They cast her in the mould of a heroine. She saved the nation they said. At a crucial time when the ship of State was adrift and rudderless, she, with uncommon courage and magical sleight of hand, guided it to the shore. Now they sing: ‘all–hail-Dora, the patriot, all hail-Akunyili the heroine of our time’.

She is, like Shakespeare would say, “among the groove, the straightest plant”. And of the Media’s enchanting eulogy and hero-worship, an apt book-title will be: “Deodorizing Dora”. Or “At Last She Got Her Honest Groove” Its epilogue will read: ‘she set out to clean the nation of illicit drugs; coveted power and had to sell an illicit brand; and now she is herself, the brand!

And from the angelic trajectory of this God-sent, the image of another angel is revealed; alas this one from ‘the Bottomless Pit’; the ‘devil’ Aondoakaa. He is a Michael, yes; but not Michael the Angel;. They label him: ‘Evil-In-Chief and Solicitor-Advocate for the rights of the wicked, the malignant and the infirm’!

Yet even the Media that is deodorizing Dora and demonizing Aondoakaa cannot deny the fact that whereas she is one hell of an ambitious schemer, limelight-seeking and adept in the game of self-preservation, Aondoakaa is unashamedly a congenital-loyalist-lawyer -like a selfless electrical fuse- willing to self-destruct to safeguard his master. He is like the loyal dog of Senator Graham’s ‘Tribute to a Dog’, which will stand by its master “in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness”. And “when all other friends desert, he remains.”. Aondoakaa has got no guiling body language. You do not have to read his lips to reach his mind! His truth resides in the calmness of his eyes. There you get exactly what you see: a man truly at his job. He is as forthrightly unapologetic as he is legally assertive. Neither attention-seeking nor indulgent in the razzmatazz of cosmeticised legalese. Love him or loath him, his truth is ‘the law and nothing but the law’! He floored Femi Falana in court and came out ambling unemotionally like he’d just had a not-too-sumptuous meal. He is unperturbed not in a manner that suggests arrogance of wrong doing but in way that reveals the pride of conviction. Which is more than anyone can say for Dora. This woman is at once discordance personified and dissonance in action. As she walks swashbuckling-ly, every part of her body is in constant monologue with itself. She is as well a ventriloquist as she is always a prologue to a Babel of discourse. She is needlessly loquacious and unadvisedly garrulous. A square peg in a round hole, Akunyili is hoarse in speech and ferocious in delivery. Where Aondoakaa’s eyes radiate the calmness you see in the eye of a storm, Dora’s betray the dilemma of a deer caught in the headlights.

You might say of Dora: ‘at NAFDAC she raised attention-seeking to an art; got a cabinet portfolio in the act; found it difficult to carry on with the art; then suddenly an opportunity fell right on her lap, to try her hand at treachery now at last. And then you can see she now laughs at last’! In fact Dora has re-awakened the age-old chauvinistic claim that the woman’s second name is ‘treachery’. Said James Baldwin, “Women are like water. They are tempting, ….they can be treacherous and they can seem to be that bottomless.” Sigmund Freud, in his letter to Maria Bonaparte said “The greatest question….which I have not been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is “what does a woman want?” Dora has to know!

On the scale of patriotism Dora’s so called ‘virtue’ is counterpoised with Aondoakaa’s ‘vice’; her ‘courage’ with his ‘cowardice’ and her ‘heroism’ with his ‘Herod-ism’. But Edwin Chapin wrote that “At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice.” And Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote that “Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their courage, the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards”. Smell Dora? They say that she was courageous. If by courage they mean “being steadfast in the face of danger”, then a big NO! Because Dora had waited until there was no danger in sight before she told her beneficent truth. But ‘The truth you tell with bad intent’, they say ‘beats all the lies you can invent’. At best she was treacherously opportunistic. You cannot deny that Aondoakaa was steadfast in the face of many dangers: He was up in arms against desperate self-serving politicians; he held the sword of “legal reasoning” to engage his constituency, the Bar; He faced judges in courts arguing and proving the law; and he fought to keep the FEC pond intact, especially with treacherous fishes like Dora rearing to hit the land; and with Jonathan himself diffident yet eagerly waiting to act.

Again if we say courage as defined by Ernest Hemingway, namely “grace under pressure”, even so NO! Dora was graceless in her wavering and under pressure she selfishly buckled; Aondoakaa was graceful and unbuckling all through. He was the last man standing if you like. He fought the good fight and he gracefully breathed his last. That is courage. Plus he now bears his defeat gallantly; which alone is courageous enough. For as Gilbert Chesterton wrote “the greatest test of courage… is to bear defeat without losing heart”

And if we go by Douglas Macarthur’s “moral courage”, namely “the courage of one’s conviction”, the courage “to see things through”, it cannot be denied that Aondoakaa made no pretence about it. And he courageously fought to ‘see things through’. Nor is anyone’s conviction any more morally tenable than another’s. He chose to stick by his own: the law! Which is what the lawyers always insist we all must. Yet Dora demonstrated total absence of conviction! Having defended worse decisions of government before, it is funny she has just recently found her honest groove.

