By GE Mosugu, Colonel (Rtd)
You began your journey as a natural miracle of conception, pregnancy and birth. There were no troubling reports, no alarms—just the joy of a safe arrival. As a newborn, your birth was a source of pride and delight to your birthmother, a moment of boundless love and hope.
According to tradition, you were named on the eighth day, though no official record exists to preserve this milestone. Yours was a start marked not by a silver spoon, but by the grit of survival, with whispers of hardships—perhaps adoption, perhaps abandonment.
Your early education, if it can be called that, was a blend of formal and informal experiences, shrouded in mystery and speculation. Stories from shadowy sources paint a picture of opacity and uncertainty. To this day, no schoolmate or colleague of repute, has stepped forward to confirm your formative or school years, leaving a void in the narrative of your roots.
In your youth, you left the shores of your homeland for the United States, presumably to study. Yet, somewhere along the way, your path veered into the shadows. Certain actions labeled “untoward” placed you in the cross hairs of United States’ Federal agencies, where, even now, allegedly in court records, you are reportedly regarded as an “active asset”……. whatever this means.
Returning to the fatherland, you entered politics after a stint in employment. Through deft maneuvering and elimination of rivals, you claimed the most coveted political office at the sub-national level. Empowered by a seemingly limitless war chest, you transcended your official tenures, pulling strings from behind the scenes and remaining a force in the nation’s consciousness.
During these “hiatus” years, your criticisms of federal policies often rang loud, even as questions lingered about your source of sustenance. For over a decade, you thrived without an apparent or declared source of income, yet you dispensed generosity with abandon, weathering accusations of false assets declaration and complicity in political intrigues.
With unyielding determination and an air of entitlement – an entitlement mentality – you set your sights on the pinnacle of power. You supported allies to rule at both sub-national and national levels, eventually claiming the throne yourself.
Yet, even as king of this jungle—a realm where farm harvests are now yours to choose or pick, share or withhold at will—the weight of unanswered questions remains. Who are you, truly? What lies beneath the layers of myth and manipulation? Where are you headed?
The plight of your fellow citizens—starving, suffering, dying in stampedes, or silenced—appears secondary to your feast at the table of power. The farm belongs to you now, with your select guests—families, foreigners, sycophants or loyalists—indulged to your liking.
You might yet prove to be a revolutionary force (?), the “best thing since sliced bread.” But no matter how secure the nation becomes or how strong its economy grows, the truth of your identity eludes us – your fellow occupants of the animal farm.
As the new year dawns, resolutions are neither outlawed nor impossible. Your life has been a tale of reinvention: from birth to ‘death’ to recreation and soon, like all of us, you too will fade.
This is your story as we know it—fragmented and flawed, yet undeniably yours.
This is your life…
Yekini Amoda Ogunlere