Mrs Tinubu’s crassness meets Adeleke’s indiscipline

Adelakun Abimbola

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The video of Nigeria’s First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, chastening the Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, during her coronation ceremony in Ile Ife reminded me of what I think was my first encounter with her about 14-15 years ago at their party secretariat (then, it was still Alliance for Democracy) in Lagos. I was a reporter with The PUNCH, and we were to cover an event. She arrived at the place, and a bunch of journalists (including yours truly) got up to interview her. The person closest to her started asking her a question. Out of nowhere, she interrupted the female journalist, “Call me mummy! Before you can address me, you must call me mummy!” That one was momentarily taken aback, and while she struggled to recompose her thoughts and perhaps rephrase her question, Mrs Tinubu huffed and walked away with an air of impatience. I remember staring at her as she left with a small crowd of hangers-on trailing her and feeling relieved that I was not the one she yelled at that day. I would perhaps have retorted that she was not my mother, and that the obsequiousness disguised as courtesy she was expecting was unwarranted in the formal environment in which we were both operating.

The trouble with people who crave adoration and veneration is not that they will not find enough people willing to throw their dignity on the floor for them to step on. Senate President Godswill Akpabio, who announced to his fellow lawmakers that “Our mother, Remi Tinubu, has sent an invitation to us her children for a dinner…” is proof that there is currently no shortage of self-infantilising adults even at the highest cadres of power. Akpabio, of course, has enough motivation to be subservient. It does not only seem to be in his nature, but a man with a catalogue of sins with the EFCC like him cannot survive politics without learning how to perpetually be on his knees before the Tinubus’ worshipful majesty. The day he ever demonstrates any autonomy or even gives the slightest of an indication of reasonable character emerging from him, he would be thrown to the wolves and gobbled without remains.

So, when you think of yourself as everyone’s “mummy”, and your delusion is enabled by high-ranking public officials like Akpabio, you will also soon fall into the error of taking everyone as your ward.

To be fair, I understand the impatience that pushed Mrs Tinubu to go harangue the governor. Some of us find the lack of proper organisation that typifies our socio-political life annoying. We are the kind of people who start every event a few hours behind schedule, and when we eventually do, we are still unhurried. We start with an opening prayer, one by a Muslim and the other by a Christian. Then the national anthem. The Tinubu anthem. Then, we bring guests to the high table and even offer some of them the microphone so they can make interminably long speeches. Somehow, it is taken for granted that people have nothing better to do and are willing to stay until their buttocks are glued to the chair. Do we not watch foreign events and see how those oyinbos take time seriously? That is a feature of their productive society. People have things to do, and you cannot subject them to endless delays at public events. Our own rhythms, on the other hand, are regulated by different ideas of time as an endless resource that can be cheaply frittered. That is why what we call “African time” is a euphemism for masking the underlying problem of our under-productive society.

One of the most popular culprits of this time-wasting culture is Adeleke. He comes across as an unserious person who takes every public occasion as a playful moment, not only because he is flippant, but also because that is how he has learned to hide his vacuity. By throwing up spectacles, especially by repeating that singular dancing style with which he has been entertaining us since the days of Lord Lugard, he gets to distract from his other flaws. On almost every occasion, he must sing and dance as if they cast a spell on him.

But he is also a Nigerian big man, which means nobody can instruct him. Besides, if his clowning has not stopped him from becoming a governor, who is anyone to tell him to be more mindful of his public self-conduct? So, those around him have either learned to dance along with him or watch with bemusement. Except that this time, his characteristic lack of self-awareness annoyed Mrs Tinubu—the honouree of the event—who got up from her chair to interrupt the governor’s antics by publicly telling him that she would switch off his microphone if he continued to waste time.

Even if the governor had to be instructed, she could have sent an emissary to whisper in Adeleke’s ears, but she stood up by herself to confront a playful guest at an occasion in her own honour. She could not trust that anyone at the event—not even the royal father giving her a title—had enough gravitas to compel Adeleke, so she, the “mummy” with the maternal authority to straighten everyone in the public sphere, took the task upon herself. But that was crass for someone being conferred with a respectable title of “Yeye Asiwaju”. The honour not only presumes you already possess leadership qualities, but you would be expected to live up to high expectations of self-conduct. Even if you have no virtue, you must feign one now. Unfortunately, the ceremony had not even been completed before her true character began to seep out. Whatever was wrong with Adeleke would not be corrected by your humiliating public instruction, so she could have waited him out. Even if he had taken an extra 15 minutes, would it have set the world spinning on its orbit?

Again, I completely understand the irritation that pushed her to stand up to Adeleke, but the solution to Nigeria’s habit of disorganisation is reorientation and not simply picking someone out. Our public events are typically chaotic, and if Mrs Tinubu is interested in reform, she should begin with herself and the occasions she attends. For instance, for the coronation, the Office of the First Lady or First Wife of whatever they are called these days should have liaised with the Ooni institution and planned the events.  Every guest who is allowed to speak should have received the programme in advance and be enjoined to stick to their allotted time, otherwise their microphone would be cut off. Many of them, having never been held to such standards before, will try to exceed their time allowance, and you must follow through on the threats to cut off their voices. Once you have consistently established yourself as a stickler to time and you demonstrate enough discipline to maintain that ethos in public, officials will learn to adjust. They will train themselves to rehearse their public speeches and plan their speaking time to fit the allotted time.

The other part is that Mrs Tinubu might not actually have a problem with the indiscipline of time-wasting at public occasions and sees no need for a wholesale reform. Her issue might just be with the Adeleke character, one of the few governors who has chosen to remain in the “opposition” and would not drag himself over to the APC to be under her custodianship.

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