us light as Power and Steel Minister and now cannot give us justice as Minister of Justice, Nigerians should thank their stars that he never became president.

Cicero should not delude himself into thinking that the Messiah has any time for his flip flops, his non-performance and verbal gymnastics. He is being retained in the cabinet as part of the 2003 game plan. What Cicero does not seem to realize, however, is that he may, through his actions and speech, alienate the very Yoruba people the Messiah thinks he can deliver to him in 2003. If the Messiah thinks he is no longer useful for the 2003 Project, he will not hesitate to throw him out. To my mind, the Messiah has given him too many chances already. Certainly not a single tear will be shed for Cicero when he is eventually kicked out of the cabinet unceremoniously. We, his sympathizers, have exhausted all the content of our lachrymal glands in lamenting his betrayal of the trust we reposed in him.

Yoruba people do not treat those they consider as traitors with kid gloves. Ask any normal Yoruba person the solutions to the Himalayas of problems that Nigerians are facing now, he or she would not hesitate to tell you clearly: Sovereign National Conference, state police, true federalism, reasonable resource control, among other things. That is the thinking of the mainstream Yoruba people. Some radical Yoruba elements are demanding the creation of a Yoruba country outright. The support any Yoruba politician enjoys from his or her people is predicated on his or her unshakeable belief in what the Yoruba consider to be their agenda. When only Professor Soyinka had written to the Messiah to protest the persecution and extra-judicial killing of OPC members in Lagos by the police(those the Yoruba people consider to be the agents of the Hausa/Fulani oligarchy), and Cicero the attorney general, appears to be mute, he has already dug his own political grave. He will be pushed into the political grave quicker than he thinks with all these anti-people errands he is running for the oligarchy.

Cicero should be reminded that Jakande’s romance with the demonic Abacha alienated him from the mainstream of Yoruba politics in spite of his history of exemplary performance as an ex-governor of Lagos State. Today the politician fondly called "Baba Kekere" the political Arole(heir apparent) to Chief Obafemi Awolowo needs a fifteen foot fence around his house at Ilupeju and goes around with bodyguards. Unless forgiven by the Yoruba people, Jakande cannot win an election in his own ward. Although Cicero achieved greatness as a young acolyte of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, his performance as governor in the old Oyo state was lackluster, to say the least. I stand to be corrected to say that if Abacha had not arrested Cicero, if he had no gift of the gab to coin unforgettable phrases, if Jakande had not blotted his escutcheon by serving in Abacha’s government, Cicero’s political stature in Yorubaland would have been considerably diminished a long time ago. The ability to speak metaphorically can make or mar a politician, it does not make a bad administrator a good one. Cicero is an Aristotelian tragic hero par-excellence: a man who built himself up for decades only to sabotage himself by flaws in his character

When Cicero leaves office without achieving anything, Yoruba people will be very harsh on him because they think he knows what he is doing. Yoruba people are very fond of vilifying those they consider villains. They would likely say that he employed his wizardry in the service of "eating," to the detriment of his people. They will accuse him of acting consciously or unconsciously to the advantage of the plutocratic oligarchy on whose backs his boss, the Messiah of the Nigerian politics of "eating," rode to power. As an accomplished lawyer, let’s hope he will be able to defend himself then.

Tunde Olusesi

3-12-01