Senator Ibikunle Amosun was governor of Ogun State between 2011 to 2019. Before then, he was a Nigerian senator for four years between 2003 and 2007, where he represented Ogun Central Senatorial District. At the completion of his eight-year two terms as the governor of the state in 2019, Amosun was again elected senator, a position he occupies till date. His political trajectory, ordinarily, profiles him as a gentleman. A simple definition of the noun, gentleman, says whoever is qualified for such is “a chivalrous, courteous, or honourable man”. I pick “honourable” as my definition of gentleman for the purpose of today’s discourse. A man who has been a senator and a governor of a state should be honourable in all ramifications. That is if the definition is expected to be universal. But this is Nigeria. We obey every universal principle and concept in the breach here. No thanks to the modern day political elites, who rule over our affairs and end up ruining our collective sensibility.
Amosun, some four days ago, granted the BBC Yoruba Service an interview. He spoke flawless Yoruba Language. The interviewer, a lady, asked the ex-governor about the street lingo phenomenon, japa, and how the senator felt about it. Japa, a neologism finding its way into the Standard Nigerian English (SNE) codification, is the term used to describe the mass migration of Nigerians of all ages and professions to other countries, especially the United Kingdom, the USA Canada; and if you live in the Niger Delta Area, to Ghana! Yes, Ghana! The japa syndrome is becoming endemic. Amosun recognised that in the interview and he did not hide his feelings about that. When pressed further by the interviewer on the phenomenon, the former governor described the generosity of the visa issuing countries to Nigerians as wicked in proportion. He spoke in Yoruba and I present to the readers, the transcript of the statement: “Visa ti won kí nfun won tele, ise ni won moomo wa nfun won bayi. Won a fun iyawo, gbogbo Omo won, wa a ni kan ka lo. E ma ripe awon orile ede to nfun won niwe kí won ma gbelu lohun, e mi wo pe bi Ika papa ni won fi nse fun wa ni”- “The visa that they (countries) were not issuing before, is what they are deliberately issuing to them now. They will give to their wives. All their (visa applicants’) children, they will ask them to bring them over. You will see that those countries issuing the residence permits, I see it as being deliberately wicked to us”.
This is exactly what the media reported. The headlines in virtually all the platforms where the interview was reported have the same denominator: “Western nations encouraging japa, granting young Nigerians visas wicked –Ex-gov”. Expectedly, the backlash was drowning. Voices rose in condemnation of the senator’s description of the visa issuing countries. One would have expected that the former Ogun State governor would keep quiet and swallow the blows in silence. Not him. Not an average Nigerian politician, who, we all know, places little or no premium on honour and integrity. Amosun’s media aide, Bola Adeyemi, in a rejoinder issued on Sunday, described the report of the BBC interview as a misrepresentation. The rejoinder further stated that “the choice of the word ‘wicked’ was purely the reporter’s and not his (Amosun’s)”. Too bad for Amosun and his media aide. Amosun used the Yoruba word, “ika” in the interview. If Amosun and his spokesman, Adeyemi, don’t know the English Language equivalent of, “ika”, I can help their deliberate lack of understanding. There is a dictionary published by the University Press Plc, Ibadan, in 2012, titled: “A Dictionary of The Yoruba Language”. On page 114, the dictionary enters the meaning of “ika” as “cruelty, wickedness”. We don’t need Professor Wande Abimbola for further interpretation. It is rather a shame that the world over, media men are the fall guys of politicians. Amosun’s denial of what he said expressly boils down to guilty conscience.
The former Ogun State governor belongs to the class of rudderless leaders, who brought Nigeria to its knees such that Nigerians, in their prime ages, are migrating like cattle egrets to foreign land for the proverbial greener pasture. Tales abound of the type of conditions those Nigerians are subjected to. The wickedness of leaders like Ibikunle Amosun is the reason why Nigerian graduates go to Europe to pick up menial jobs for survival. Amosun was governor of Ogun State for eight years. In those eight years of the locust, how many enduring cottage industries did the senator establish for the teeming youths of the state to work? In the interview, he said that he found the japa phenomenon scary, and I ask, which should be more scary between a governor who wasted the state’s resources on frivolities and suffering Nigerians, who are daily shipping themselves overseas to eke out a living by all means? Who is more wicked between a leadership structure that eats up the produce and the seedlings, and a country which opens up its borders for hapless Nigerians to come in.
