This column originally appeared in Vanguard
Last Wednesday, July 22nd, was a very sad day for me. It was the third anniversary of my sweet mother Anne Chizomam Ukachukwu Kogbara’s death. And I’d spent the morning nostalgically re-reading her burial brochure which was full of tributes. Then my cousin called to tell me that our beloved uncle, Ambassador George Saako Kobani, had passed.
Mummy and Uncle were great friends and it is somehow poignantly fitting that they should share the same death day. Uncle George headed the Foreign Service Academy at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lagos and served in Senegal, France, Cuba and The Netherlands. He is survived by his devoted wife, Jayne, and by numerous delightful children, grandchildren and relatives.
I like to think that Mummy was waiting to welcome him at Heaven’s gate. In the meantime, we who are left behind are struggling to bear these heartbreaking losses and can only pray that our dearly departed rest in perfect peace forever and ever in the bosom of Almighty God.
Kwankwaso Chat
On Monday, I hosted a Twitter/X space discussion starring His Excellency Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the former Kano State Governor and Minister of Defence who is now Peter Obi’s running mate. It was an interesting interaction – and pleasantly eye-opening for those of us who were not very familiar with Kwankwaso’s character or track record – and I’d like to share my favourite segment with you:
I told him that something I’d noticed about the way he spoke about his gubernatorial tenure in Kano was his constant use of “we,” “our,” and “us” instead of “I,” “me,” and “my.” I asked whether his choice of pronouns reflected a belief in teamwork during his time as governor. His impressively humble response: “When you keep saying ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘myself,’ you risk sounding selfish and arrogant. Of course, I wasn’t doing it alone. I have to be fair to everyone who contributed, my deputy, commissioners, advisers, elders, and many others. It was truly a collective effort. All hands were on deck.”
If you want to hear everything else that he said, you can find the interview recording on my X, Facebook and LinkedIn pages.
Sim The Defeated
Sim Fubara, the Governor of Rivers State, has decided to choose the path of least resistance and to vigorously support Kingsley Chinda, the APC candidate Tinubu and Wike are planning to replace him with. Sim has suffered so much at their hands and many Riverians are either pitying him because they feel he had no choice but to step down for Chinda, while others are furious because they regard him as a coward.
I belong to the latter category and am wondering why he has caved in so easily. Sim is not my friend or the type of person with whom I could comfortably socialize or work with. And I didn’t vote for him in 2023. And I didn’t want Wike, his onetime mentor, to crown him as his successor. And I understand some of Wike’s bitterness against him. But I completely disagree with Wike’s insistence on removing his ex-protegee from office simply because they disagreed on money matters.
In a democracy, an individual like Wike – a mere Minister (FCT) and presidential appointee who has no locus legally – shouldn’t be able to bully someone out of an elected post for entirely personal reasons; and the ferocity with which Wike and his acolytes went after Sim (who is infinitely more popular than they are) was borderline psychotic.
OK so Nigeria is not a proper democracy, so Wike can get away with hounding Sim out of Government House. But I wouldn’t have let Wike and Tinubu have such an easy ride if I’d been in Sim’s shoes.
Instead of sycophantically caving in and urging followers who have taken enormous risks on my behalf to forget about me and face my biggest political enemies, I would have fought fire with fire.
People who are cornered often have a choice between fight, flight and playing dead; and if my political enemies threatened my life, I would have flown to London and given a press conference at which I would have informed the Nigerian public and international community of what direction they should look in if anything bad happened to me.
I’d also have threatened to expose their dirty secrets around looting – Sim must have tons of concrete evidence and inside knowledge.
And if I was still outmaneuvered politically and removed as a candidate for 2027 despite my best efforts and robust rebelliousness, I would not mumu-ishly throw my hands up and instruct my fans to vote for Chinda.
I’d have thrown my weight behind one of Chinda’s rivals and noisily campaigned for the candidate in question and rubbished Chinda.
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Even if he doesn’t think that he can win a particular battle, a real man should not take insult or unfair dismissal from his job lying down. And it is so unfortunate that Sim has betrayed those who stood by him at critical junctures – when he was suspended during last year’s fraudulent State of Emergency, for example.
When someone wins a tennis game, the umpire says “GAME, SET AND MATCH!”
Well, Wike may have won the game and the set, but trust me, he ain’t won the match because even if Sim isn’t ready to don boxing gloves, MANY other Rivers people – including Gabriel Pidomson and Dumo Lulu Briggs, the ADC and NDC guber candidates – are.
Watch this space.
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