By UDO SILAS
“The situation in Nigeria is dire. By all indications, the devil has arrived in the country”
Above quote contains the exact words spoken by former governor Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State.
For proper context, Attah, who spoke on an Arise TV news interview, Wednesday, last week, also made other crucial and worrisome observations.
He condemned the emergency rule declared in Rivers State, describing it as an affront to democracy and evidence that Nigeria is operating as though there is no constitution.
According to Attah, the Rivers State crisis, exemplifies constitutional disorder, adding that even the flawed 1999 Constitution, was ignored in the manner in which the emergency was declared.
I was sufficiently intrigued, not by Attah’s conclusions, which are self-evident, but by his allegory of the devil.
Whereas, the argument can be made, that the devil has always been present, in the evidence of Nigeria’s stunted and retarded growth, since independence, Attah’s take, would seem to be that, even though the devil has always been present, it has only just “arrived”.
So, the operational word, in Attah’s descriptive verb, “arrived”, postulates an occurrence in the present.
Because Attah’s response, was to a question on the state of the nation, especially as it relates to the recently held local council elections in Rivers State, it would be safe to aver, that Attah was referring to Tinubu, as the devil, that has “arrived” our political shores.
Attah, normally very circumspect in speech and utterances, must have been sufficiently alarmed to cloak another being in the garb of the devil.
I do not know, if Attah, belongs to the school of neo-platonic cosmology, but his allegory of the devil, in political discourse, would seem to suggest he does, or he is only engaging a mere figurative characterization, to shout a clear and present danger.
Truth is, ‘scholars influenced by neo-platonic cosmology, like Origen and Pseudo-Dionysius, portrayed the Devil as representing deficiency and emptiness, the entity most remote from the divine. According to Augustine of Hippo, the realm of the Devil is not nothingness, but an inferior realm standing in opposition to God’.
Perhaps Attah sees Tinubu as the devil, standing in opposition to the Nigerian Constitution and her people?
But, whatever, the devil in Christian theology is the personification of evil. He is the adversary who has come to deceive, steal, maim and destroy.
To be candid, even when you align with atheist or modern reformist thinking, which situates the devil as ‘a mere metaphor for human’s inclination to sin’, it is doubtful there is a human that would want to name his child the ‘Devil’.
So, Attah’s allegory seems to say, that Tinubu, the devil, has “arrived” to steal, maim and destroy.
Is Tinubu stealing? We don’t know for a fact. Are Nigerians being maimed? Yes. Incessant taxation, subsidy this and that, hunger, kidnappings and killings, are potent indices.
Is our very foundation, our claim to nationhood, being destroyed? The answer, according to Attah, is a big yes. Absence of constitutional democracy.
Attah’s point can be briefly put in perspective.
Obasanjo was a “devil” but his failure to succeed with his alleged third-term agenda, meant he didn’t “arrive”.
Jonathan was a “devil”, but his submission to the constitution and the rule of law, occasioned when he declared a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States in 2013, meant he never “arrived”.
Buhari was a “devil”, but his clear penchant for constitutional rule and non-interference with processes of governance at the sub-national , Judicial independence, and non-interference in the internal mechanism of political parties, meant he failed to “arrive”.
Attah’s allegory seems to hold, that the devil has “arrived”, where, the constitution, institutions of state, like the National Assembly and Judiciary, operate, not from the altruistic notion of service, but self-serving capture.
Perhaps this point needs to be reiterated.
Our constitution is the ground norm that defines our civility and guides our communal brotherhood.
It is the soul that our body politic inhibits.
Without our souls, we are but mere carcasses without a skeleton, devoid of divine and spiritual essence.
Adherence to our constitution is proof ad infinitum, that we are not as they say, a banana republic.
It is the road sign that guides our vehicular endeavours as a people.
Accidents happen when traffic rules are not obeyed. Nations dwindle , disintegrate and soon vanish, when the constitution becomes the footstool of mere mortals.
But there seems a stretch to Attah’s allegory of the devil.
Lucifer, it must be remembered, departed the heavens with a third of the angels.
If Tinubu is the devil, then his enablers and accomplices, who reign presently as heads of other arms of government, ministers, advisers and foot-soldiers, in the destruction of Nigeria’s constitutional democracy, must be his angels.
However, It would be grossly unfair, having attempted an understanding of Attah’s allegory, not to ponder, if this allegory has a message to the Nigerian people, beyond mere observation.
It would seem that by his allegory, Attah, is telling Nigerians, that just as God, has given earthlings, free will, on whom to follow, Nigerian people, having identified the devil, should strive for salvation by their own free will.
The devil, Attah says, is not coming to us in 2027, 2031 or 2035. The devil has already “arrived”. Quite scary. Or what do you think?
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