If Amosun, like he said in the interview, is pained that the most productive members of the Nigerian population are the ones migrating overseas, may we ask him, how many of his children are here with us in Nigeria? If the senator is so confident about his philosophy that foreigners would not come and develop Nigeria, why has he not brought back his children and relations living abroad to come and join hands in building the Nigeria of his dream? Can we ever fathom the devastation the poor and wicked leadership, epitomised by the Amosuns of this world have caused this nation? Can this generation and the generation of our children ever forgive the likes of Amosun, who had the best the nation could offer while they were growing up, but at their own time, milked the nation dry such that Nigerians are turning themselves to voluntary slaves abroad? After frustrating other people’s children out of Nigeria, Amosun is still not happy that they escaped! What can be more wicked than that?
In the last couple of days, there has been a video of a beautiful Nigerian lady, who resigned as a top banker and went to the UK to pick up a cleaning job. I came to tears when I saw the picture of Floxy Obi in her cleaning jacket. Floxy, who posted the picture on her social media platform wrote: ”UK will humble you. Masters degree holder indeed.Hahahaha laughing in Swahili see Ex-banker wey sabi give query anyhow. Nigerian govt; right all the wrongs and we promise we will come back to our dear country”. Who will see that video and will not ask God to descend on those who brought us to this level with fire and thunder? Why would a senior banker abandon the banking hall in Nigeria for a cleaning job in the UK if not for bad leadership? Does it even matter if Amosun was quoted out of context or not? Should he, or anyone in his ilk, comment about Nigerians migrating abroad for household chores? Who created the circumstances that forced those Nigerians abroad in their prime?
Days before Amosun spoke to the BBC Yoruba Service, the Nigerian Tribune, on Wednesday, October 12, 2022, ran a report culled from the BBC, titled “How Nigerian Doctors, Other Foreigners Are ‘Exploited’ In UK —BBC Investigation”. In the report authored by Lanre Adewole, the Lagos Bureau Chief of the newspaper, it was stated that “Nigerian doctors recruited to practice in the United Kingdom (UK) are being professionally exploited”. Quoting the BBC, the Nigerian Tribune story further disclosed that “A BBC investigation has found evidence that doctors from Nigeria are being recruited by a British healthcare company and expected to work in private hospitals under conditions not allowed in the National Health Service (NHS). BBC claimed it spoke to several foreign doctors, “including a young Nigerian doctor who worked at the private Nuffield Health Leeds Hospital in 2021. Augustine Enekwechi says his hours were extreme – on-call 24 hours a day for a week at a time – and that he was unable to leave the hospital grounds. He says working there felt like being in a prison. The tiredness was so intense, he says, there were times he worried he couldn’t properly function. The report also quoted the Nigerian doctor as saying, “I knew that working tired puts the patients at risk and puts myself also at risk,… I felt powerless, helpless, you know, constant stress and thinking something could go wrong”.
The above is what Amosun and his gang of wicked leaders have turned our citizens to. They made the country insecure. They ensure that jobs are not available. And where they are available, they pay next to nothing. In Nigeria of the likes of Amosun today, medical doctors scramble to be placed on Housemanship. Those who are unfortunate to work in private clinics are paid less than N150,000 a month, an amount so paltry that those children still run back to their daddies and mummies for succour before the next pay. When you have a situation like this, the prospect of such parents reaping the fruits of their labour on such children becomes a tall dream- barely realisable! How on earth will a child who can barely sustain himself for just a single month remember to reward their parents’ hard labour? Parents spend fortunes to see their children through medical colleges only to see the same children roaming the streets looking for hospitals where to practise their profession. At the end of the day, the same parents would have to sell personal effects to generate funds to send their well trained children to the UK or any other European country for greener pastures.
Some years ago, a young man ran his car into the rear of my friend’s car, in which we were travelling, on the Third Mainland Bridge, Lagos. We came down to inspect the damage he had caused. The young man also came down from his car. Instead of apologising to us, he said: “I am a young lawyer. I am under stress. Office stress. I am a young lawyer”. An elderly fellow in our car wanted to scold the young man but I quickly stopped him. “Oga”, I said, “can’t you see that this young man is not himself? If you talk to him and he leaps into the ocean, what will you do”? I moved over to the young man and calmed him down. I asked where he worked and he gave me his complimentary card bearing the chambers of one of the foremost lawyers in Nigeria, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, and a senior member of the Body of Benchers. I asked the young man what his salary was and he said “just N10, 000, just N10, 000. I am under stress”. All of us in the car exchanged glances. My friend, the owner of the car, asked the young man: “How do you repair the car now”? The lawyer answered: “We will repair the car; you and I”. We had no further dealing with the young man. He rammed into us from the back and he was bold to tell us that we would go Dutch in the repair of the car. Now I ask, if the young man is offered a visa to Mongolia, one of the coldest countries in the world, where he would be paid 25 Pounds an hour, will he stay back to help fix the Nigeria that the Amosuns of this nation have destroyed?
