Just now , the media was awash with the news of the withdrawal of the offer of appointment of Festus Adebayo but the lessons emanating therefrom continue to linger on especially as to the appropriateness of the offer in the first place and also the willingness to accept same by the “offeree”.
Without any ambiguity , Festus Adebayo was a vitriolic critic of the President in many of his writings which were widely circulated both in print media and social media so much so that I thought he would not touch anything from the president’s Party even with a ten feet pole.
Perhaps it was his good intention to use the opportunity of the appointment to effect the changes to issues he had most bitterly complained about .
May be he had become a convert to the good works of the President that he felt it was time to.embrace him.
But in the court of public opinion ,he may be deemed to be a self seeking opportunist whose major agenda was to use his writings to curry favour and not the other way round .
Likewise president Good luck Jonathan demonstrated an uncommon act of Political accommodation when his campaign organisation appointed his virulent critics , Femi Fani kayode , as her spokesman.
Gani was once tempted with an offer of sallah rams by Buba Marwa .He returned the rams to the owner. Patriots are now in very short supply in Nigeria .
The whole episode is a veritable example of politics without principles and ideology .
It is a microcosm within a macrocosm of the behavior of Nigeria’s politicians whose major attention is politics of self aggrandizement and.politics of “prebendalism”. In the result , it is easy to see why party discipline is lacking , why cross carpeting is the order of the day. The nomadic politicians move from one party to the other in search of greener pastures.
At the end of the day ,the interesting thing is that the welfare of the people is secondary to them .
On the whole , the withdrawal of the appointment is appropriate and equitable as he who must come to equity , must come with clean hands.
Written By Barrister Akinyinka Kalejaiye
