Eaglepoint: Now the street is dusty!

We are in an interesting time. Things are happening at breakneck speed and issues are chasing one another out of headlines. Once there is ‘a stop press’, before you can blow a whistle, the breaking news has waxed cold as another one chases it off the relevance stand.

The street lingo, ‘crazy things are happening,’ holds sway here and truth be told, things are really happening.

Come to think of it, who could have thought a day will come when the ace singer, Innocent 2face Idibia will bid a permanent farewell to his smooth and glistening ‘African Queen’, Annie Idibia? One recalled his opinion in an interview when he was asked why he chose Annie over all the other well empowered dazzling ladies in his life and his response had been thought provoking; he had said Annie, the pretty Annie, was the lady who knew him when he had nothing and stuck to him all the way from obscurity to stardom where he now lives a life of lavish and splendor. He said while the other ladies in his life knew 2face the star, Annie knew Innocent through and through.

But now the street is dusty and the sight that saw clearly has gone hazy and The African Queen of 2Face, the cooing voice on the karaoke has become jaded, forlorn abandoned, cloyed and satiated. When the street gets dusty and eyes get hazy, love waxes cold and lovers drop off their passion like a bad idea. And when the shit hits the fan, when things go South like this, hell hath no fury like the lover who is abandoned. Suddenly, African Queen crooner finds himself a new lover and all the narratives about the Annie who stood when there was nothing, panned into nothingness. That is African men for you…polygamist by nature , heartbreaker by nurture and players by passion.

Sane men who have sisters and who do not share the idea of ‘ many a woman for a good man,’ also kicked against the ‘Annie/2face’ narrative. ‘Annie was too cool to be treated that way- so they said but the horse has bolted off the stable so no need crying over split milk. If a woman will chose a debonair who has a home and a wife to boot, blame the woman not the player…though it’s easier said than done. It’s a really interesting time we have found ourselves!

In the hazy and dusty street we are, Natasha, not the Edo Lawmaker, who has suddenly won ‘The Idibia African Queen Trophy,’ but the Ebira lady of iron caste resolve has continued to demand headline attention. Recall she was suspended from the Senate over an alleged uncouth and ‘unsenatorial’ conduct, but has maintained a strong social media relevance as the sexually harassed female Senator who refused to be silenced. The more she flaunts her carriage regardless of her six month -long suspension from the Red Chamber, the more she makes the harassment narrative a dent on the Senate President. So embarrassing has her shrill voice of protest against her suspension been that even the Presidency could not help but wade in on the matter by empanelling Vice President Kashim Shetima to look into the matter. And why won’t the Presidency Wade in? Natasha has maintained she has evidence that she was sexually harassed and it is only at the court that she will lay bare her evidence. Like they say in the street, ‘God forbid bad thing’ that the resolute Ebira woman who has taken her battle straight to former Governor Yahya Bello now has some strange evidence. There should be limit to dragging the institution of the state on the mud and when matter goes to trial and evidences stroll out of stored digital portals, God forbid, the headliners will craft with no holds barred agility, until satiation.

Now, to make matter worse, a party to the matter who could have helped douse the tension has pulled out of the Presidential Panel, siting needless interference from the Executive in the matter. As things stand, perhaps, ‘ na court go still settle am!’ ( Pardon my veering off into the dusty street lingo).

What is more, the King of street trolling himself, who prided himself as a social crusader, Vincent Otse, the Edo born Very Dark Man (VDM) has been mopped off the street by the Almighty EFCC. Time there was in Nigeria when Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC) was the fear factor that scared politically exposed persons ( PEP). In the days of the Obasanjo Presidency, corrupt politicians always knew EFCC will come calling for them and a lot of such breed were convicted in those days when Nuhu Ribadu branded the Commission the structure which caught ‘ thieves in government corridor.’ VDM was accused of cyberstalking, cyberbullying and got picked up in a bank lounge. The Petitioners can now rest that their ‘Troller -in -chief’ is out of circulation.

The government in power has key actors in the days of yore when they were in the opposition whose voices rung out against unfavourable government policies; they were champions of fundamental human rights, they were the social crusaders who saw everything unsavoury in the policies of President Yar’dua , President Goodluck Jonathan and who did not relent in dishing out constructive criticism even when President Buhari was in power.

This street we find ourselves in has a penchant for turning victors to villains and making champions of human rights its opposite; its value, no doubt lies in the survival instinct.

Where exactly, as they ask, do we go from here?