President Tinubu (left) Governor Sanwo-Olu
By Festus Adedayo (PhD)
As Ngugi wa Thiongโo says in his Wizard of the Crow (2007), ire is more corrosive than fire. Make no mistake about it: President Bola Tinubu is angry. When Tinubu was similarly angry, I wrote a piece entitled Tinubu the Apโejalodo and his strange fish friend (September 18, 2018). That fable was one of the stories that helped to tame the greed of pre- and post-colonial Yoruba society, as well as any tendency within it to play God.
By that 2018, Tinubu had made up his mind to replace Akinwunmi Ambode as governor of Lagos State. The piece, using that anecdote, was to warn him not to take the place of God. Suchlike stories helped to shape the moral man in Africa. His cosmology was governed by anecdotes, lore and mores which prescribed moral codes. For centuries, these sustained the associational and moral forte of Africa. Anecdotes that restrained a potential emperor from treading the path of ruination were told to children, even in their infancies; same about petty thieves who came to ghastly ends. For instance, the destructive end of greed was foretold in pre-colonial Yoruba society in the emblematic story of Tortoise and the scalding hot porridge on the fire he stole and covertly put on his head. It burnt his scalp. Permit me to retell the anecdote.
Set in an African village, the story is that of a young wretched fisherman (Apโejalodo) who was ravaged by failure. He was unable to catch enough fish over the years to rescue him from the pangs of lack. One day, however, as he thrust his fishing hook into the river, it caught one of the largest fishes he had ever seen. Excited, Apโejalodo pulled his awesome catch up to the river bank and proceeded to yank it off the hook.
As he attempted to carry it to the basket, however, the fish began to speak like a human being. Apโejalodo was at first afraid but he eventually pulled himself up and listened to the sermon of the strange fish. Singing, Apโejalodo, mo de, ja lo lo, ja lo loโฆ (Fisherman, here I comeโฆ) the fish pleaded to be rescued by the fisherman.
It promised that if the fisherman spared its life, in lieu of this rescue, he should ask for whatever he wanted in life. Excited, Apโejalodo let it off the hook and asked for wealth. Truly, by the time he got home, the ragged clothes on him and his wife had become very big damask agbada and aran respectively, with their wretched hut transformed into a big mansion. Both now began to live the life of unimaginable splendour.
After a few years, the couple was however, barren, and the wife entreated Apโejalodo to go fishing again and ask his fish friend to rescue them from the social shame. As he thrust his hook into the river again, it caught the strange fish, and the earlier process was repeated. This time, he asked for a child, and the strange fish granted it, giving him children. Over the years, the fisherman magisterially summoned the fish through the same process, and the fish bailed the couple out.
Then one day, Apโejalodo and wife were just waking up from their magnificent bed when a blinding and intruding ray of the sun meandered into their bedroom. Enraged, Mrs. Apโejalodo couldnโt understand the audacity the sun had to intrude into their sacristy. Couldnโt it respect the privacy and majesty of the richest couple in the land? She then angrily commanded Apโejalodo to go meet his fish friend and ask that they be given the power to control the temerity of the Sun and other impertinent celestial forces.
Off Apโejalodo went to the river bank, thrust his fishing hook into the river and again invoked the strange fish. And Apโejalodo made his plea. The fish was peeved by the fishermanโs greed and audacity.โYou were nobody; I made you somebody and you now have everything at your beck and call. Yet, you want to compete with God in majesty and you will not allow even a common sun to shine and perform the illuminating assignment God brought it to perform on earth!โ
The fish angrily stormed back into the river, and as Apโejalodo, downcast, walked back home, his old torn and wretched dress suddenly came back on him, his mansion transformed into the hut of the past, and the coupleโs latter wretchedness was more striking than the one of yore..
After writing that piece in 2018, as fate would have it, I was wrong and Tinubu was right. In spite of the several entreaties to him, Apโejalodo had his way and Ambode became history. Today, Apโejalodo has warred with all his governor nominees since 2007. He attempted to remove all of them but only succeeded with Ambode. On each occasion, he made himself the victim of his disagreements with his mentee governors, answering to that Oscar Wilde statement that you cannot be too careful in the choice of your enemies. Babajide Sanwo-Olu has joined the infamous train of victims of Tinubuโs ferocious anger.
As far back as January of this year, sullen murmurs of bees of power in Alausa and Aso Rock hinted that Apโejalodo was angry. While Ambodeโs err was failure to offload requested funds, Sanwo-Oluโs was his indiscretion and temerity. An alleged female friend of the governor was said to have helped him courier Lagos funds to Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi to enable him to win the 2023 governorship. In violation of the laws of power, Sanwo-Olu thus outshone the Master.
While he won his Lagos election, Apโejalodo lost. Apโejalodo actually didnโt mind him losing the election, with the aim of cutting his wings but regaining his overlordship of Lagos in a subsequent estimated victory in the court. At a meeting of the two, while the governor swore his innocence, Apโejalodo was said to have derisively laughed him off, maintaining he had security reports which affirmed the transaction. The stroke that broke the camelโs back was the governorโs effrontery in removing Speaker Mudashiru Obasa, Apโejalodoโs protege who had been overtly rude to the governor.
Twice in a week, Apโejalodo has ridiculed Sanwo-Olu, at both the Lagos-Calabar highway and Lekki Free Port Road commissioning. He skipped shaking his hands in one and ensured his absence in the other. You could hear the ghoulish cries of vultures waiting to feed off the flesh of the governor. At the Port Road commissioning, Apโejalodo was fuming from all cylinders: โI am glad the Deputy Governor of Lagos is here. Take it that we will remove all those approvals given on the setbacks already given. No more planning approvals for those unplanned islands being created illegally,โ he said. Ngugi wa Thiongโo was indeed right. Ire is corrosive.
Apโejalodo, having been lifted up by his fish god friend to have an elephant firmly rested on his head, still wants to know what tiny crickets are doing in their small holes. He is enraged by the audacity of Sanwo-Oluโs Sun to intrude into his sacristy. Couldnโt the lanky fellow respect the majesty of the No. 1 Citizen of Nigeria, its richest man and the most powerful in the land?
Again, I am certain that we are about to witness the denouement of this macabre drama of Apโejalodo trying to appropriate and approximate the power of God. Perhaps, the young man who stoned the Iroko tree some years back is ripe for celestial forcesโ retribution at his attempt to wear the same trousers with God?.
- ADEDAYO is a columnist, journalist, author, lawyer, and political scientist. (First published by the Sunday Tribune, June 8, 2025)
