TELL IT

By Dele Sobowale “When women have gone a step too far, they will stop at none”. Henry Fielding, 1707-1754. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 280). Henry Fielding, the author of world classic, TOM JONES, was an excellent writer and the classical “woman wrapper”. So, he knew what he was talking about. For Fielding as for all men, there is an abiding warning - be careful when your woman (wife, running mate, mistress, girl-friend etc) intrudes too much in your business. Irrespective of whether the business is politics or a church or illegal oil bunkering the odds of a happy ending are very long. Conventional wisdom has it that “behind any successful man, there is a woman”. But, conventional wisdom is not history and the verdict of history has not been too kind to conventional wisdom. Last week, in the first part, I mentioned three women, wives of Heads of States who interfered publicly in governance. One ended well, two ended in tragedy for husband and wife. In fact, the chances of a wife dam...

By Dele Sobowale “A group without a leader is a mob”. Late President John Kennedy, 1917-1963, of the United States, in his classic, PROFILES IN COURAGE, recalled a Senator who told anyone, who cared to listen, “I never quarrel; but I fight. And when I fight, a funeral follows”. From the second year of PDP in Nigeria, the party had left a trail of blood. They never quarrel; but they fight. Till today, over twenty murders remain unsolved as a result of PDP members fighting as elections approach. What we are witnessing now is probably the warm-up to 2014 mayhem. By this time next year, a few funerals would have followed the fights. There is absolute bedlam in that “ship”. On any other ship, the Captain’s word is law – but not here on SS MUTINY. Three weeks ago, the Captain ordered the Chief Engineer, CE, to hand over to somebody else and get off the ship. Two days after the order was given, the Chief Engineer, not only announced to everybody, including the Captain, that he was going nowhe...