In support of Wike on his ‘shoot and kill’ voice over
By Steve Ovirih.
Freedom of speech is golden and it is sacrosanct. When you have no speech defect and you can communicate freely without any let or inhibition, you don’t know what God has done for you. Go and check people with down syndrome: sometimes they have much to say but articulating their thought becomes so huge a challenge, some have to bang the table in frustration as they struggle to put their thought across. That tells you how important speech making is.
In the Bible, when Moses was first sighted by God, realizing there is a potential in him, God wanted to send him an errand, a difficult errand that needs a speaker with a smart speech felicity. His first excuse in his exchange with God was that he had bad speech skills chalkenge. God knew he was being smart by half; how? Those who stammer and struggle to speak are always intentional about any commitment committed in their hand.So stammering or not , God committed Moses to the beat of the redemption of Israelites in the ‘ransom’ grip of the tyrannical Pharaoh. Did Moses deliver? By jove , he did even with his combustible temper.
Nigeria does not suffer the dearth of public communicator and in Nigeria , whichever way you see it, people talk. If you want to doubt that view, find out from the major network outfits in Nigeria. Ours is a talking, no, ranting nation. We talk ten to a dozen and most times, when we talk , it is an expression of our frank view, sometimes our frustration!
The other day, a Federal Minister and a prominent one at that was on a prime time interview session. If you know Chief Ezenwo Nyeosom Wike very well, you will agree with me that he is not a stranger to prime time TV interviews. He has done Television interview so well that if there is a lol to his television personality appearance , you will wonder if ‘Oga’ is busy or sick. Yet, Nyesiri is a strong man, who hardly falls sick. So, if he takes a break from TV sessions, it’s either he is busy with structural housing assignment in Abuja or he is busy in Rivers going round to ensure ‘the Sim fits well into its housing’ for proper communication.
So, when the Minister talked in his last ‘most talked about TV interview,’ reacting to the popular Channels TV broadcaster, Seun Okinbaloye’s view on one party state prospects, it was vintage Wike in his most frank, though quite saucy take. Oga said,” I could have killed him with a gun if I had one at the instance in which he took a view on the possibility of one party state,” emphasis mine! By implication though figuratively, Minister Wike was simply saying, he felt offended that Seun Okinbaloye, an expected refined journalist should take side; thus if he had a gun, even from the comfort of the confine of his luxury living room from where he watched the interview , he could have ‘ gunned somebody down!’
Growing up and watching Yoruba movies, what Wike projected in his reactionary push was a regular scene from Yoruba movies. A wizard can kill you by conjuring a mirror to look at you regardless of the distance between you and the wizard. Emphasis on wizardry because men don’t do witchcraft except a woman rapper who would rather fly with his wife, the big time witch( the one Yorubas call ‘agba aje ti kii kanju lonsi Iju’) to the coven and even at that, he will be an observer without an impact in such weird meeting session. So, imagine, it was in the make belief world of old days Nigerian movie, actor Wike would have ‘kpaid’ actor Seun Okinbaloye and like the funny skit voices would coo…”lo ba tan!” But thank God man is not God, so Seun lives wether Oga Wike was miffed by the latter’s alleged siding with those who claim Nigeria is sliding towards one party state. I dare to ask you, is one party state afoot in Nigeria? Don’t answer if you don’t have evidence and don’t argue if you can’t substantiate your proof. Come to think of it, is PDP dead?
Oga Nyesom has never denied his membership of the opposition, PDP. He is still a member. So , what’s the hoopla about on one party state? What do we even understand about one party state? A learner like me knows that when there is one party state, it means there is no other opposition party. Last time I checked , Sowore’s opposition party is still alive and kicking, PDP though factionalized still exists even if one leg is in cahoot with the ruling party for the sake of political cohesion while the other leg is causing schism because Wike who claims to be in PDP is more immersed in the politics of his Principal, Tinubu’s politics of continuation. You cannot blame Wike, he holds one of the most prominent cabinet office in the Renewed Hope Agenda Govt; would you have done otherwise?
If those who said PDP would rule for 100 years are now dismantling the structure they consolidated during the Obasanjo, Yaradua/ Jonathan years, why should the polity be bothered?
And ADC, All Democratic Congress, touted by ‘Nigerian Ambassador to Mexico’, Speech maker on his own level, Femi Fani Kayode, as ‘Association of Destructive C*nts’, as a convention of disgruntled Nigerians , appear to be pushing or should I say chasing clout on the national level, is the ruling party afraid? I dare not think the party of Hope to so many Hope- hungry Nigerians is afraid of some ‘rag tag party’ of folks who scurried away from PDP because Wike became a leviathan that takes no nonsense!
Yes, Wike brooks no nonsense and if you doubt go and ask Simialaye Fubara who was brought from semantic obscurantism to stardom and limelight of gubernatorial splendor. Wike plays a politics that brooks no ingratitude; masses and their votes can go to blazes: if he helps you to become Governor, you are required to be loyal to him. Social contract can go to blazes, better still for the sake of Democracy, Wike comes first if he helps you to leverage politically then social contract a distant second.
So, why are the human rights activists , the Civil Society Organisations,CSOs and even foreign organizations shouting themselves hoarse over Nyesome Wike’s figurative ‘ kill Okinbalaoye’ discourse? Well, my colleagues way back in the university with whom we did stylistics and Pragmatics together as courses, and my seat mate and bestie way back at OAU, Ife, Dr. Wisdom Odegha, now a Lecturer of Language will tell you Speech Felicity according to our cerebral lecturers has no dual face. It’s either a speech is felicitous or not. But this is my space and I dare say, in Wike’s Nigeria , he is at liberty to use figurative language as he so well desires. He was not with a gun at the time he spoke; he just said if he had one, just some wishes….imaginative wish!
- Today is Easter Sunday and as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, we should preach peace and not guns and the sinister things it could do. Seun Okinbaloye wont die by the Minister’s wishful thinking, never and every normal politically conscious Nigeria wants the opposition to be strong because without a virile opposition structure, Democracy is as good as doomed. But what do I know? I support Wike because it was his freedom to a wishful thinking…..you have also had intentional wishful thoughts and once
you jerk yourself out of the revelry, you hurriedly mouth, “God forbid!” no be so?
Our Minister knew he has no right to take life ,so I guess he quickly veered off his wishful thinking but the speech was already in the public domain with speech analysts running lexis Felicity text on the excitable yet ‘innocent’ TV offering of a Minister who doesnt mince his words.
I await the next TV appointment between Channel’s Seun Okinbaloye and the ever virile , temper combustible APC loving PDP enthusiast Federal Cabinet member, Nyesom Wike.
Until then, I am sipping my evening Hennessy with calm and equanimity ; and as long as free speech is not a tot offence , I stand here with Wike until Seun Okinbaloye will charge him to explain his position with lexical clarity. That will be the day!
