Patrick Obahiagbon, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and a former member of the House of Representatives from Edo State.
In this interview, Obahiagbon speaks on the current political dispensation in Nigeria, his upbringing and his unique language style.
THE two major parties are in crises. What in your opinion is responsible for this?
By the two major parties, I presume you are referring to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and I am consensus ad idem with you that these two political parties are indeed the two major political parties just now, notwithstanding any pretentious and sanctimonious pontifications to the contrary. The noxious and pestilential crisis that has bedeviled the PDP and which has become a web of Penelope arose as a result of the fraudulent violation and unconscionable political rape of its constitution that recognised and constitutionally apotheosised the principle of zoning and rotation of political and elective offices between the north and the south. The inordinate ambition of its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, the palpable lack of neutrality by Iyorchia Ayu in the presidential nomination process which became evident by his verbal diarrhoea thereafter, the insensitivity to southern political interests by some high priests of northern caliphatism and the serial breaches of promises made to Governor [Nyesom] Wike by Atiku Abubakar are what have politically quagmired the PDP and left it luxating and hemorrhaging as of today.
The APC was largely able to manage its presidential primary process better than the PDP. What seemed to have bogged down its presidential campaign has been the wish and desire of various legitimate interests to be involved in the presidential campaign and this is quite understandable recognising that the APC is the ruling party. So, whereas incumbent PDP governors are rejecting being part of their presidential campaigns, you have a situation in the APC in which the agitation and ferment are the desire and fervour to be part of the presidential campaign.
Religion is being dangerously introduced into the 2023 presidential election. Are you as worried as other well-meaning people?
As has been eloquently elucidated by a Rosicrucian grand master, Dr Kenneth Idiodi, one of our fundamental problems as a nation is that ‘we find ourselves in a situation where religion has been politicised and politics has become religionised’. Let me state right away that I am always flummoxed more by the shameful ignorance that has been exhibited by Christian and Muslim leaders and their adherents over time. If I can forgive political desperadoes’ attempt to politicise religion, certainly not so with religious leaders. Christian and Muslim leaders in Nigeria over the years have exhibited their ignorance in not realising that there is really no fundamental disparity between Christianity and Islam. The time has come for those of us that are privileged ‘veiled prophets’ to use opportunities as this platform to let them know that both the Christian and Muslim religions arose from the same primordial tradition of light, thus making them two sides of the same coin. Do they even know that the 19th chapter of the Qur’an is devoted to Mary, the mother of Jesus the Christ? Was Islam, as related by Prophet Muhammad himself, not commenced with the appearance of Archangel Gabriel to him? Is that not the same Archangel Gabriel of the Bible? So, it is crass ignorance on display when we fight over religion and what I am worried about is more of the ignorance on the part of Nigeria’s religious leaders, their adherents and mankind. The sacred responsibility of ‘veiled prophets’ is to continually point out the similarities between these two religions and others that we may become aware of our common heritage, bound with the spiritual agglutinant of universal brotherhood under the fatherhood of the supreme intelligence. And thanks for giving me this opportunity.
How do you see the state of the nation? There is tension everywhere. What is the way forward?
Am I really surprised as to the tension in the country? Not at all and that is due to the fact that what we are having in the country today is a successful transfer from military to civilian rule. We are still on the threshold of transiting into a democratic nation. Until we have philosopher kings in various portals of governance, I am afraid that we would continue to be buffeted with leadership failure and its concomitant, debilitating and asphyxiating backlash such as weak institutions, prebendalism, state capture, malversation, primitive accumulation of capital and its polyvalent gorgon medusa that is a corollary of national tension. Simply put, the problem of Nigeria over the years has lugubriously been failed leadership.
Who was your favourite teacher in secondary school and was he responsible for your high-sounding use of English?
What has been referred to my high-sounding use of the English language has its fons et origo in a multiplicity of factors. Growing up, I agglutinated my nose to the grindstone and was an avid reader of various literature and magnum opus. My father also played a role when he rammed me through Francis Salome’s narrow path, he himself being an uncompromising martinet. Another factor was my reading the dictionary for a minimum of one hour daily in my formative years. I am not so sure that I had any favorite secondary school teacher whose modus-vivendi was propitious to my language predilection.
A lot of people would want to know more about you. How were your childhood and growing up like?
My parents were educationists. My father retired as a principal inspector of education after becoming a college principal while my mother retired as a headmistress. They were very strict and scrupulously enforced discipline. I never saw the world after the hour of 7.00 p.m. outside my father’s compound until I became a practising lawyer which was very easy for him to implement because he himself never left the house after he came back from work at about 4.00 p.m. daily. He would come to pick me up from lessons when I closed and was always punctiliously around to take me home one hour before I was through with my lessons. Even when I became a practising lawyer, he also made it a point of duty to come pick me from the law firm where I was practising. The love he and my mother showed me was so great that I promised myself never ever to make them unhappy. You cannot believe that when I was in the law school for one year in Lagos, my Dad and Mum drove all the way from Benin to Lagos every weekend just to see me. There was not one weekend they didn’t come. They did exactly that for another year from Benin to Akure during my national youth service. I thank God that they are both still alive and may the gracious Lord continue to bless them with long life and good health.
Do you have any advice for the youths of today on how to live responsibly and successfully?
Unfortunately, our youths of today have gone completely bonkers and haywire. The permissiveness of the social media has not helped matters. They all want to become plutocrats without hard work these days. Our degenerate society that eulogises worshiping at the shrine of mammon over and above hard work has also been a disservice. The Olympian aloofness of parents should also be deprecated. My advice for our young lads is to imbibe the values of hard-work and righteousness, but this must be in juxtapose with leaders also becoming an exemplum of puritanical values. A society where the rulers and leaders pertinaciously pursue moneocrism as if they are rushing to enter into Noah’s ark before departure is insidious and unacceptable.
CULLED FROM TRIBUNE