By Femi Odere
The outgoing President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan, has now declared total war on His Excellency, Senator Godswill Akpabio, his next and imminent Senate President, in the fleeting illusion that he could still be stopped from inheriting his gavel.
In executing his perceived war, Lawan has set up a seven-member ad-hoc committee to probe the Niger Delta Development Commission, NNDC, for allegedly embarking on an expenditure amounting to N1.4 trillion, without appropriation, while Senator Akpabio ruled the roost as a minister in charge of Niger Delta Affairs.
This is the sequel to the invitation by the anti-graft agency of Abubakar Malami’s poodle, one of the arrowheads of the cabal.
That Lawan is taking this perfidious route is not surprising to the discerning.
He must continue to throw whatever he can find, including the gavel, at Akpabio with the hope that something would eventually demobilize him.
After all, he has sworn that Akpabio can only become the next Senate President over his dead body.
Sometimes we should be careful what we wish for, because we might get it.
But Lawan must continue on this trajectory to checkmate the PEFERN by any means necessary. The choice has been made for him. He’s the lead honcho that represents the cabal in the Second Estate of the Realm.
He’s desperate to win one (anyone) for the cabal, because they had waged so many battles, and lost every one of them, against the PEFERN to their chagrin.
They don’t want to exit without a big bang. They are hoping that the big bang will come from the upper chamber of the National Assembly. Even though they know they have failed, they’re hoping that something could still give. They must save face at all costs.
But the question remains: why is Lawan always eager to be used as cannon fodder? The answer may well lie in the very essence of the man.
Ahmed Lawan exemplifies the wickedness of man God admonished us of about His creation.
Hear Him, “Now the Lord observed the extent of the people’s wickedness, and he saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil.” Gen. 6:5.
Who would have thought that Lawan would be Nigeria’s ‘Brutus’ who is constantly scheming to undo and outdo the PEFERN?
Why is Lawan pathologically fixated on licking his self-inflicted wounds? How many wounds does he want to lick before he can convince himself that he has had enough?
The PEFERN it was who wanted to make him the Senate President in 2015 until he realized that the POFERN, on whose behalf he was acting so that his government could be stabilized – a government he worked so hard to install – couldn’t care less, because he had become so enamored with his ‘I am for everybody and I’m for nobody’ mantra.
The PEFERN also it was who stood solidly behind Lawan in 2019 before he became the Senate President, after it dawned on the POFERN that democracy didn’t understand the language of being for everybody and for nobody.
And this is how Lawan wants to pay him back.
They say you know the true character of a man, either when he has access to power or has acquired financial independence.
Lawan has demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that he’s an ingrate. Ingrates have no use for quid pro quo.
History will scrupulously record him as such.
Akpabio as the next Senate President, SP, is divine, because it is God’s will. He was Senior Prefect, SP, in his secondary school days at the Federal Government College, Port Harcourt. He was also the Speaker of Parliament, SP, at the University of Calabar. He will once again become the SP – Senate President – of the 10th Senate.
And there’s nothing a thousand Lawans can do about it.
•Odere, the Convener of The Godswill Project, TGP, writes from Ado-Ekiti.
