By Femi Odere
It is expected that all manner of characters are going to be found in our nation’s legislature in a representative democracy.
But because next year will be the 25th anniversary of our democratic experience, it’s also expected that by now our legislative branch, if not the entire three arms of government, would have gone through some self-cleansing and sanitation.
By josh, there are still very fine, refined, noble, honest, responsible, astute, reflective, and virtuous men and women in and out of the Nigerian landscape to populate our legislature and the conditions for entrance as a member of the Second Estate should have by now become very stringent that a shady, crooked, fraudulent, arrogant, irresponsible and intellectually vacuous character like Jimoh Ibrahim, the new senator-elect from the Southern senatorial district of Ondo State should have had enormous difficulties getting the APC ticket, let alone winning an election.
One had thought that Jimoh Ibrahim’s fairly long sojourn in the United Kingdom would have reshaped him into being a responsible member of society. But when he opened his mouth during a Channels TV interview with Seun Okinbaloye a couple of days ago, one realized that this is de ja vu all over again as he has learned nothing – and forgot nothing. He’s simply a new and improved con artist and an amoral, morbidly selfish, arrogant nitwit.
But before one gets into what he might have said to earn him this opprobrium – and I admit it is – it’s important to stress here that Jimoh Ibrahim is a naturally vainglorious personality, a pathological braggart, tinged with vacuous condescension, who says a lot of things without really saying anything just to impress the gullible. And most people are anyway.
Those who are discerning, and familiar with his braggadocio will always see him as an amusing entertainer, an empty barrel who’s always desperate to be seen as a captain of industries by mouthing his businesses, most of which have since collapsed or became moribund. In any case, an authentic captain of industry does not boast. He doesn’t even talk unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Let’s now delve into the issue under reference. After inundating Seun Okinbaloye with his academic accomplishments – which in itself can be commended, except that this academic foundation was faulty – and one shall leave it at that, Jimoh Ibrahim dived into the same voodoo economics with which he scammed the Federal Governments in those days, which necessitated the latter to establish AMCON, a vehicle that repossesses movable and immovable properties from chronic debtors like Jimoh Ibrahim to save the nation’s economy.
He said the Nigerian government can literally retire its “debts in 90 days,” and then engage in another round of heavy borrowing as if money was going out of fashion, while lacing his so-called expertise in the field of finance with words such as “moratorium” and “honorarium” as well as “bridge financing” without any suggestion as to how the government should first plug the huge manholes and ineffectual and redundant bureaucracies that sucks revenues.
“Have you sold these ideas to President Tinubu?” Seun inquired.
“Well, I spoke with him last when we were doing the campaign on abandoned projects. I shouldn’t be giving you these ideas for free. I should be charging hundreds of millions of dollars for this knowledge,” Ibrahim responded.
Seun followed up and said, “You are a member of the APC. Shouldn’t you be offering some of this knowledge that you have?”
It was at this point that Jimoh Ibrahim flew off the handle with the following irksome statement.
“Did APC pay my school fees? Did APC come to me in Cambridge when I was suffering and riding on a (sic) bicycle when I had to force back my private jet and I was crying at night? I have invested in knowledge. You need to consult the people that know. If you’re (sic) my son, I would not give it [knowledge] to you. Is it easy to come by?”
The instructive thing here is not necessarily what Jimoh Ibrahim said as the discerning knows too well that this master con artist is simply trying to position himself to engage in another round of scamming the next National Assembly and the Nigerian government, but the disrespect and disdain for the party and its faithful who truly deserve the ticket that was gifted this ungrateful ingrate.
Pray, what knowledge has Jimoh Ibrahim invested in that other party members who gave, and continues to freely give their expertise for the development of the party and the country haven’t?
How many party faithful did the APC pay their school fees, yet have remained unflinching in their support and loyalty to the party and its cause even in the face of injustice?
As the holy writ says that “from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” those who know Jimoh Ibrahim up close cannot be surprised in the least when he said even if Seun were to be his son, he still wouldn’t share the knowledge he has invested so much to acquire with him. Jimoh Ibrahim is an unfeeling personality, whose spirit of giving, with his opulence, is long dead. He was saying the truth that he wouldn’t even give his son his knowledge (wealth).
The billionaire’s first wife still ekes out a living, selling pepper on the streets of Igbotako, his hometown in Ondo State. His younger brother, also a lawyer, died of kidney failure years ago, because this dangerously wealthy man couldn’t give his brother the N2 million needed to do a kidney transplant. The billionaire’s mother’s house, which was a stone’s throw from her son’s, caught fire from a lit candle because Ibrahim failed to provide electricity for his mother’s dwelling. And she was burnt beyond recognition. One can go on and on.
Jimoh Ibrahim, who said President Tinubu liked his idea about solving the problem of abandoned properties is himself an epitome of abandoned projects. His house in Igbotako was abandoned. His so-called university has been abandoned. His filling station in Akure was abandoned, not to talk of his many business entities that had gone under and a significant number of his former staff were sent to their early graves because he refused to pay their salaries and other entitlements.
Yet, he would brag that he was the first human being to have gone to Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge at a stretch and came out with flying colours, where the knowledge he acquired in these ivory towers enabled him to send a cat to the moon,l which fetched him trillions of dollars in the process, because of his knowledge, and ingenuity which his country must now pay for if she wants out of her debt peonage.
While Jimoh Ibrahim can poke his nose with his uncouth, repulsive, and nauseating statement at the party because of the mercantilist disposition of some people in the state’s party hierarchy as he may have paid a princely sum for his ticket, he cannot, and should not be allowed to disrespect those strongly committed progressives in Ondo State, who continues to maintain fidelity to the party and its progressive ideals, despite not being adequately rewarded for their toils.
APC must be taken back from charlatans who have no respect for the party like Jimoh Ibrahim, who will surely end up a failure in the Red Chamber, as he was in the private sector.
And I am willing to bet on this!
•This piece is dedicated to the silent and voiceless majority who are pillars of the party in Ondo State.
•Odere is the Convener of The Godswill Project, TGP.
