By Basil Okoh
The office of the vice president has just announced the appointment of Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa as head of the post COVID 19 Economic Recovery Team of the Federal Government. It is an appointment we believe, to elevate Dr. Okowa to the national platform and gladden the heart of Deltans.
Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa is the Governor of Delta State elected under the political party known as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). But the Federal Government is ruled by the party known as the All People’s Congress (APC) which defeated the PDP in the national election of 2015 and again in 2019. The PDP therefore stands in opposition to the APC in the Federal Government. So why is the APC inviting the Governor of the opposition Delta PDP state to manage the economy in it’s behalf?
You must be pinching yourself and asking, where in the world or in history has it happened that a Government appoints a functionary (not just a member) of the opposition party to take charge of the economy in its stead?
Now imagine Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of Britain under the Conservative Party inviting a Labour MP to manage the British exchequer or Donald Trump appointing Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic Governor of New York State to head the Management team for the recovery of the American economy post COVID 19. Now you get the intriguing picture?
Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa was trained in medicine and worked his early life as a medical doctor before the career change to politics. He is not an economist and has never managed investments of any kind. Economic matters have never been his forte. Of all the economic management experts Nigeria has within Nigeria and many in international institutions and multilateral agencies all over the world, why does it have to be a medical doctor with no management experience to manage the economy out of a recession and a pandemic crisis?
Something sinister is happening here and this appointment is not a bolt out of the blues. It’s obvious that there’s been a lot of surreptitious underground movement and consultations before this announcement. Nigerians were simply not aware of these underground plays and so we should suspect that this appointment is preparatory to a major political break. Keep your eyes open, everyone.
It is an appointment made obviously in clear mischief and carries more pitfalls than most pundits can imagine. It has the potential of becoming a wrecking ball to the PDP, the Southern Coalition, and the cohesion of the Oil Rivers States, all at once. It is a masterstroke in political chicanery and disruption.
Beyond the back patting and high fives, the appointment was not made to honour Dr. Okowa. It is a deadly political move by the Fulani faction of the APC using the office of the VP to shift blame for the foreseen death of the economy. To avoid future blame, this move has just been deflected by Yemi Osinbajo and the Yoruba faction.
This appointment will definitely divide the PDP and Southern Nigeria and sow mistrust and suspicion among the Governor’s of the Oil Rivers States.
We have seen these moves before, in the First Republic with Akintola and his faction of the Action Group and in the Second Republic with NPP, Aminu Kano of the PRP and Abubakar Waziri of the GNPP. It’s not new in Nigeria politics, a quisling has always been used, got smothered and eventually dumped to carry the historical shit resulting from treachery.
Prof. Yemi Osinbanjo is the one mandated by the Constitution to head the Federal Government Economic Team but he has never been allowed to act in that position. Someone needs to remind me the last time the Federal Government Economic Management Council met and what decisions on the economy they took. So why is Yemi Osinbanjo the one to announce a surrogate for a position he is constitutionally mandated to occupy? Someone please pinch me, again.
Dr. Okowa may not know it and may believe that this is a national honour and a challenge to prove his competence and sagacity but someone should please tell him that he is being set up to fall, a fall that will obliterate his previous political achievements. In this new job, he will have no control but will be held responsible for the economic failures of the Buhari regime.
With the world crude oil market in tatters, the Nigerian economy tanking and brazen theft and plunder going on all around, APC and Fulani plutocrats need a fall guy to carry the burden of failure. The concept of the carrier, the one who embodies and carries the sins and iniquities of the community is very well known in Yoruba culture.
Trust the Yoruba and the smart Yemi Osinbajo not to agree to take that fall. Yemi, the artful dodger has smartly shifted his position for a guy from the Southern Minorities to take the bullet. And what better man than an ambitious minorities politician on the rise.
Remember that the goggled one, Sanni Abacha never stole and what is being recovered from his hidden accounts in Western Banks are “assets” and not loots. Alex Ekwueme the vice president under President Shehu Shagari went to jail for long years for the Shagari regime after the Northern oligarchs had raped the economy to near death in the eighties.
It’s never the fault of the Fulani but other people. So OKOWA may be caught pants down with a half dead maiden after the Fulani plutocrats have gang raped and ravished her to coma. Get the drift?
You will be compelled to ask how it is feasible to give a fresh appointment to a state Governor who has his plate full, managing a state economy during a pandemic and a recession. If you cannot find a convincing answer, then consider the appointment as a masterclass stroke in political and regional disruption.
Dr. Okowa is being enlisted in the service of the Fulani to disrupt the political ecosystem of the South and the Oil Rivers States in particular. And don’t forget that this is happening a few days after proposing to set up an internal security system that would take on the Fulani bandits in the forests.
The security architecture in his Delta State has been ring-fenced and taken over by Fulani security operatives; Commissioner of Police, Divisional Police Officers and military commanders. He is being purchased and enrolled as the most recent buy in the Fulani Fifth Column. Take my word for this, folks.
You’ll do well to reject this invitation to dine with the lion, brother.
***Basil Okoh can be reached at basil.okoh@gmail.com and @basilokoh on Social Media.
