FeaturesThe Incredible Fani-Kayode !

The Incredible Fani-Kayode !

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September 19, (THEWILL) – There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,” the great Irish wit, Oscar Wilde, once mused, “and that is not being talked about.”

A publicity freak himself, Wilde remembered for his immortal play, The Importance of Being Earnest and novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, took every opportunity to show his genius or disrespect for the conventional just about anywhere – in Europe or America.

Arriving in America for the first time in 1882 in the course of a lecture tour at Hudson River Dock, Wilde told his audience: “I have nothing to declare but my genius.”

Wilde got noticed. His publicity mileage got a good traction from then on. Whether for good or ill, the Irish playwright reckoned that publicity pays. In other words, he felt and knew that rather than remain in relative obscurity, it is better to be mentioned either at dinner tables of genteel American hostesses, literary soirees or the Times.

Though not a writer or a bon vivant in the class of the Irish poet, a Nigerian politician, former Minister of Aviation under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration and cossetted progeny of a popular family in the Southwest, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode has taken to heart Wilde’s quip about remaining in the public eye, of being a public spectacle – for good or bad.

The latest publicity glitz for Femi Fani-Kayode is his recent defection to the ruling party All Progressives Congress just last week. In case you were in doubt, the man made an appearance with President Muhammadu Buhari himself right in the Presidential Villa.

Rumours had been rife of his intended crossover from the Peoples Democratic Party which he joined from APC in 2015. Before the Abuja photo-op with PMB, FFK was sighted in Kano at the wedding of the president’s son Yusuf Buhari to Zahra Ado Bayero daughter of Emir of Bichi, HRH Nasiru Ado Bayero.

If there was any truth to FFK’s imminent crossover, his presence in Kano was it. It was, as they say, pregnant with meanings. He also met and posed with cabinet members in Buhari’s administration that FFK himself almost hung on the noose of his visceral criticism, notably Isa Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy.

Last April, FFK had cause to denounce the minister whom he called “a homicidal, sociopathic and psychotic individual…Who is a hater of Christians and non-Muslims. He is a religious bigot, an ethnic supremacist, an unrepentant jihadist, a lover of bloodshed, carnage and terror and a psychopathic and clearly insane individual who may well have been responsible for the slaughter of many innocent Christians over the years as a consequence of his inflammatory rhetoric and reckless actions.”

Even PMB himself has been a recipient of the former minister’s vitriol. After PMB fell ill in 2018, FFK was one of the first Nigerians to pronounce him dead, insisting that “Buhari is dead and he never came back from London. Only his body did. They invoked the spirit of Jubril and placed it in the body of Buhari. It is a common ritual among Satanists.”

In politics, there is a common saying that there are no permanent friends and no permanent foes, which is to say that a friend today might become a fiend tomorrow and the foe today might become your best friend tomorrow.

Even so, there is a certain level of decency and decorum expected of even political gladiators. In that regard, Nigerians are now asking if FFK has gone too far in his political prostitution, as one commentator said in the wake of his defection to a party he once described as propped up on “Janjaweed ideology.” The APC, he went on, “is a Boko Haramite party reserved for Muslim extremists and a handful of Christians who really don’t know what to do with it, what they got into.”

Now that he has joined the party and a Christian from the Southwest, Nigerians are asking if he knows what he “has got into.”

The social media has been awash with FFK’s most recent defection, putting him once again in the public limelight but not the way he would have preferred.

When news first seeped through of FFK’s intended crossover, he swiftly denied it, insisting that will only happen “over my dead body.”

Nor was that the first of the former minister’s unguarded utterances. Nigerians were somewhat shocked, particularly Igbos, when he made a public declaration of his alleged dalliance with Bianca Onoh, wife of late warlord Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. It was in bad taste, FFK’s critic charged.

Sometime last year, too, during his tour of selected states in the South east, FFK publicly dressed down a journalist who wanted to know who was bankrolling his look-around. It was an underwhelming performance typical of what had come to be known as FFK style: angry and spontaneous outbursts like a senior neighbourhood bully would a much younger person or a less privileged person.

There is hardly any Nigerian who has not heard of Femi Fani-Kayode, scion of first and second Republic politician, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode. Ever since he emerged into public consciousness as Minister of Aviation under OBJ, FFK as he is often called, has had yards and yards of print lavished on him. His frequent appearances on television makes for riveted viewing. To begin with, he is good to look at, almost like a first-rate film star. If you missed his handsome visage, you were almost certain to be hooked by his elocution.

Years down the line after his tenure in OBJ’s cabinet, FFK would find more national assignment under former President Goodluck Jonathan as his Director of Media and Advertising during the 2015 general elections. At the time, FFK left nothing to chance to pull or put down the opposition.

Those who know the man closely, OBJ, for example, have long seen through the FFK façade, telling subordinates and fat cat politicos once that FFK “is my boy. If you give him food, he will dance and sing for you.”

As for the man at the centre of it all, his defection to the APC “was divine,” FFK has said, continuing that he was “led by the spirit of God in my decision and I joined the APC for the unity of the country.”

Not many of FFK’s new party members as sanguine about his defection. “This is the saddest day of my political career,” Babafemi Ojudu said soon after FFK’s crossover. In a Facebook post, Ojudu who is PMB’s aide on Political Matters recalled a post in 2019 when FFK said he would rather die than join the APC.

As for Sheik Mohammed Gumi, the Islamic cleric who has earned national fame as a negotiator with insurgent groups, FFK is the “Judas of Oduduwa.” The cleric wrote that “I have for long neglected the ranting of the Judas of Oduduwa attacking me knowing full well that he is fake and a traitor. Time has caught up with him and thanks to Allah, all his vituperations are cast in the dustbin of history.”

To be sure, Nigerian politicians are notorious for leaving one party for another. FFK’s isn’t the first and will certainly not be the last. The phenomenon is as old as the first republic – depending on the sea of change in the political climate or the lure of possible plum political appointments just waiting in the wings.

Whatever the motive, especially in FFK’s case, one thing is for sure: the man manages to be the talk of the town for the unenviable or edifying reasons – depending on which side of the divide you are – proving Wilde right once again that it is better to be talked about that been consigned to political obscurity.

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Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.

Michael Jimoh, THEWILLhttps://thewillnews.com
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.

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