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The traumatised wife of the Deji of
Akure, Olori Bolanle Adesina, has urged the Ondo State governor,
Olusegun Mimiko, to instruct the state commissioner of police to order
a full scale investigation into the attack on her person by her
husband.

Mrs. Adesina, in a petition via her
counsel, Ibraheem Aganum and Co., appealed to Mr. Mimiko to use his
office to ensure that justice is done. The Akure queen said the
petition became imperative in order to make sure that the case is not
swept under the carpet.

Copies of the petition were also sent
to the state deputy governor, Ali Olanusi; top government
functionaries; the Deji in Council; the Nigeria Union of Journalists,
Ondo State chapter; the state police commissioner; and the director of
State Security Services.

The petitioner pointed out that the matter was beyond a domestic affair, as claimed in some quarters.

The petition reads, in part: “We want
to state categorically and unequivocally, with great emphasis, that the
public opprobrium has subject our client to great psychological trauma,
pains, and financial loss.

“We demand justice of our client, as
the matter is beyond a domestic affair. We want to urge his Excellency
to use your good office to instruct the police to order a full scale
investigation into the matter, without fear or favour.

“We most humbly submit, in strong and
clear terms, that the paramount ruler’s act is contrary to royal native
norms, values, and traditional dictates. The king’s action is criminal
in nature, which attracts sanction under the criminal code.”

The petition pointed out that Mrs.
Adesina was presently receiving medical attention for chemical burns
and other injuries she sustained during the attack on her at the
Federal Medical Centre, Owo, after the initial first aid treatment she
got at the Ondo State Specialist Hospital, Akure.

The petitioner also frowned at the way
the Olori was sent packing from the palace, eight months ago, for
flimsy excuses from the monarch without recourse to due native
processes of banishing an Olori from the Deji’s palace, as stipulated
by the traditions of Akure.

Mrs. Adesina, yesterday, in a telephone
interview with NEXT, revealed that she was transferred from the State
Specialist Hospital, Akure, to the Federal Medical Centre, Owo, for
security reasons.

She said she had to be moved to Owo,
her hometown, to prevent an alleged plan by Oba Adesina to send
hoodlums to attack her at the Akure hospital, aside from her
deteriorating state of health resulting from the battering she received
from her husband.

Women groups protest

Meanwhile, women under the auspices of
National Council of Women Societies, Ondo State chapter, yesterday
staged a peaceful protest in Akure to register their discontentment
against the attitude of the Akure monarch.

The women, who described the action of
Oba Adesina as uncivilised, also condemned the assault meted on Mrs.
Adesina. They asked security operatives to get to the root of the
matter.

The state president of the association,
Iyabo Akinlagbe, said rather than subject a woman to that kind of
punishment, any man who does not want his wife again has the right to
seek a lawful means of addressing the matter.

Mrs. Akinagbe, who said the society
would fight the matter to a logical conclusion, said “if we cannot
fight it at the state level, we will go to the national; if we cannot
finish it at the national level, we will go to the international level,
since the NCWS has international affliation.”

The NCWS said the group would pay advocacy visit to the Council of Obas and the governor’s wife on the matter.

“A leader ought to be disciplined in
the community. Anybody that is not disciplined is not fit to be a
leader. We do not want men to kill us naturally.

“The Bible even says if you do not want
your wife again you have the right to divorce her, instead of
destroying her flesh”, she said.

Similarly, the Ondo State chapter of
the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), said the action
of the monarch was disgraceful and should be condemned by all women.

A Nigerian student
in the UK, being pushed to get the high examination grades required to
enter Oxbridge Universities, protested that all her subject teachers at
school were graduates of Oxford and Cambridge.

“What is the point
of working so hard to get there if you are only going to be a teacher?”
she said. At first, the adult relating the story to me agreed with the
teenager that ending up as a teacher after working so hard, and having
one’s parents pay so much to send their child to one of the premier
universities in the world, was a failure.

The same theme is
echoed in the 2009 film, “an education” where the lead character’s
education is salvaged by a female teacher whom she had previously
sneered at for her lack of ambition and achievement after being one of
the first set of women to attend university.

However, isn’t the
point that it should be our brightest minds who train, educate, advise
and groom our citizens and leaders? Would you choose an unintelligent
teacher to help your child pass his or her exams?

The real tragedy is
that we are the ones who have decided that it is ok if the people who
rule us did not work hard for good grades at school, have never held
down a real job or run a business successfully.

Reading extracts
from Plato’s ‘The Republic’ and Khaldun’s ‘The Muqaddimah’ about how
their societies selected their leaders and the criteria for
appointment, I was struck by how truly backward we are. By backward, I
mean we are doing things backwards instead of forwards. We are
regressing instead of progressing.

Plato is a Greek
Philosopher who lived in 400 BC (before Christ). Khaldun is a Tunisian
historian who wrote mostly in the late 1300s. In their days, only the
brightest minds, with a source of income could be leaders. Plato picked
men who could observe the world as philosophers do, analyse it and plan
how to flourish within it as spiritual, rational and physical beings.

For Khaldun,
leaders had to be members of the aristocracy, men of virtue, religion,
education, liberality, bravery and nobility. In addition, he had to be
just, and not compete with his citizens in farming or trade.

