Odesola’s illiterate reading of Osinbajo’s Ugandan trip

By Segun Orimogunje

I have always argued that mere mastery of literary devices is not to be conflated with intellectual depth or scholarly fecundity. I feel vindicated yet again after reading the latest article by Tunde Odesola, a columnist with Punch, with the title “Osinbajo: Law Professor in bed with lawlessness” published in the Monday edition (May 17, 2021) of the Lagos-based newspaper.
Any regular reader of Punch newspaper on Mondays and inescapably follower of Odesola’s musings will attest his exquisite use of assorted poetic idioms. Well, with the liberalization of the media space in the contemporary age, we are left with little or no choice but to endure the avalanche of pseudo commentators and analysts, most of whom only end up assaulting public sensibilities with their sheer illiteracy worsened by foul verbiage. (But that is not to deny those who make sense, thereby helping to enrich the national conversation.)
Hard as he always tries weekly to punch above his weight, Odesola’s own shallow thinking - this abject squalor of intellection - is laid bare in the next breath after every frenzy of misapplied metaphors. Yet, Charles Pierre Peguy had graciously forewarned on the perils of ill-conceived peroration. It is better to keep silent and leave folks wondering, according to the thoughtful French bard, than open your mouth and remove all doubts about your idiocy.
Apparently, such sagely counsel from an illustrious ancestor in the literary community meant nothing to upstarts like Odesola. Or how else can we contemplate or situate the idiocy of the columnist’s virulent attack on Vice President Yemi Osinbajo over the latter’s official trip to Uganda last week to represent President Muhammadu Buhari at the inauguration of President Yoweri Museveni.
Throwing common decency to the winds, Odesola went petty, vicious against the Vice President, mocking his political judgment, impugning his professorial pedigree, and questioning his Christian faith. Haba! As we say in Yoruba, “Kila gbe, kile ju” (an attack is grossly disproportionate to the offence).
(Well, I believe the like-able Vice President, the erudite Professor of law has able publicists who can wrestle fawning Odesola down by, if need be, recalling their principal’s sterling accomplishments whether in the academia or legal practice or Christian evangelism or family institution, to right-thinking members of the public already sold undoubtedly on Osinbajo’s high personal integrity and exemplary commitment to the common good amply demonstrated in the last six years.)
However, my own intervention is intended to fumigate the public space against the toxic fumes so flippantly disgorged by Odesola’s uneducated reading of Osinbajo’s outing in Uganda. It bears restating that that state event is unlike a typical raucous village meeting where Odesola can pick and choose who to share palm-wine with or where the sitting order is dictated by the seething bitterness of ancestral feuds by contending partisans.
First, Odesola ought to know that the Vice President didn’t gatecrash the occasion; he was so directed by his boss, President Buhari. By whipping sentiments on the propriety or otherwise of Nigeria’s attending Museveni’s commencement of the sixth term of office, the columnist clearly betrayed a laughable ignorance of the custom and tradition that undergirds international law.
Of course, there is the principle of non-interference in internal affairs among nations that constitute the international community. It is premised on the respect for states’ sovereignty and territorial integrity in conformity with the letters of the spirit of the UN Charter.
This arrangement is, in turn, based on the doctrine of equality of states irrespective of size or power and therefore have the same juridical capacities and functions. As expressly stated in the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law, a nation is obliged to respect the personality of other states among other provisions.
Without referring to it in the said miserable article of Monday (May 17), one can wager that Odesola’s poor understanding would also have led him into taking umbrage at the spectacle of President Muhammadu Buhari rolling out the red carpet to receive the new Chadian leader, Lt. General Mahamat Idriss Deby, and later running amok over the newspaper picture of the Nigerian leader standing by while the visitor (a thirty-something) sat down magisterially while signing the visitor’s register. After all, he would likely say, the Chadian leader is young enough to be our president’s grandson. Such village mentality!
While firing from all his antiquated cylinders, as usual, it would not occur to Odesola that on display was the principle of equality of state, regardless of whether the man representing Chad is a pigmy or an albino. Of course, enlightened self-interest would dictate that Nigeria plays a good host. For, the exigencies of the ongoing national war against Boko Haram and marauding insurgents put us at the mercy of neighbours like Chad to help us push back.
Now, back to the Kampala event, Odesola could only make a point if Museveni’s inauguration lacked the backing of Uganda’s municipal law. It must be understood that whatever argument is made against Uganda’s leader seeking a sixth term of office can only be sustained in a moral court; not in the eye of international law. So, it can be seen that Odesola’s vitriol against Osinbajo’s presence in Kampala is baseless and malicious.
There is even a subjective argument to further back Nigeria’s presence at Museveni’s inauguration last week. Those who think otherwise could only be classified as outliers in international politics and diplomacy. The truth of the matter is that morality is secondary when your national or regional interests are involved. Contrarians like Odesola could not be said to have learned any lesson from the carnage Libya now poses to sub-Saharan Africa and, by extension, the international community.
The point to be made actually is the primacy of regional stability. Once upon a time, some uninformed commentators, obviously brainwashed by relentless propaganda by the west, also railed against Moemer Gadaffi of Libya. They conveniently turned a blind eye to the good the Libyan strongman for doing for his people and the stability he was helping to foster for sub-Saharan Africa. Rather, negative stories, mostly orchestrated by neocolonial interests in the west, were regurgitated and played up in Africa’s discourses.
The common talk then was that Gadaffi was a sit-right tyrant. Of course, the Arab Spring which erupted in 2010 later provided a perfect alibi for regime change in Libya in 2011, tele-guided by the same western powers who had hunted for Gadaffi’s scalp for ages. Whereas it could be said that those imperialist forces eventually had the last laugh, it surely has been unending grief for Africa since the brutal dispatch of the Libyan strongman. While he reigned, Gadaffi was able to police the Libyan corridors against the infiltration of Islamist extremists and jihadists to the rest of West Africa. Without Gadaffi, Libya has since become a no man’s land, with different warlords controlling sections of the country, and illegal arms flowing easily down through the entire Sahel.
Today, Nigeria is paying a heavy price prosecuting an asymmetrical war in the Northeast, substantially fueled by the instability in Libya. I am sure ignoramuses like Odesola must have also joined the orchestra of Gadaffi-must-go years back.
So, when those who have the privilege of access to newspaper space choose to dabble in public issues, we expect them to bring to bear deep knowledge reflecting the nuances from both regional and continental perspectives; not the sort of provincial illiteracy Odesola blissfully advertised in Punch of Monday (May 17).

* Dr. Segun Orimogunje, an expert in International Law, wrote Lekki, Lagos.

Tunde Odesola only just fully brought his hitherto hidden lack of knowledge to the fore.

Odesola’s illiterate reading of Osinbajo’s Ugandan trip

He has shown total ignorance with his unintelligent view which shows he knows nothing about the constitutional roles a VP and also lacks adequate knowledge of international relations/ foreign affairs.

#fact. Tunde Odesola is a big illiterate!!!

BMC jokwa nu

His audience has to glean from something, anything. The more 'scintillating', the more attention-grabbing and believable too. Also the realization that anything about VP Osinbajo is a bestseller, is a worthy propeller.