Ekweremadu's slap: A clarion call on the APC

By Omogbolahan Babs

For whatever reason, the attack on former Deputy Senate President of the Federal Republic, Senator Ike Ekweremadu in far away Nurnberg, Germany is as discomfiting, discomforting and as ridiculously grotesque. To say a man who'd served the Red Chamber for a total period of twelve years would be subjected to such godawful and execrable treatment is highly discombobulating. More so when such misdemeanor is coming from same folks he had stuck his name and integrity for. In the heat of the Independent People of Biafra's (IPOB) brouhaha in 2016, Senator Ekweremadu had stood up for the scalawag called Nnamdi Kanu. Reports even had it that while folks from the south east sold the dummy that President Muhammadu Buhari had killed 'messiah' Kanu, Ekweremadu was actually one of the masterminds of his escape from the shores of Nigeria.

Nigerians have since reacted differently to the obnoxious experience of the revered senator. While the elites saw it as loathsomely atrocious on the personage of the senator and an ugly embarrassment on the nation - Nigeria, a section of commentators saw it as deserving. Regardless of whichever side of the divide anyone  may want to belong, it does not take away the incontrovertible fact that such act is morally pugnacious of Ekweremadu's attackers. It does not depict what Yorùbás would call the 'omolúàbí' (virtuous) upbringing the average Nigerian child is known with. However, Ekweremadu's experience is a pointer to one fact - that rebellion is nearer than expected if nothing is done to change the narrative. There is pent up anger. People are exasperated both at home and in diaspora.

The beating of Ekweremadu has sounded a clarion call on the political class to do the needful going forward. Ekweremadu may have been a legislature, but what happened does not take away the fact that bad governance of several years is equally part of what caused the public angst. When people are frustrated at home, when hopes are forlorn, when aspiration are dashed and despondency seems ambience and ubiquitous; the kind of treatment meted out to Senator Ekweremadu is inevitable. Many Nigerians in the Diaspora are as equally discontented and stonewalled as those at home. A number of them sought greener pasture outside the shores of Nigeria, but it turned out that it all was not bed of roses even in 'obodo oyinbo'. It is therefore bad enough that when people saddled with the responsibilities of providing good governance are seen ostensibly living ostentatious lifestyles, anger is ineluctable.

Political leaders across the divide should prepare for the worse if the narrative is not changed. For as long as people die on our bad roads across the country as a corollary of bad governance, there will be anger. For as long as people lack access to adequate health and medical treatment, anger brews. For as long as Nigerians pay for darkness, frustration is ineludible. For as long as the average Nigerian does not feel secured in their own country, expect more of Ekweremadu's treatment on a larger scale. The People's Democratic Party, PDP may have laid the ugly foundation for our economic and infrastructure doldrums in their 16-year malfeasance sway, the All Progressives Congress, APC must continue to make concerted efforts at addressing the many ills bequeathed to Nigerians by the erstwhile political marauders on our landscape.

But do these politicians really know that they can actually provide good governance and still 'steal'? Do they know you can provide good roads, affordable health, power, jobs while you still make your billions? It is the excessive greed or avarice that pushes them to rapaciously rule at the expense of the average Nigerian. But it is good that people are being pushed to react now. If the political class thinks that they have all the necessary security to cocoon them against public reaction emanating from weltschmerz, then, they should know mob actions are not sheathed against security brick wall. Let me asseverate here that regardless of how the political class may want to adumbrate their flatulent and garish lifestyles which are products of their peculating our common patrimony, the security of their lives and those of their families have expiry date, except if they sit up and provide good governance.

Omogbolahan Babs, a Forensic and Criminal Investigative expert writes from Abuja