Another weekend is here. And it is a time to ruminate on what happened in the preceding days. At the moment, what continues to dominate the mind and the public space is the latest and unforced error by the Second Buhari administration. Invariably, the Twitter matter would have been a good bone to chew on a day like this. But no. So much has been written on this issue. And it is clear that apart from the palace chroniclers, no one is standing up for the Government. So, rather than bore the reader with another tirade, I have chosen to take a different track.
Therefore, I seek to give the reader a reprieve from all the noise about Twitter and its enemies. Thus, my focus is on my recent trip to Ekiti and some of my humbling moments in the course of the trip. It was humbling because in the last five years, travelling for me had been an elaborate process that was tended by various aides.
It was a process in which I was a remote participant, yet I was at the centre of it. There was, for instance a personal assistant who will book the flight, followed by the then ever-present security operatives in a convoy, which would take me to the airport. And at the airport, another drama always ensued. On a regular basis, I was bound to run into one important persona or the other. Small talk will start about our country and other issues. It never fails to strike me while thinking and mingling with these important social forces that they too are aware of the pains in the land. Yet there are no solutions to these familiar problems. I always take time to pinch myself with the reminder that, one day this script would be over.
For, I always see myself as a member of that other tribe: the Counter-Elite. A particular episode comes to mind here. I was once seated beside the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives in the Business Class section of the aircraft. I decided to needle him with the kind of creative irreverence that is the hallmark of my twin professions: academia and Journalism. I asked him, your Excellency, there is no water in Lagos, you and the others must do something about it. He looked at me startled and asked in turn, who are you?
I replied him by saying that, I am the headmaster of a university in Ekiti State. Clearly, he was shocked by the unusual response.
Read Also: Nigeria is unravelling; but this time, we’re on our own
For here I was, juxtaposing two different variables. He followed up by asking further, do you know me? I replied by saying yes I do! And added further: You are one of the post-colonial masters in Nigeria! This was the ultimate. Being a very educated person, our man became very conscious that he was in an unusual company in this privileged cocoon. So much for memories.
I am currently in the present phase of my life and I am headed for Ekiti, courtesy of official summons from the Federal Government Visitation Panel to Federal University Oye Ekiti. This time around, there were neither aides, nor security operatives. I was alone, save for a younger friend and colleague who accompanied me. It was a very humbling moment given the situation in earlier times when various aides would have been swarming around me. We were at the airport in Lagos by 6am because we had to catch the 7:20am flight to Akure, en route to Ado Ekiti, the state capital of Ekiti.
Predictably, there were no cars waiting for us at the Akure nodal point. So off to Ado-Ekiti we headed by road on the platform of a taxi cab. It was a most uncomfortable ride and of course another humbling moment. The road between Akure and Ado-Ekiti was still appalling. This time around, I could feel the searing impact.
In times past, a stately car, the beast-like Prado, would have absorbed all the bone shaking which became my lot; another humbling moment. In the course of the ride, conversation started between and among: my friend, myself and the driver. I lamented on how this road all through my five-year stay in Ekiti had remained the same. I also remember one of the Governors, who in the course of our discussion, saying that what he and the state government had in mind was a Six-lane highway, which would put smiles on the faces of the prospective road users.
But some five years later we are still feeding on this diet of promise. I also recounted the time we invited a scholar from Belgium and he had to travel on this road. Looking back, it must have been something of a cultural shock for this colleague. And for obvious reasons, the scholar has not made a second visit as promised.
In due course, we reached Ado Ekiti, the state capital. Things were still the same here. Not much had changed since I left some four months ago. The shops and supermarkets were still filled with imported goods as usual, a situation, which continues to ensure a downward slide for our Naira. If I may recall, it was a Thursday. Later in the day, I had an interesting session with the Visitation Panel. It was an encounter in which I tried to neutralise the inherent biases in the observations and questions from the other side. These are, however, matters of State and as such, they remain classified.
Finally, it was time to return to my hotel room whose cost in earlier times would have been borne by the Nigerian State. This time around, a hole was drilled in my now humble pocket. Such is life, nothing lasts forever. And talking about drilled pockets, this was also evident in the cost of the airfare. For a journey to Akure, which lasted for less than an hour, a princely sum of N37,000 each was coughed out. Little did I know that something worse was in the offing! The return leg of the trip cost N60,000 each.
Why did we not go by road for just N5,000 each? But then, as an Olusegun Obasanjo observed, this country is currently dripping with bitterness and sadness, and if I may add, bad roads. So under the circumstances, the almost N100,000 for the trip was worth it. This is in view of the ransom value inherent in this writer. For, when the come…. Comes to become, apologies to Ozumba Mbadiwe, there is, in reality, no distinction between a member of the elite on one hand, and the Counter Elite on the other.
To the kidnappers, bandits and other disaffected groups, members of the Elite and those who claim to belong to the Counter Elite are one and the same. No one is safe. So in a sense, we are all in danger. And dear reader, if you have been able to relate in a meaningful way to this piece; then you are also in trouble, in these harrowing times.
