Another sinnathug in the Red Chamber

Forget all that I wrote on social media. I don’t live there. This is where I truly live. Here, I don’t have to pretend that nearly 5,000 people are reading – because they are not. So, I can confess to you if you promise not to tell anyone else, that I love Elisha Cliff Ishiaku Abbo. First, the guy is handsome. Well, in a Jim Nwobodo kind of way. Don’t mind those who say that Nwobodo’s complexion changed after he returned from Muhammadu Buhari’s gulag. Back in the day, prisons had no amenity wards that offered Tura, Asepso and Tetmosol with enough mercury to bleach any skin whiter than Jik. Millennials, please ask your parents.

I don’t know how Sinnator Abbo gets to keep his clearly bleached skin that cute and have an innocent look. People with horrible habits should never look that cute. And those beards – they make young Fidel Castro as jealous as they would have made Hassan Summonu.

Another reason I love Sinnator Elisha Abbo is that he is a practical demonstration of the #NotTooYoungToRun or what I’ve come to call, the Angry Generation. With time, even offensive behaviour for which we critique today’s ruiners would be digitized. At 41, Abbo whose name is one letter over the Yoruba word for defence has ran races that Moses Kiptanui knows nothing about. In those races, especially in native Adamawa, sinnathug Abbo is a heavyweight. He has been beating people longer than Anthony Joshua or Mike Tyson. Prof. Mahmood Yakubu was his last umpire.

This sinnathug has a penchant for beating women – ask Binta Masi Garba the brainy beauty who competes with Khairat Gwadabbe and Esther Nenadi Usman on that score if I was a juror of beauty and brawn. Binta deserved to keep her seat until like my good friend Abike Dabiri-Erewa, she chose to abdicate her electoral throne in pure altruism. Elisha Abbo challenged her to a duel and according to the umpire; he punched her so hard he dislodged her from the parliament in a contest surprisingly declared conclusive.

But if you think this pugilist administers only electoral shellacking, you are mistaken. His records of physical assaults are still emerging. In 2005, when sinnathug Abbo made his first attempt at political notoriety, his youthful looks attracted photojournalist Olumuyiwa Owolabi Atobatele. Muyiwa, who was plying his trade in Digbolugi Fayose’s Ekiti abandoned post and followed Abbo to Adamawa. The agreement was that Abbo would pay Muyiwa N2.8 million for his camera efforts. Fortunately, Abbo lost that round just as Boko Haram was closing in on Mubi.

A concerned Muyiwa just wanted to make it out alive. He did what any hired professional would do – ask to be paid for his services or enough to defray his costs in the meantime. Loser Abbo was in no mood to honour contractual agreements. Muyiwa thought picketing his hotel room would do the trick but it became a costly mistake he would forever regret.

Hear him: “As soon as he came out, I began to plead with him that I had to leave. The next thing he said was that I was embarrassing him. He leaped on me and started beating and slapping me to the extent of telling his orderly to put me inside the pickup. He told them to cock their gun and that he would kill me and tell people that I was a member of Boko Haram.”

Long story short, Muyiwa ended in Kaliwa police station, detained on Abbo’s connections. He was stripped naked and his phone was smashed. It took the DPO’s generosity to get him out of detention. When he did, he forgot the contract, happy to be a survivor.

If Bibra, Abbo’s latest victim had read this story, she could have been saved the pain and the agony she suffered in the hand of this miscreant masquerading as a lawmaker. Muyiwa swallowed his pain in silence until now.

With a robust security vetting cum psychiatric evaluation as prerequisites for animals aspiring for public office, this national embarrassment to a man who described himself as ‘Christ’s ambassador’ would have been prevented. Thuggery, says Dapo Olorunyomi, is a doomed art. But Abbo the thug in the red chamber is towing a familiar lane. In 2004, Isa Mohammed, a Niger State sinnathug slapped another woman, Iyabo Anisulowo for allegedly ‘chopping alone.’ He even boasted about it. This is why they don’t teach history in schools. How do you explain that to a well-raised kid?

Abbo’s apology was an afterthought. Obviously he has more skeletons buried that would show up with time. The leopard doesn’t change its spots. This sinnathug first denied the video, then said it was doctored and threatened to release a statement. In the end, he sought to buy the reputation he’ll never have by shedding crocodile tears. His body language betrayed his lack of remorse. Apology and remorse are two different things. His brainless orderly is as guilty as he is, for carrying out an unlawful order. He should be shown the way out of the police.

Abbo broke the law and brought disrepute to law making. He should have no seat except among peers sharing his disgraceful conduct. He should have orderlies withdrawn forever, that way, he’ll meet his match. He should return home and learn manners and the rules of civilised conduct. He should seek professional counsel and desist from seeking public office for at least half a decade. If he maintains civilised conduct that long, we’ll be convinced he’s not too daft to repent. Until then, nothing has changed. He should face the law for assault and battery or compensate his victim – and yes, he should pay Muyiwa for his work and remember – thuggery is a doomed art.

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