OMATSEYE: THE BROTHERHOOD OF CAIN

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SAM OMATSEYE

The Yoruba have a word for all renegades: Omo osan n ii ko ba iye e. Amunibuni, the Yoruba say of the one-eyed goat whose owner is also one-eyed, eran Ibiye. Right now as we speak the local government executives in the 57 compartments of the abundantly blessed yet chronically exploited state of Lagos are said to have been asked to contribute N15 million naira each to prosecute the battle of Ondo, so that “the only oil-producing state’’ which the chameleon himself mentions in his “Brother today, gone tomorrow,’’ can come under the control of fraudsters from an illegal state, a band of criminals who define existence by the rustle of stolen currency. The people of Lagos, the masses of Oworonsoki, Ajegunle, Epe, Ikorodu, Mota, Isiwu, Oke Abiye and the entire Agbado Ijaye neighbourhood will never taste good governance until their resources come under the control of their own brood, and until the tyranny of an irredeemably corrupted, one-eyed media is dealt a devastating blow and the myth of Lagos explodes in the face of the traitors of the race. Sam Omatseye, attack dog of a born political robber who lusts after but cannot obtain the Awolowo name written in gold, is here again with the doggerel which will consume him and his masters. Rehabilitated from a wasted time in the United States and recently disowned by his own people the Itsekiri, Omatseye will abuse anybody who refuses to worship his lord and master, and will tell anyone who cares to listen to him that the villain is the saviour of the race, since he does not credit the Yoruba race with commonsense, the ability to sift falsehood from truth, and he does this by heaping half-hearted praise on Awo and then gunning down the sage’s very heritage in the manner of the foolish fly which follows the corpse into the grave.

His entire existence is woven around sycophancy and bootlicking: it is a job implanted in his blood. Even when given the errand of a slave, the Yoruba expect you to deliver the message as a free born. But that is where the matter of the intricate word (oro sunnukun) which must be untangled from an equally intricate perspective (oju sunnukun la a f ii wo) lies, because the ancestry of the gnomes in question is shrouded in mystery: their certificates were Chicagoed from unknown universities, the money pushing them to certain doom belongs to a people perpetually betrayed and held tight by political demons in gates of brass, they live and sleep in drugs and the embrace of loose women and suffer from debilitating diseases disguised by flowing agbada. The road to hell is more beautiful than Los Angeles, classier than Paris and holier looking than Jerusalem. The date of their doom and the beginning of a long-earned journey into political eclipse: October 20, 2012. Their waterloo: Ondo. The husband of their mother (oko iya won) : Iroko, the man who defines his existence by the comfort of the people, the man whom the United Nations has just given a crown beyond the contemplation of the carnivores currently eating the flesh of the South-West and exulting in its blood, the agents of darkness. The ACN is so pained by the Mimiko antithesis to their fraudulence and visionlessnes : oro na dun, say Yoruba children, o fe ke. Ekun egbere (tears of a ghommid) flow freely from the eyes of the fraudsters whose forefathers Mimiko has castrated with good governance.

When he poured venom on the matriarch of the Awo family, Chief (Mrs) HID Awolowo, he almost went out of circulation. But the high and mighty prevailed on the heritage of the sage and the dunce was spared further wrath from an incensed race. Now he is attacking another true Awoist recognised and honoured by the Tribune family, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, the fear of ACN, the real issue in Nigerian developmental rather than media-megalomaniac politics, the only governor in today’s Yorubaland who demonstrates true Awoism, the only governor who has improved on the benchmark set by the sage, no matter what the likes of Sam Omatseye and their colleagues in Jagabanic malady may say. And hear this: slaves may dance with brooms, but authentic Yoruba sons and daughters dance with the horse tail.

“The markets he built are for local governments, and is that how to account for the money he collected in three and half years as the only Southwest oil-producing state,’’ wrote Omatseye in the doggerel inspired by envy. Dr Mimiko built state-of-the-art neighbourhood markets at zero cost to the market (wo)men, markets where you will see a crèche, a fire station, a police post and sheer splendour of architectural excellence, at zero cost to the traders (As we speak, even the N50 the traders pay per week is for the maintenance of the world class markets). Can Omatseye mention any such market built by any of his brothers in perdition? If he were not so naive, he would have noticed the place of markets in Yoruba culture, as centres of civilisation, which is why they were always located close to the palace. Markets are so important in the Yoruba cosmology/cosmogony that even human existence is termed a market interaction (aye loja) while heaven is the eternal home (orun nile). In Eye of Earth Niyi Osundare writes : “temporary basement/and lasting roof.’’ This temporary basement is a market in the Yoruba world, which everyone must leave some day, which is why the Yoruba enjoin the wise ‘’not to strap the world to their chest’’ ( e ma wa ile aye mo aya). The target of Omatseye’s venom is the masses of Ondo State, including the members of the NURTW for whom the governor built a driver’s airport, again what you will not find anywhere in the world. What Mimiko has done is to leverage on culture, to harness the gains of culture driven by technology and contemporary commerce. Yes, Mimiko is a market governor.

‘’He set himself to build a model school, on whose dream he has not delivered.’’ Indeed, Mr Omatseye? With 54 mega schools? Omatseye is obviously jealous, because his god, while being inaugurated in 1999, promised 50 millenium schools but only managed to build three, which are really no schools when compared to the mega schools in Ondo. He also promised a Fourth Mainland Bridge and many more projects, but, like his certificates, no one knows where they are situated.

Like other jejune writers banking on a heritage of fraud, Omatseye cannot fail to mention the ACN theory of integration : ‘’He has cast himself a pariah to the story of brotherly love in the Southwest with the cold eyes he casts on the cooperative spirit of the Southwest.’’ Bravo, Mr Omatseye, but that is the ‘’brotherhood’’ of Cain, a brotherhood by which the resources of Ondo State would be harnessed by foreign gods like they have done in the ACN states. And, by the way, would Mr Omatseye kindly tell Nigerians what the ‘’cooperative spirit’’ of his ACN gods have achieved for the South-West? Where are the joint education, rail, etc, projects executed by his lovely brothers, the self-confessed Omoluabis who are intolerant of dissent? And, by the way, was it not the Judases of the ACN that robbed the region of the speakership of the House of Reps? With brothers like these, who needs further enemies? Oro sununukun again: if the death of the home does not kill one, the one from outside cannot. Mr Omatsye, sorry, we cannot accept your theology: we have seen what timeless your ‘’brothers’’ are capable of doing. Well, we understand why Mr Money , whenever, he has a dirty job at hand, sends only disowned dunces from another race on those errands. A Yoruba proverb unlocks the mystery: only a stranger’s child is sent on midnight jobs (omo olomo (a stranger’s child) lan ran nise de toru toru,’’ particularly if that child is a greedy fool.

Omatseye, like many before him, makes a singsong of Mimiko having belonged to different parties---he even has the temerity to talk about ideology. But your god destroyed the AD, then formed the AC (later ACN) with a band of renegades? Omatseye is a one-eyed writer writing for a one-eyed paper and even that one eye is cataract-laden. We say once again: Ondo State will never come under the grip of political lepers and bearded fraudsters no matter the colour of their beard.

Written By Sumbo Ajirire

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