Chife Olu Falae and the need for quick post traumatic debriefing
Nelson Ekujumi
Prior to the conduct of 2015 general elections, when the coast had become very clear that the wind of change had taken over Nigeria not by our power or might, but by my spirit, saith the Lord, Afenifere Akure, a group of Yoruba men whose existence begins and ends in the sitting room of an octogenarian in Akure, the Ondo state capital, were in the forefront with other like minds and groups, who benefited immensely from the old order of lawlessness, criminality and impunity, against our collective interest and psyche as they vigorously embarked on implementing the evil plot of preaching and sowing the seed of ethnic discord and distrust just to ensure that the tsunami of President Muhammadu Buhari electoral victory did not come to pass, but they all failed woefully because it was divinely ordained.
However, following the kidnap of Chief Olu Falae on his farm by criminals only recently, this same Afenifere Akure like in their character and still sulking from the peoples termination of their personal and unbridled access to the commonwealth, which is the primary purpose of their existence, went about town, still trying to sow the seed of ethnic discord by attempting to ethnicize and politicize a common case of criminality, which made millions of Nigerians to wonder if really it was a kidnap or an orchestrated plan, meant to embarrass the government and cause public disquiet.
However, to the glory of God, Afenifere Akure plot failed again because by their desperate acts of threatening public peace for the kidnap of one of its member, when in actual fact, the general state of insecurity in the country has made everybody a likely victim of kidnapping among crimes without a comment from this group, Nigerians began to see them for who they are and what they represented, which is for interest other than the public good.
Fortunately enough, it was the DSS, a security institution of the Nigerian state that arrested the kidnappers of Chief Olu Falae, who collected a ransom before releasing him and paraded them before the whole world and thus exposed the agenda of fanning the embers of ethnic discord by Afenifere Akure. If we all recollect, immediately, Chief Falae was abducted, OPC, the militia group, ordered its members to go out to rescue the elder statesman and our suspicion about the reality of the kidnap, was further compounded when Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo state, in whose territory, baba was abducted, announced gleefully at Pa Frederick Fasehun, the OPC founder’s birthday here in Lagos, that his own Yorubas, not mine, felt more secure with the presence of OPC rather than with the security provided by the Nigerian police. What manner of a Governor?
And ever since, this kidnap and the failed attempt by his Afenifere Akure group to cause public disquiet and embarrass the government and people of Nigeria, Chief Olu Falae has been in the public domain making statements that makes one to wonder, if the authorities have taken the appropriate measure of accessing him to post traumatic debriefing to get him out of the psychological agony of the kidnap.
However, one was shocked and amazed to read in the national dailies today, where Baba Falae said that, war would have broken out between the Yorubas and Hausa Fulanis, if he had been killed by his abductors when the former minister of education and Kano state governor, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau paid him a visit in Akure. What will be the basis of the dream war between the Yorubas and Hausas by Baba Falae supposed death? In case Baba Falae has forgotten due to the trauma of his kidnap, the Yorubas are a very enlightened, rational, logical and sophisticated people who are not zombies that can be bamboozled by a wolf cry.
Haba, Baba, what manner of an elder are you to wish that a society, which you served meritoriously as minister of finance, secretary to the government of the federation (SGF) and even offered your service as President among others positions in which you have served, should be destroyed just because the personal agenda of your Afenifere group was thwarted by the Almighty God at the 2015 polls? Is war fought by chickens and goats? Haba Baba, se e fe ba Olorun ja ni? Do you want to fight God?
From the recent statements by Pa Olu Falae, one can say without any iota of doubt, that this old man who has spent over seven decades on earth, cannot be oblivious of the consequences of war which is about agony, pains, destructions, misery and death, except if he cut off from reality by his traumatic experience.
If we all recollect Chief Falae’s narration as well as that of the kidnappers when they were arrested by the security agency, one will realize that what the septuagenarian went through in the hands of the criminals requires that he should immediately undergo post traumatic therapy to save him, his group and the Yoruba nation, further embarrassment through comments that are unbecoming of his status in the society.
A word is enough for the wise.
Thanks.
Ekujumi writes from Lagos