By Promise Adiele
Over the years, many people, especially Christians, have maligned Esu, the Yoruba trickster deity of indeterminacy, chaos, chance and uncertainty, as the devil or Satan. Since the translation of the Bible from English to Yoruba by Bishop Ajayi Crowther, Esu has borne this yoke of identity misrepresentation without protest. Therefore, through unchallenged regularity and conviction, Esu is generally regarded as the devil with all the attributes of negativity. But in Yoruba cosmology, within the humanistic symbiosis of Yoruba theology, Esu is Olodumare’s divine messenger responsible for gatekeeping and sacrifices. However, its free-willing, dexterous offer of choices to humanity always provokes inherent human hubris, which inevitably leads to tragic ends.
When human beings suffer as a consequence of the choices they make in the exercise of their freewill, they blame Esu. The crossroad, Esu’s main romp, symbolises indecision and choices. As a deity, it is an inscrutable phenomenon that cannot be properly understood or explained. His grip is vicious and unrelenting. When people make the wrong choices, they fall under the monstrous influence of Esu, manifesting an inexplicable level of neurosis that rubbishes the concept of freewill.
Presently, Nigeria’s current political hierarchy has led the country to a crossroad, Esu’s best abode. Therefore, the country is under the malicious grip of the trickster deity with all its disastrous intrusion into the affairs of humanity. As Esu’s guest at the crossroad, Nigeria has ignored all the deity’s warnings and is gradually gliding down the wrong road after ignoring the safer, honourable road. The deity is already laughing so hard because he knows the calamitous end of that road. I can hear Esu saying, “Nobody should blame me. Nobody should call me the devil when the consequences of the choices Nigeria’s leaders are making tragically haunt the country”.
Expectedly, Nigerians of goodwill (not many Nigerians are of goodwill) are worried that the current macabre dance by President Bola Tinubu and his co-political jesters will plunge the country into an abyss. Given the uncertainties in Nigeria’s political atmosphere and the attendant economic hardship, Nigerians have recalled the last time the country experienced the current level of desperation, despotism, and bleeding inordinacy. The era of the late maximum dictator General Sani Abacha inevitably comes to mind. Thus, various media outlets are filled with comparisons between the Abacha era and the current Tinubu government.
I have always maintained that nothing is too big or too small, too bad or too good except by comparison. Comparison is a healthy evaluation process. The current Bola Tinubu administration easily excavates the tensions of the Sani Abacha dictatorship, therefore, Nigerians are within their rights to compare the two administrations. I will do the same too. While I am constrained by space to detail all the complexities of the Abacha government, I will examine its resemblance and points of divergence with the current Tinubu government.
At the height of his military and political glory, Sani Abacha led Nigeria into a crossroad, straight to Esu’s path, and the deity laughed so hard as it is laughing now. If Abacha could be excused in all his sadism because he was a military dictator, Tinubu’s gradual but deliberate ruination of the country cannot be excused because his government rode to power riding on the back of a democratic procedure. Yet, a juxtaposition of the two governments proves that Nigeria fared better under Abacha before providence rescued the country from his constricting grip. Of course, providence still operates in its full glory.
Sani Abacha was one of Nigeria’s most accomplished soldiers. His genealogy is well known. He was born on 20 September 1943 in Kano. Nigerians know this fact, and there is no controversy about it. He joined the Nigerian military in 1963 and had a steady military career, rising through the ranks and serving in several capacities. He was Chief of Army Staff from 1985 to 1990. He served as Chief of Defence Staff from 1990 to 1993 and became Head of State in 1993 through a coup d’état. He was Nigeria’s military ruler from 1993 to 1998 before his death. His government is reputed to be one of the most brutal, autocratic dictatorships in the whole of Africa. As Head of State, his word was law. He brooked no nonsense and tolerated no opposition.
