I have watched Adams Oshiomhole long enough to stop being surprised, and still the recent interview clips with Naija Unfiltered reporter stings.
I remember the comrade. Not the title his aides still float when it is useful, the man. When Obasanjo moved petrol by a few naira, Oshiomhole shut the country. Buses stopped.
Offices emptied. The argument was simple and it was ours: a small rise at the pump is a large cut in the wage of the person who walks to work.
We stood with him because he stood outside the gate, not inside the meeting.
That man is now a senator, and on the recent Naija Unfiltered interview he was asked the only question that still matters. Why the shutdown over ₦3 to ₦7, and the defence of a litre that now sits around ₦1,400 to ₦1,500 under the government he serves? He does not answer. He turns on the interviewer. He tells him he does not know the price. He dares him to spell the name. He reminds the room that he once faced soldiers, so a civilian with a microphone should know his place.
I know that voice. It used to be aimed at the state. It is now aimed at the person who noticed the switch.
He has a polished version of this, and I have heard it. Under Obasanjo the subsidy was smaller and he did not trust the government to return the money to the poor. Later the bill grew absurd, the fundamentals changed, and removal became the adult position. Fine. Argue the policy. What he will not do, in that studio or anywhere else I have seen, is sit with the workers who followed him into the street and explain why their pain was an emergency then and a talking point now.
When people who once lectured him about waste now complain that they cannot buy the fuel, he tells them the struggle is over. Forward ever. The forward, it turns out, does not include them.
This is not a conversion. It is a seating arrangement. The comrade who could stop the country over a few naira has a chair at the table that priced the litre at ₦1,400.
The finger still rises. The anger is still real. Only the target has moved, from the policy to the question. Those of us still buying the fuel do not need a lecture on how to spell his name. We already know who he was. The clip only confirms who he became.
Comrade, you uncomraded yourself the day you took a seat at the dining table. The man who shut the country over ₦3 now bristles when asked about ₦1,400, and the finger that once rose against the state now rises against the person who remembers. We have not forgotten the streets. You have. Enjoy the meal. The people who walked with you are still outside, paying for it.
–Pamela O.
Political Analyst and Columnist.
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