The emergence of Governor Ikedichi Ohakim of Imo State is one of the litanies of surprises in the last discredited general elections. In the period preceding the elections, Imo State was a theatrical site for the absurd.

In the past two weeks, in this column, I serialized a two part commentary on the Anambra and Plateau crises and other incidental issues on the state of the Nigerian nation. My article was titled “Ngige, Dariye and the Presidency: The Morality of the Absurd” (part I-November 30, part II December 6). In this effort, I will not repeat, but would rather recommend for background reading, what I wrote then.

On Plateau State, yes, the President may be right in questioning the morality of Governor Dariye’s continued stay in office. However, while the President would prefer that Governor Dariye resign as a matter of honour or be impeached by the House of Assembly, that is not as simple as it seems. Law and morality are not always harmonious bedfellows.

In 1999, while responding to a suggestion that a lot of retired generals and other political jobbers were making monetary donations to his bid for the presidency and as such would naturally expect to be rewarded, or to wield some influence in his prospective regime, Mr. President (then a presidential candidate) was on record to have said that there will be no room for that kind of politics if he was elected.

However the courts resolve the pending litigations on the constitutionality of the declaration of state of emergency in Plateau State six months ago, the place of that singular decision of the Obasanjo administration is firmly secured in Nigeria’s constitutional and political history.

Two subjects competed for my writing commitment in the last month. If you are a keen watcher of events in Nigeria, you could possibly offer a correct guess. But do not bother. Let me tell you what they were. The first relates to the complicity of Mr. President, the Balogun of Owu, on the Owu Obaship tussle. The other is the Okija horror.

The Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, sounds like a man who wants his name on the good pages of history. Who would not? Wabara is also equally conscious of the amazing recycling, or turner over rate of the occupants of his present office since our putative democratic experiment in 1999. Naturally, he wants to keep his job and would do his best to ensure that his tenure is not truncated. It does seem, however, that he has un/consciously limited himself to one way of keeping his job: stooping to conquer, whatever that means.

A friend of mine, Chinedu Idike, once asked me: “Who is a gentleman?” Before I could figure out what may have prompted that question or where he was drifting our discussion to, he saved me an imminent embarrassment. His inquisition caught me off guard. I did not have an answer save to think about what Fela had to say on the subject. Thankfully, he volunteered a response to his bizarre question.