Growing up, being called an agbero was the ultimate insult. It conjures the unenviable image of a motorboy, aka conductor, a street urchin with zero morals, manners or scruples; dogs for hire for any bidder able to pay the bill. They live by the dictates of their stomachs only.
Evolution is changing the status of the agbero. As public transportation remains a private enterprise, owners and operators formed rival unions catering for their needs at the expense of the commuter.
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The adoption of the motorboy as a tolerable member of the burgeoning middle class evolves everywhere around us. In Lagos State, Honourable MC Oluomo is changing our perception of the agbero. The chairman of the Lagos Parks Management Committee is changing the perception of the errant motorboy into what some have aptly described as ‘agbero with class’. He has adopted a uniform that though neither weather nor culture-friendly is making the job look corporate to public perception.
MC Oluomo has become the toast of the Lagos social circle struggling to keep up with his social diary. He daily gets invitations from political groups and even religious leaders. There are those who swear that MC has become the prayer point of some people. If you had a choice between Sina Rambo, Lawrence Anini and MC, some would prefer the last.
Evolution is bae and the motorboy would not be the first to advance from tolerable to acceptable. The difference between tolerable and acceptable is packaging. Since the evolution of Donald Trump, tramps have assumed the tolerable status and even cult following in political circles. Trump rose to the highest office bullying opponents along his way and in the process attracting cult following.
It is sad when tramps become heroes simply by employing foul language and elevating dishonourable conduct into acceptable deportment. In verbiage the agbero has no filter. Check out how Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike rose to fame and stardom.
In normal transitions, with just a few days to the start of the electoral campaign, the pain of winning and losing the primaries are often forgotten in the overall interest of the party and its leading candidate. Not for Wike, who came a glorious second at his party primaries and perhaps saw himself as the logical vice presidential candidate.
However Atiku Abubakar, the man who won the party’s ticket was not ready for a running mate that could keep him always on the defence, so he picked the taciturn Ifeanyin Okowa from Delta State. That choice has placed him, Okowa and the party’s top hierarchy in defence mode with Wike’s infantile tantrums. Instead of fighting for votes, they are all struggling to keep up with Wike’s banana peels and expanding his insurgent sphere of influence.
Wike’s intransigence is threatening the probable gains of the party at the polls. At the last count, he has won the support of Seyi Makinde to the West, Ortom in Benue with some notable party bigwigs. Ortom comes from the same state as Ayu. The demand of the rebels is simple – Ayu’s resignation as party chairman because he comes from the same zone as Atiku. So strong was the demand at one time that Ayu had to cancel an overseas vacation to stave off a Wike-led insurrection. He continues to engage him in brickbats.
Wike is aware of his vantage position. Rivers State is strategic not only for votes, but the economic survival of the Nigerian state. It is a major oil producing state with a history of armed insurrection. Losing Rivers and any vassal supporter could cost the PDP dearly as it plans to unseat the APC come 2023. Even if by a stroke of luck it wins, a Wike intransigence could make governance difficult for a country with over N40 trillion in debt. Any successor to Muhammadu Buhari would need peace to run an effective and efficient government in 2023.
Wike exalts himself as a governor with scant regard for political decorum. He bellows from the rooftops, things best whispered under the duvet of socio-political discourse. Wike takes no prisoners, a show-off that travels with a musical band primed to pick up rebellious panegyric tunes at his cue. He thrashes at real and imagined political enemies local and national.
Ayu, the pawn in Wike’s political chessboard, is a dying man hanging on a thread. He does not envisage a fall from the antics of a political upstart. Yet some within his party believe stepping down might help his party rally for the big event. But he shows no sign of vacating. In Nigeria, politicians don’t care about legacies or the survival of institutions as they do about personal interest. Atiku is in a fix.
With suspension on the cards, the Port Harcourt based stormy petrel has warned that the party would die if it suspends him. Yet, a success by the Wike enigma might become a precedent, a blackmail tool that any disgruntled party member could use in future. Yet ignoring Wike could be deadly. This drama has no predictable end.
The ruling APC is not in any better position to benefit from the storm in the teacup of its political rival. It is stewing in the soup over its Muslim-Muslim ticket. However, the more it feels it has pulled its feet from the political quicksand, the more Yakubu Dogara, a Bauchi minority Christian and a renegade Bola Ahmed Tinubu loyalist pulls it back in. Dogara, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, suddenly wants to showcase his ‘minority Christian’ credentials to political advantage. He has found an unholy alliance in Babachir Lawal, former secretary to the government of the federation, SGF.
Lawal is a Christian from Adamawa State, who was relieved of his duties for misappropriating funds budgeted for victims of the Boko Haram crisis in northeastern Nigeria. He is yet to legally discharge himself from that charge that questions his rights to stand on supposed ‘Christian’ values. Notwithstanding, Dogara and Lawal threaten to chip at Tinubu’s electoral chances among the North’s under-represented ‘Christian minority’. This is dynamite primed on Nigeria’s religiously charged political swing. What electoral clout these two have on their fellow Christians would be tested only at the polls or even afterwards.
To succeed, both parties must resolve these issues amicably to clear the foreboding shadows hanging over their chances before or shortly after tomorrow. If they fail, the impact could cause a tectonic tsunami for their parties with aftershocks capable of disturbing the fragile peace and co-existence of Nigeria.
These unnecessary distractions could stop Nigerians from finding out who among the many presidential contenders has the key to unlock the country’s economic potential, its peace and security and national entente. There may not be left too many more chances of redeeming Africa’s most populous nation from disintegration. If voters make the wrong choice based on petty party shenanigans, the country may be doomed as political opportunists and separatists beat the drums of disintegration. The gun goes off tomorrow – that’s when the official campaign season starts.
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