MEDIA & SOCIETY: Bode George's delusional rejoinder

By Lanre Idowu

March 9, 2011 09:17AMT


Whatever anyone may have to say about Olabode George, our compatriot recently released from Kirikiri Prisons, no one can deny that he is a colourful man. In speech, carriage and dressing, Mr. George is never anonymous in a crowd.

What he lacks in height, he makes up for with his gift of the garb. Blessed with an arresting voice, he can be trusted to raise it easily, not a few decibels above other voices in a gathering. He has this self-assuredness of his own wisdom and the infallibility of his position that overwhelms many an opposition.

I am told that in his secondary school days, his presence at inter-school debates as lead debater almost always ensured victory for his school. In the few instances the school lost, it was often because he was missing in action. At those times, the school principal ruefully bemoaned their ill luck, saying, "If Bode had been there, victory would have been ours". So it made sense to expect that, with the avalanche of criticism accompanying his noisy return from 16 months behind bars, Mr. George would not keep quiet for long.

Nine days after his release, Mr. George finally spoke. In a two-page Thisday advertorial titled "Time to Talk", he expressed displeasure with the coordinated attack on his character as a result of the reception accorded him by his friends and family. Although Mr. George assigned authorship of the ad to an anonymous "Friends of Olabode George", it doesn't take much to decipher that every word in it conveys his thoughts, ideas, and sensibilities about what took him to prison, and what he thinks of his critics. It was a treatise designed to excoriate, and it was built on a disingenuous premise. Five groups drew his ire: the media; Joseph Oyewole, the judge; Bola Tinubu; Olusegun Obasanjo; and the clergy of the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina.

Mr. George dismissed the media's criticisms as "outrageous commentaries", "jaundiced editorial and thoughtless analyses" and "mercenary penmanship". Rather than celebrating corruption and criminality, Mr. George described the roadshow staged by his friends and family on February 26, as an "instinctive, genuine and ecstatic show of affection and support".

He saw Mr. Tinubu's hand in his travails, describing the former governor as "the arch conspiratorial provocateur" of the "contrived imprisonment" whose "lynch gang have all overturned reasoning and logic". He assailed Justice Oyewole's judgement. According to Mr. George, he was sentenced for the disobedience of a nonexistent "administrative circular pegging approval limit on contracts." He conveniently forgot that the circular was tendered during trial.

Admitting that the Nigerian Ports Authority board, over which he presided, was indicted for contract splitting, Mr. George attributed the procedure "for contract appraisal and subsequent approval" to the "resident administrative leadership of NPA", claiming that "the board never initiated any contract". Mr. George did not say if the leadership of the NPA was divorced from the board.

He wrote off Mr. Obasanjo's explanation that he had attended the church thanksgiving service under the impression that it was a close family and friends' affair. Obasanjo, he said, "is clearly motivated by malice and envy and is consumed by his own venom".
His most savage attack was directed against the church. He dismissed the clergy's exhortations that he should turn a new leaf, shun the pursuit of vengeance, and become a new ambassador of Christ as the "outrageous drooling of purported men of God who ought to be gravitated by spiritual temperance" and "ungodly partisan twaddle from those who should know better".

Not done, Mr. George added, "these damaged emblems of impious ferment should know that the pulpit of Christianity is a sacred tableau that transcends personal prejudices; it is a consecrated ground that demands the firm stability of thought, "
Three things are striking about Saint George's homily. First, he is so desperate for restitution that he thinks he should bully all of us into granting it to him. For him, there is nothing to be penitent about. He did not abuse his office; it was Bola Tinubu who contrived his imprisonment.

He also has a curious notion of what corruption and abuse of office mean. While he agreed to be part of the board that split contracts to circumvent approval from higher government quarters, he pleads not guilty of corruption or abuse of office since his board did not initiate the process. Why then did he preside, if he was only an onlooker? In addition, he may have chosen to make the church his first port of call after prison, but he was obviously not prepared for the welcome message. How could dare tell him not to "partake in any form of manipulation" and not to allow God's name be soiled through him again.

At this rate, Mr. George may need to establish his own media organs and religious organisations, so that he can hear only what he wants to hear.

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