Those who opposed him were either killed or forced into exile. His human rights abuses were legendary. He silenced the press with devastating ruthlessness. In all of these, many Nigerians supported him as the country’s best choice at that time. His economic reforms marginally stabilised the economy, and many people applauded his Failed Banks Tribunal. In his avarice, he stole Nigeria to stupor and redefined the meaning of embezzlement. At Esu’s crossroads, he had the choice of returning the country to democracy or transforming himself into a life civilian president. He chose the latter, but fate had other plans. The rest, they say, is history.
Bola Tinubu is Nigeria’s current elected president. His genealogy, date of birth, and history of public service are shrouded in mystery, except perhaps his political career. He served as a Senator representing Lagos West from 1992 to 1993. He was elected the 12th governor of Lagos State, and served from 1999 to 2007. He became Nigeria’s president in 2023 and will complete his first term in 2027. Since he came to power, Nigeria’s economy has regressed abysmally, with millions of people wallowing in excruciating poverty. Inflation, infrastructural decay, corruption, insecurity, clannishness, and ethnic tension have characterised his 3 years in power. Although there are pocket reports of human rights abuses, Abacha was worse than Tinubu. Under Tinubu, the press has enjoyed a degree of freedom.
But the recent threat by the FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, to shoot Channels TV’s Seun Okinbaloye portends uncertain times for the press. Like Sani Abacha, Bola Tinubu has gradually metamorphosed into a despot who tolerates no opposition. Like Abacha, he is subliminally transforming the country into a one-party state where he would be the only candidate on the ballot in 2027. Like Abacha, too, all the political parties are queuing behind him, and those who won’t queue behind him are destroyed. There are no records detailing any killings of opposition or chasing them into exile like Abacha did.
Bola Tinubu has led Nigeria to a crossroads, into Esu’s warm embrace. There are choices before the government, choices between heaven and hell. Choices to promote democracy or destroy it. Tinubu currently faces the basic choice of either becoming a statesman or a villain. But unfortunately, he is making the wrong choices, and Esu is laughing so hard. The government’s choice to suffocate democracy like Sani Abacha has the potential to explode the foundations of the country’s political architecture. It is a choice carefully made, sustained and funded by the president and his allies to the chagrin of the world. Today, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), as the only viable opposition in the country, has been delisted from INEC’s portal.
Nigerians are aghast at the current political maelstrom in the country, but the president does not care. He walks majestically into Esu’s terrain without any sense of history. During Abacha’s time, the judiciary did not exist, but during the current Tinubu era, the judiciary is a caricature of the global judicial system. I dare to say that Esu is complicit in Nigeria’s current political challenges. He has mischievously blocked the ears and eyes of the president, thus preventing him from making the right choices. Will fate intervene as it did during Abacha’s era, or will Nigerians take their destiny into their hands?
Bola Tinubu’s failure to make the right choices and extricate the country from Esu’s bosom can be deduced from his mortal fear of losing the 2027 elections. It defies every stratum of reason that a president and his political party would be afraid of losing an election when almost all the governors in Nigeria have decamped to his All Progressives Congress (APC). The president has the full complement of the military, police, DSS, SSS, and all the state’s instruments of coercion, yet he is scared to hell to conduct a free and fair election. The action by INEC to delist ADC is invidious and portrays the commission’s chairman Prof Joash Amupitan, as a man far from equitable intentions.
Perhaps the president and his party have realised their composite failure in governance and the despondency among the people. Thus, given a free and fair election, the party will suffer the worst electoral disgrace in the history of Nigerian democracy. To decide to become victims of Esu’s trickery is in itself a self-inflicted tragedy because the deity’s victims never go unpunished. Something must halt the current government’s procession to entropy. It is either Nigerians do it, or divine providence will do it. Esu did not have the last laugh during Sani Abacha’s era, he will definitely not have the last laugh now.
Dr. Promise Adiele is of the Mountain Top University and can be reached via: promee01@yahoo.com; X: @drpee4
