{"id":8291,"date":"2013-08-13T16:40:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T16:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/nigerian-newspapers\/the-fifth-columnists\/"},"modified":"2013-08-13T16:40:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T16:40:00","slug":"the-fifth-columnists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/the-fifth-columnists\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fifth Columnists?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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T<\/strong>he journey from Port Harcourt airport to Yenegoa takes approximately two hours, despite the poor state of the road leading to Bayelsa. <\/strong><\/p>\n

From the Port Harcourt airport, you drove through smooth, dual carriageway up to a point where the good road stops and you began to dodge potholes along the famous\u2014or rather, controversial( ?)East-West Road, pitching Governor Chibuike Amaechi and Niger Delta Minister, Godsday Orubebe. A few kilometres later, you see the signboard that reads, Welcome to Bayelsa State.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is nothing special about driving through pothole-riddled roads in Nigeria. I mean, we are used to it in Nigeria \u2014 whether you are talking about Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ore\u2014Benin Road, Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, which once pitched Governor Orji Uzor Kalu and President Olusegun Obasanjo\/Chief Tony Anenih into a war, or any of the major and minor highways.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why you have far more SUVs in Nigeria than, perhaps, any other country in the world. It could be said that Nigeria is a dumping ground for all kinds of SUVs, monstrous fuel guzzlers coming with no age limits, unleashing, maximum pollution on our environment.<\/p>\n

But still, as you drive into Bayelsa, you still have to wonder, \u201cDoes the president also pass through this road to his hometown?\u201d It was more of a rhetorical question. There is only one highway leading into Bayelsa State.<\/p>\n

Unless the president uses any of his presidential helicopters \u2014 more likely, of course, \u2014 he\u2019d have to meander through that same highway. As Soyinka once argued, bad roads are no respecter of sirens, very important personalities or presidential personages.<\/p>\n

But as the road stands now, it would be a security risk for the president to return to Bayelsa by road.<\/p>\n

If he does, then like us, he would have to move from one side of the road to the other; when the road cuts off, he would have to join the single lane and do one way like the rest of other road users \u2014 that is, if the traffic is not blocked for a full day to allow his passage.<\/p>\n

We were navigating the road like that when we came to a traffic diversion and followed. Unfortunately, the vehicle ahead of us sank in the sand. Somewhere ahead, another vehicle was sputtering in the sand too.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t they say that if you find yourself in a hole, the first wisdom is to stop digging? But not so these desperate and panicky drivers. They kept revving their engine, their tyres spinning in the mud, sinking deeper.<\/p>\n

I sensed trouble. My host had provided heavy duty Range Rover SUV to pick me and a colleague from the airport. If the lighter vehicle ahead of us could sink, we would probably do worse. If we are grounded here and some miscreants showed up, they\u2019d mistake me for one of the oppressors! I felt quite vulnerable out there in the miry traffic jungle.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes of struggle later, our driver, a calm and experienced soldier, dexterously used reverse to maneuver us out of the troubled spot. Or so we thought, for a moment later, the world came to standstill at the Mbiama junction area, which leads to a long bridge. The dual carriage lanes were being rehabilitated at the same time with heaps of soft red sand swallowing unwary vehicles.<\/p>\n

Several kilometres stretch of traffic had built up from the Bayelsa end, with the result that those with siren lawlessly decided to use the one way, until we all came to a perfect gridlock. In a land where everybody is a warlord, the blaring of sirens is ultimately a meaningless status symbol.<\/p>\n

With many vehicles sunk into the sand, the road blocked, sirens wailing, I remember the president! How come the road to the president\u2019s state is still like this three years after he had been in power?<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t go forward, we can\u2019t go backward. This is a veritable state of anarchy. While some heavy duty trucks are helping to pull out some commercial and private vehicles stuck at different spots, bigger caterpillars came to the rescue of the trucks that sank as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is big news,\u201d my co-passenger, Pastor Dickson Anyanwu, burst out. \u201cWrite about this! Many years ago, you told me that news is extraordinary bad things happening. This road is extraordinarily bad! The road to our president\u2019s home state!\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, if the road to the President\u2019s state is this bad, then there must be a fifth columnist somewhere, playing the spoiler. Who is the fifth columnist? How could the road to the president\u2019s state be left undone until now, after he had spent three years in power? Who is after the president\u2019s job?<\/p>\n

When you look at it carefully, it is not members of the newly registered APC or perhaps, even the internal enemies within PDP. The real enemies of the president are within\u2014those inner circle members, who didn\u2019t persuade him that charity begins at home, that the road to Bayelsa needs urgent attention, that if the road is not quickly finished, that General Mohammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the ace strategist, would mobilise members of APC to that sinking spot at Mbiama, allow their campaign vehicles to sink there and invite the world media to watch them pushing their vehicles in their bid to go to Yenegoa for campaign!<\/p>\n

I learnt a thing or two about the theory of the fifth columnist during the Buhari\/Idiagbon regime. One day, some soldiers stormed the Park Lane home of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, ransacked the place in search of some documents to try his associates already languishing in jail.<\/p>\n

The search was designed to generate maximum outrage among the vocal elite of the civil society, especially the Yoruba and it did. But it turned out that the head of state, General Buhari didn\u2019t order the raid nor was he even aware of it.<\/p>\n

The order came from the top echelon of the regime, but Buhari, rather than Awo, was the real target. The fifth columnist wanted to set him up, to demonise him, to make him enemy of the vocal civil society, in preparation for the coup that ultimately ousted him. They succeeded.<\/p>\n

Since then, I have learnt to be more circumspect when you have overzealous followers, who push you to do brazen things.<\/p>\n

Overzealousness is probably the culprit when some people suggest to the president that 16 votes are majority over 19 votes. Overzealousness is at play when the ardent acolytes of the president convince him that five legislators can overthrow 27 legislators and, perhaps, ultimately impeach the governor!\u00a0 The voice of the fifth columnists would say, Are you not the commander in chief of the armed forces, who can do all things?<\/p>\n

As the commander in chief, you can walk on water, turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man, who can question your power? Yeah, as the commander in chief, you can freeze the air on the land, in the sea or in the airspace, who can challenge your power?<\/p>\n

Perhaps, none. But man of power, be careful. Beware of overzealous men, for in the end, some of them may turn out to be fifth columnists.<\/p>\n

The real commander in chief is the one, who uses such enormous powers to pave our roads, combat unemployment, create infrastructure and set Nigeria free on the road to prosperity.<\/p>\n

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Posted in Nigerian Newspapers. <\/a>A DisNaija.Com<\/a> network.<\/p>\n

Source: The Sun Newspaper<\/p>\n

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