By; BABAYOLA M. TOUNGO.
Well, good people of Adamawa both at home and in the diaspora, here is a fairy tale with a moral. Seems there was once upon a time a little boyman with a face resembling a mashed melon who thought he could always say what he wants and get away with it. So to prove it, over a period of ten years or so, he usually put his mouth in motion before his brain (if he has any) is in gear. He has perfected the art of verbal hemorrhage to the extent he believe he has become an untouchable; that he can insult anyone and any group of people and be applauded. But his last outing may yet proof to be his Achilles heels.
The Chief of Staff to the Adamawa state governor is known for his belligerence towards anyone who disagrees with his brand of thuggish politics, or anyone with an independent mind to disagree with his bosses at any given time. His attitude defies the age-old saying that “dress makes a man”. Despite his being clothed by people far superior to him in character and comportment, he has failed to lift himself up from the gutters others have been trying their best to bring him out of. Rather true to his nature, he has been doing his dandiest best to drag his benefactors in to his pigsty.
He has been severally reported in the past as daring (in insultive terms) anyone who may not like his brand of politics to do his worst; he is the new kid on the block. Maybe he is yet to come to terms with his new elitist status and therefore failed to rid himself of his in-born thuggish insolence. In the past ten years, he was thrust into leadership positions by leaders who weren’t ready for leadership roles; leaders who were only willing to use him as a battering ram against their people knowing that he lack scruples. Honesty to him and his bosses is just another word and not a way of life and therefore makes dishonesty a way of life.
An honest man had to be of one piece and one faith. What constituted the life source, the idea in any man and why if any smallest part committed faux pas to that idea – in this case the mouth – the man is dead to all practical purposes. The good, the high and the noble in society are only those who keep their integrity. The chief of staff is not capable of reaching such heights because he is flawlessly inconsistent. We will all be a heap sight better off if we will consign the likes of Abdurrahman Abba to the rubbish heap and continue with what our predecessors did – build a state. Not ethnic alliances meant to bring down or exclude those regarded as not “qualified” to be of the unholy alliance.
The very idea the chief of staff is trying to promote was the precursor to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 which claimed the lives of no less than one million people. Garrulous and uncouth public officials, who happen to find themselves in power like our chief of staff, and using government propaganda machinery, got their people into trouble in those days in Rwanda. In emulating his precursors’ actions, the governor’s chief of staff is recklessly running his mouth without thinking of the consequences or ramifications of his verbal diarrhea. Even if he believe he is not touchable now, it will do him a world of good to pause for a moment, get his head out of his ethnic laager and beam his myopic eyes on the Hague. He will find his soul mates behind bars waiting for their day of judgment.
Such alliances as he and his fellow travelers, hasn’t worked in the past and will certainly not work now nor in the future – not in Adamawa and not anywhere.
The emptiness in the verbosity of our chief of staff is scary because the gullible, the undiscerning and the truly ethnicists may latch onto it thinking it is government policy and therefore unleash mayhem on the unsuspecting. I had deliberately given him and his ilk a wide berth thinking they are not important enough for any verbal assassination. But he is becoming a danger to the civilized society.
Nobody begrudges him his “Bataness” and he should therefore not hold anybody’s tribe or ethnicity against him. If he believes strongly about who he is, so do others and where you have such a mix, there is bound to be combustion. There have been pockets of ethnic related crisis in the state in the past where no one was held responsible. Whenever there is any reoccurrence in the forseeable future, we know who to hold responsible.
As to those who were seated when the thug-in-chief was making his incendiary remarks and chose to keep mute, posterity will have no pity on them, to paraphrase Fanon. This, in my book is either tacit approval or complicity in the tirade. I strongly believe most of them are well beyond board but if they choose to associate themselves with such garbage in the future, we should find it difficult to spare when they are docked before the peoples’ court in the future.
Verbal thuggery is not a preserve of any individual – we can choose to be nasty when the time and occasion demands. I am therefore belatedly asking my readers to forgive my language for this particular piece. Much as I tried to be civil, I find this piece is as civil as I feel today. This was my reason for trying to give the likes of Abdurrahman Abba a wide berth. I fear I may pick up their bad habits – bad language inclusive.
