If you didn’t see video footage of the Arabian Night wedding of Yusuf ibn Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) and the lavish 63rd birthday of Dr Ahmed Lawan, President of the Nigerian Senate, you won’t appreciate the level of hedonistic degeneracy of Nigerian politicians.
Let no one begrudge Yusuf Buhari and his bride, Princess Zahra, daughter of Alhaji Nasiru Ado Bayero, Emir of Bichi and younger brother of Emir of Kano. The newlyweds deserve their time to shine under the sun.
The only trouble is with his father, a politician who has the grave responsibility to set (even raise) the moral tones for his son and of society but failed woefully on that count.
It’s even worse the parent responsible for the lavish expenditure is the one who calls himself mai gaskiya and had once put people he decided were corrupt politicians in jail for terms extending to hundreds of years.
Some mischievous people say President Buhari, who was strict even with himself as military Head of State, reminds them of a certain Federal Government official, whose name shall not be mentioned here.
This official was scolded by his kinsmen for retiring without stealing government money. When another military Head of State recalled him to serve in the same capacity, he made up for the lost time.
The spurious me-too argument is brought to explain Senator Lawan’s extravaganza of a birthday party. They said he wanted to ante up to the lavish birthday that Speaker of House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila threw to celebrate his wife’s 50th birthday.
There’s no report that Lawan bought himself a N100 million Mercedes Benz G-Wagon that Gbajabiamila, then a mere House of Representatives Majority Leader, allegedly bought for his wife.
It is unnecessary to discuss the stupendously lavish funeral ceremony held for the mother of Obi Iyiegbu, alias Obi Cubana, or the birthday bash held for Senami, wife of former Delta State Governor, James Ibori.
Rather than travel all the way to Dubai, the Ibori train relocated from Ogharra in Delta State to Lagos, the State of Aquatic Splendour! They also didn’t seem too keen to listen to music, “old skool” or not. It was more of photo-ops and updating the social register for the attendees.
But strangely, they didn’t invite Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who may have begged off because of the trip he made to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in America to buy rolling stock for the Lagos metroline, whose progress was allegedly stalled by a previous Buhari regime.
If you are wondering who attended Senami Ibori’s birthday, it includes Dr. Bukola Saraki, President of Nigeria’s 8th Senate; Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State and one of his predecessors, Lucky Igbinedion; former Ekiti State Governor, Niyi Adebayo; richest African, Aliko Dangote; sure banker, Tony Elemelu of United Bank for Africa; publisher and media mogul, Nduka Obaigbena, and scion of Obafemi Awolowo dynasty, Segun.
But this discourse is not about non-state actors, as Obi “Cubana” Iyiegbu was never a state actor, and Mrs Ibori and her husband, James, are no longer First Lady and governor.
Of course, they still retain their political clout and relevance in the politics of Delta State. As former American President Donald Trump would have said, “It is what it is,” and no one can do anything about that.
You saw the tray of foods served at Senator Lawan’s birthday, the fancy footwork of dancers hired to dance to an old school Diana Ross song and lightning that remind you of Zenith Bank’s street decor during the Christmas seasons.
There were lovely ladies — some of whom are single and searching — and Caucasians, evidence of the international reach of Senator Lawan. Yet be assured that the shindig was nothing compared to the splendour of the wedding of Nigeria’s First Son, Yusuf.
The lyrics of Diana Ross’s song, It’s My House And I Live Here, is a warning to anyone, society journalist, investigative journalist or operative of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, that does not know his boundaries may regret his unwelcome audacity.
The Senate President has tried enough, you’d say, to keep his ball secret and no one, under any pretext of holding state actors accountable, as provided by Nigeria’s Constitution, should trespass on his Dubai privacy.
In fact, those individuals who sent the video footage of the party back to Nigeria deserve to be trailed through their electronic footprints and sanctioned for delivering errands that they were not sent.
One wonders how Nigerian leaders, presiding over a precarious economy, are not moderate in the manner in which they splay wealth they obviously didn’t have before they got into such high and visible public offices.
Hedonism is the relentless pursuit of pleasure by people likely to be found at a bar, imbibing alcohol; at the table, filling up their tummies like gluttons; or at the spa, pampering their bodies.
This reminds one of Estragon, the impulsive and simple character in “Waiting for Godot,” a drama written by playwright Samuel Beckett. Estragon is the exact opposite of Vladimir, the rational, sensible one.
Incidentally, some political theoreticians, like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills, argue that hedonism is the highest good and proper aim of human life, the road to the greatest happiness of the people.
On the other hand, epicureanism is a restrained celebration of the pleasure of mental, non-physical and ultimate pleasure that leads to freedom from anxieties and mental pain.
The constitutions of some countries find a way to invest in their governments the responsibility of looking out for the greatest happiness of the greatest number of citizens within their realms, as recommended by Jeremy Bentham.
That may justify the disposition of the Nigerian political elite, who misunderstood the message and went on to defy all sense of decency and decorum and behave with crass insensitivity to the feelings of the citizens they were elected to serve.
It looks as if there is a competition among the politicians to show who can be the most audacious in the wasteful spending of the commonwealth of Nigerians with little or no qualms.
Instead of applying the political philosophy for the benefit of the people, they rather became narcissistic and turned the advantage of hedonism, financed by the people’s commonwealth, to themselves alone.
These state actors that spend government money for personal purposes, like it’s going out of fashion, just do not understand why they need to be circumspect. They spend government money without let or hindrance.
The other day, the Director-General of a Federal security agency was rumoured to have hired a private jet to convey his son, with a retinue of aides, to watch a football match at government expense!
Nigerian state actors carry their privileges too far. They rub their excesses on the faces of the citizens who provided them with the political pedestal from which they derived their privileges.
A friend, a very cynical individual, is of the opinion that these state actors continue to waste Nigeria’s commonwealth because those not yet in political offices are looking forward to the day it will be their turn to be custodians of the commonwealth and get the opportunity to divert the same to themselves, also exclusively.
To quote an aphorism, “If the people stand… the game is over,” the #EndSARS protest was a pointer+