The brightest
brains, of whom we have plenty in Nigeria, have also made some
decisions for themselves. They have decided that they are not eligible
to rule because they do not want to steal or keep company with thieves.
They have decided to make their fortunes in business, eke a basic
living in academics or else emigrate to a society where the
appreciation for the value the brightest brains can bring already
exists.

Of course, there is
the odd exception who decides to do the right thing; but because we
don’t like the package the message comes in, we just humour them, hail
them and pass them by on the well travelled road to destruction,
despair and oblivion.

Others say that
calls for the brightest brains are just calls for the “elite” to take
power. I beg to disagree. If there is one thing you can say about
Nigeria it is that our elite are not a fixed demographic group.
Membership of a social class changes as your circumstances change, and
there is opportunity for everyone in their individual efforts.

Memo to the bright

What people
confuse with the elite are the privileged. But many people from
privileged homes are not members of any elite groups other than the
social recreational clubs their parents and grandparents formed. So
this is not about the elite. This is about having real criteria for our
leaders and rulers, and grooming them through our best teachers and
advisers.

Dear ‘brightest
brains’, show us that you also have common sense and logic. Prove to us
that the people who invested their time, love and money in your care
and training to make a leader out of you did not waste their time.

For goodness sake,
for God’s sake, for your sake, step up to be identified, elected and
appointed to rule us. Step forward to challenge and prevent the
ineligible from leading us. Step out from the tiny haven of calm and
productivity that you have created as your world, and fight to expand
it to benefit more people, and then step back to find and drag out
other bright minds to join you in creating a critical mass that can
make positive change happen.

Dear ‘not so
bright minds’ but right-thinking people, you know who should really be
in leadership positions. Prod them, disturb them, encourage them, support them, protect them, and guide them to lead us right.

Lastly, is this a sensible society where our teachers, who work in
hot, ill-equipped and over-populated classrooms earn N1 million a year
if they are lucky; and where our senators who sit in air conditioned
rooms to pass only one new law per session, earn N300 million per annum?

The intrigue
surrounding the relationship between Cross River State governor, Liyel
Imoke, and his predecessor, Donald Duke, deepened by another layer
early this week when the two men showed up together Monday evening at
the birthday bash of the state chairman of the PDP, Ekpo Okon.

Messrs Imoke and
Duke sat together at the foyer of the Calabar Cultural Centre and were
seen giggling from ear to ear occasionally, to the consternation of
other guests. The friendly disposition seemingly put paid to early
speculations of bad blood between the two men.

The much-trumpeted
break up of their political alliance is evident in Mr. Duke’s recent
defection from the PDP and his alleged behind-the-scene efforts to
torpedo the PDP-led state government.

Last weekend’s
attempt by the police to stop the inauguration of the Calabar Women and
Children Hospital [CWCH] built by Duke’s wife, Onari, following a court
order granted by a High Court in Akamkpa Local Government Area of the
state, was seen as another instance of this disagreement. Mr. Duke went
away with the police to explain that the court was issued by another
judicial division and therefore, not enforceable.

The policemen sent
to enforce the court order took him away to the state police
headquarter to explain things to their superior officers. Mr. Duke
explained that the hospital, situated within the premises of the
defunct National Republican Convention [NRC] office in Calabar, was
built with donor funds and that the NRC building was duly leased by his
wife for 25 years.

The chief press
secretary to Mr. Imoke, Patrick Ugbe, in a rejoinder to media reports
linking the state government to the police action, said Mr. Ebri, who
got the order, is a private person not sponsored by the state
government, and advised that government should be left out of the
matter.

But in a statement
emailed to some journalists in Calabar through his media aide, Mr. Duke
blamed his present travails on the state government of which, he said,
wanted to obliterate his achievements and blight his political
relevance.

“It would be
recalled that Governor Imoke recently cancelled the conferment of an
honorary doctorate degree by the state university [CRUTECH] on his
predecessor, Donald Duke, further deepening the already frosty
relationship between them,” the statement said, in parts.

“The cancellation
has been perceived as a product of envy and pettiness and has since
sent tongues wagging within the political circles and fuelling
speculations of a possible show down between the duo and their
supporters in the near future,” the statement read.

Political threat

“But those familiar
with the development point at the political undercurrents which
underline Imoke’s pronouncement. The current administration in the
state sees Duke as a formidable political threat whose legacies stand
him on a formidable stead, around whom the opposition can rally against
Imoke’s second term bid.

“It was gathered
that Duke’s recent resignation from the PDP took the party by surprise
and drew the angst of its hierarchy, which quickly responded with a
damning condemnation of their erstwhile leader, describing him as an
ingrate.

“The calculations
within the state are that if the state government should allow Duke to
be honoured with a degree by CRUTECH in the state, it would further
bolster his popularity and portray the state government as unpopular
and weak.

“In addition, the
state government is believed to be afraid that Duke may provide an
alternative platform for the gathering mass of dissenters and
especially majority of the members of the State House of Asssembly, who
are peeved by the rudderless direction and lack of inclusiveness by the
Imoke administration…

“But regardless of
this apparent hounding by the current administration, Duke wishes it
nothing less than goodwill because their progress and success would
translate to the people of the state and the country in general,” the
statement read.

Last Saturday, the
former governor told some journalists in his house that he was yet to
pitch tent with any political party, and denied reports linking him
with the Labour Party [LP].

He promised to
contest the 2011 presidential election, but added that he was taking
his time to know which party to align with, as he was being courted by
several political parties across the country.