Femi Fani-Kayode as Nigeria’s would-be great liberator.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Or is he supposed to be “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”?
For lack of a better title: In search of Marshall Mcluhan
Lead, kindly light, it’s Song time !
This is indeed a people’s planet, 7.7 Billion people, and still counting. The Planet of the Apes is very far, far away from here, it’s another planet, a planet on which there are is no such things as a sinful human being.
Where I’m coming from:
“To suffer one's death and to be reborn is not easy”, said Fritz Perls who was my very first Guru, compliments of his fans our next door neighbours in Ghana, Ann Smutylo & Terry Smultylo , but I only became a Perls’ disciple after reading his autobiography “ In and Out the Garbage Pail “, and “Gestalt Therapy Verbatim” in 1971. That has been foundational to everything else that has followed, up till today. It’s like, even if you are not a tree, you can’t leave your roots behind, in my case Fritz Perl’s and Norman O. Brown. So, please forgive me, as I continue on my earthly pilgrimage.
There’s no denying that for other people on this planet what is foundational may well be Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jesus, Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.), the Greeks, Ancient Rome, Ancient Africa, William Shakespeare, Toussaint Louverture, Shaihu Usman dan Fodio, Sir Isaac Newton, Ajayi Crowther, Herbert Macaulay, Marcus Garvey, Marx, Freud, Jung, Chairman Mao, Malcolm X, Wes Montgomery, Paul Robeson, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Zik of Africa, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Jerry Rawlings, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Paul Kagame, and no doubt for some others, “foundational” could be Femi Fani-Kayode, as always, shooting spam from both sides of his mouth, especially when we consider what he says about himself in his latest braggadocio proclamation: Between My Opposition To Buhari and My Friendship With Abba Kyari, By Femi Fani-Kayode. As every schoolboy knows, before the Throne of Majesty, self-praise is no recommendation.
It’s up to the reader and the hearer to unpack what Femi Fani-Kayode says.
To begin with, just like criticism, so too comparisons are as inevitable as breathing and I daresay, in the field of journalism and media presence, the self-proclaimed martyr Femi Fani-Kayode (FFK) outdistances the Baga's Farooq Kperogi (FK). I hope that FFK is at least happy about that because there’s not much else that he’s happy about in his latest diatribe. FK is most probably not as happy, even if it’s a nonentity that thinks FFK easily outdistances him without even trying or if the nonentity says that he can’t find any particular fault with FKK’s pronunciation of Her Majesty’s Imperial Mother Tongue.
“The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge” (Love Minus Zero/No Limit)
To my musical ears, FFK is more straightforward, infinitely less convoluted and less mysterious (no James Bond cloak & dagger secret contacts and informants from within the inner circles of this and that Nigerian President, or his stable at Aso Rock - indeed the rock was not landed on him…(smile)
To begin with, FKK is said to be a chip off the old block, the old block being his father Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, another public figure, this time with an unenviable position as the one who is alleged to have betrayed Chief Obafemi Awolowo – in tune with the saying that goes, you see, it’s in the blood, Blood's thicker than the mud
Indeed, “To suffer one's death and to be reborn is not easy” and concerning the subject matter under our microscope, the termination of FFK’s appointment as Minister of Aviation in 2007, could be seen to have been akin to “suffering one’s death” - and the “ to be reborn in not easy” could also be akin to the desperation that goes with trying to be of relevance once again, and to regain some kind of ministerial appointment in the next or a future government, since (obviously) that kind of personal salvation or redemption will not be found in the current Buhari administration, which means that he had better keep himself visible at least in the Naija media, so we don’t have to listen to him singing this song: Fading Away
For all we know, he has s bright future ahead of him bearing in mind that he is “a leading member of Nigeria’s political opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)” and considering all that he has done and one who as he claims, using that hackneyed simile, that he “ has been as constant as the northern star” ( I had a girlfriend who used to tell me that) and all the other great things that he says in support of his dignified long-shuffering and hish constancy :
# I have spoken and written more than anyone else in this country…
# I have also suffered more, lost more, been humiliated more, been persecuted more, been incarcerated more and been insulted more than most people in the country due to my unrelenting opposition…
# They have literally taken everything from me and it is only by the grace of God that I am still alive and that I have not been killed.
# I have risked all and I have exposed and done more damage to those forces than anyone else in this country in the last few years” (Doesn’t he sound like Trump, here?
# I have also spoken up for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the deprived, the voiceless and the persecuted across ethnic, religious and party lines. And I have done all this right under the noses of those in power and not from distant shores or foreign lands.
Most surprisingly, at this most critical juncture of the nation’s life, Femi Fani-Kayode does not say a word about the Corona Virus Pandemic, apart from hinting darkly, and ominously as he (hopeful president-elect Femi Fani-Kayode bids his doomsday farewell here
“If you think it was bad before, wait and see what will happen in the next few months and years. If something does not give then we are really in trouble as a nation and we may not survive it as one.
What is likely to happen in Nigeria will make the ugly events that unfolded in Zaire and the Congo DRC over the last few decades and the horrendous events that occurred in Rwanda in the early 90s look like child’s play. That is the monumental challenge that we are facing and that is what we should be hoping, working and praying hard against.”