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In the end, we realise that nothing really belongs to us; not power, not life. Power is fragile; it can also be deadly. It shares properties with candle flames. I take this idea from Brandon Sanderson, author of ‘The Way of Kings.’ Sanderson thinks the lives of men are as brittle and lethal as candle flames. What you get is what you consciously worked for. And, it is no brainer that that thing that provides warmth can also burn if you increase the intensity. Sanderson says when left alone, candle flames “lit and warmed.” When they are allowed to burn without control, “they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate.”
That is Godwin Emefiele and the enormous powers he wielded at the Central Bank of Nigeria. He was brought in in June 2014 as CBN governor to rearrange the bales in our strongrooms and illuminate the various dark rooms of the Nigerian economy. But, because for eight years we had a president who lacked the mental and physical energy for the driver’s job he took, the CBN and its free-reining governor were soon ‘encouraged’ to set other agenda for themselves – and set Nigeria’s economy ablaze.
Some things need to be made clear. Godwin Emefiele was suspended on Friday; the video of his arrest trended on Saturday morning; a probe of his tenure is underway. All these did not happen to him solely because of what you and I suffered at the hands of his new Naira notes or because of other indignities we may be suffering courtesy of his policies as CBN governor.
The man lost his job and his freedom because he got drunk and climbed the tree beyond the leaves; he went beyond the boundary the gods of Nigeria set for him. His cricket was no longer content with eating the leafy greens of his office; he wanted the very food reserved for the gods. He joined politics, bought a nomination form and printed posters. Yes, the law says no CBN governor should nurse such godless lust but breaking the law is no sin if you sit under the protective wings of the country’s principalities. The fatality here is because he broke the law and competed with those who held the yam and the knife of the system.
You do not drag the ram with Sango; if you take what Olukoso covets as your delicacy, his thunder celts will shred you. Where I come from, there is a bird that does not die young. We call it igúnnugún (or simply igún); ancestors of the white man named it vulture. Sure-wingedly, igún flies to old age unfamished, undisturbed because it is a very patient bird that knows its place in the world of birds. And because it respects itself, vulture has come to be respected by all. No one kills igún to host a feast; no Babaláwo prescribes igún as a sacrifice to an orí or as an ingredient for a ritual. The place of general dread where three footpaths meet is where vulture takes its meals.
Flying or perching or eating, whatever vulture does is without consequences. That is why our ancestors warned all other birds never to compare themselves to the vulture. They warn till tomorrow that any other bird that does what igún does will sleep in the hearth of dinner.
That is what happened to Emefiele – he is literally in the soup pot of those he thought he could roast for him to dominate the skies. His butterfly thought itself a bird; it thought the immunity enjoyed by the igúnnugún of Nigeria extended to his flightless bird. He wanted to be president against the letter of the law and in spite of the spirits of politics and power. Such thoughts have always been fatal.
Emefiele served the last government the way a house slave served his master in 18th century America. And he enjoyed a lot of hand-me-downs as an obedient servant. There are several unbelievable stories flying about on what went on in our central bank while he was there. The Tinubu government announced a probe last week; we wait to see how far it can go without their party committing a suicide.
Fire, it is said, does not make fire; it makes ashes. But, whatever they do or do not do with themselves is their problem. We are not supposed to know what lies behind their iron walls. We can comment, however, on what we’ve seen and warn that it must not happen again. We’ve seen photos of Emefiele desecrating the sacredness of the apex bank with postures of servitude.
There is at least a photograph of him on bended knees, holding a jotter and a pen while a potentate dictated a to-do list to him. The tragedy is that the man receiving that prostration from our CBN governor did not even hold any position in government. He was powerful simply because he was an FOP (Friend of the President). Such men (and women) are common in our corridors of power. The new government will likely have its own FOPs soon, if it doesn’t already. Because CBN governorship is perhaps the juiciest post in Nigeria, Emefiele thought he would keep it by pouring ceaseless libation of obsequiousness to the priests of the president.
And he succeeded so well that he got nine years of active service straddling two regimes that were not friends. Yet, after his failed coup against the new men in power, he did not have the sense to resign and flee. He thought the spell that sold him to Buhari (and Buhari to him) would do the same with Bola Tinubu. There must be something in that office that starves the brain of oxygen. Emefiele was always on his knees in the Villa. He wanted to remain and serve until he is tired of serving us. The Yoruba would look at such mendicant tenacity and say O ló danindanin m’ókùn orò (He held tight to the cord of wealth). But subservient people ultimately sell themselves into slavery. People who sacrifice everything noble to keep whatever job they think they have will lose more than that job.
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