The truth is: Akunyili is through with Yar’adua. She is now after Jonathan’s heart. And Good luck appears to be smiling at her! What she did was nothing courageous! It was treacherous!

There is no mystery as to why Nigeria is where it is with people like this.

Apparently, this writer has no ideas of his or her own. The whole article is based on paraphrasing other western writers and thinkers and framing judgements based on the applied implications of the borrowed phrases. Take away the quoted phrases and there is little left. Again the density of the references to other authors, apart from diminishing his or her own place as a thinker exhibit the authors narcissism. The article is about the author, to attract attention, to sound so shocking to be noticed, to play with words and throw out names in order to be seen as 'well read.' Such literary masturbation can't be taken seriously. It will be more time well spent if author spent more text, fleshing out argument to compel readers. But, that is far from his or her intentions. I doubt if Idontcare paid for such empty promotion.

irohadis:

Apparently, this writer has no ideas of his or her own. The whole article is based on paraphrasing other western writers and thinkers and framing judgements based on the applied implications of the borrowed phrases. Take away the quoted phrases and there is little left. Again the density of the references to other authors, apart from diminishing his or her own place as a thinker exhibit the authors narcissism. The article is about the author, to attract attention, to sound so shocking to be noticed, to play with words and throw out names in order to be seen as 'well read.' Such literary self-service can't be taken seriously. It will be more time well spent if author spent more text, fleshing out argument to compel readers. But, that is far from his or her intentions. I doubt if Idontcare paid for such empty promotion.

Man, you spoke my mind 100%. +1 for you.

@irohadis
What an apt observation, kudos m'lud.

Topic: Paper Columnist: Akunyili Was Treacherous, Aaodoakaa Was Courageous

and Paper columnist is an e-diot!

columnist is of ape generation

columnist earnestly blowing aandoakaa for $100 (CEBA)

mADmAM WILL surely pay for her treachery.

its all rubbish you posted OP.

Quote from rohadis:
Apparently, this writer has no ideas of his or her own. The whole article is based on paraphrasing other western writers and thinkers and framing judgements based on the applied implications of the borrowed phrases. Take away the quoted phrases and there is little left. Again the density of the references to other authors, apart from diminishing his or her own place as a thinker exhibit the authors narcissism. The article is about the author, to attract attention, to sound so shocking to be noticed, to play with words and throw out names in order to be seen as 'well read.' Such literary self-service can't be taken seriously. It will be more time well spent if author spent more text, fleshing out argument to compel readers. But, that is far from his or her intentions. I doubt if Idontcare paid for such empty promotion.

In my opinion d writer tried it was a wholistic piece but usin Dora as a villian is wrong nd mayb he could hav used d likes of Falana and Pastor Bakare, where Falana believes dat he is d only one capable of givin our constitution he didn't write a meanin and Pastor Bakare who believes dat God does not have solutions to Nigeria's problems but requires him givin ultumatum to a govt he didn't elect. Like I hav said Aondoaka only tried dischargin his duties to the best of his abilities and mayb somtimes overreached himself but true to d article he showed himself to be a loyal dog of a master who will stand by d masters side in good and bad times and he took defeat gallantly and I didn't hear any gloating or continous defence of his position but instead he has taken it in his strides in his words "I am the Minister Of Special Duties"

I can bet the author of that piece is Aondooka himself or his paid image maker.

Absolute Rubbish!

doyin13:

There is no mystery as to why Nigeria is where it is with people like this.

doyin13,

Who were you referring to? The author?

Thanks.

Yep. . .the author

I hope your pseudonym's not Mohammed Adamu

doyin13:

Yep. . .the author

I hope your pseudonym's not Mohammed Adamu

No way!

refreshingly hilarious

i'll delude myself with the thought that this was written in sarcasm

@poster, great piece, All we need is patience, time reveals all. I'm not on aondokaa's side, but unlike many blind nigerians, i'm not fooled by Dora. She's an obvious hustler, and all she's really doing is self preservation, not preserving nigeria. God bless Nigeria, our beloved country.

@poster, nice piece. All we need is patience, time reveals all. I'm not on aondokaa's side, but unlike many blind nigerians, i'm not fooled by Dora. She's an obvious hustler, and all she's really doing is self preservation, not preserving nigeria. God bless Nigeria, our beloved country.