Life has a way of teaching us lessons, sometimes very big ones. From the point at which we exit the womb, we learn one lesson after the other until we return to dust, as the Holy Book puts it. The beauty of it all is in the manner we learn from the great opportunity given us by the creator: that we almost always have an experience to fall back on, in any situation we find ourselves as humans.
Take the once popular ‘Mike Tyson’ haircut, for instance. Shortly after he became a heavyweight boxing champion at the record youngest age of 20 in 1986, every lad who wanted to belong, as it were, soon took to his style of haircut. It was the in-thing back then.
Interestingly, the Mike Tyson haircut, which came into being in the mid-eighties, was, in fact, a popular hairstyle in the sixties. The difference, which was the real Tyson-style, was that rather than having a straight parting from either side of the front to midway on the top to behind direction of the head, Tyson’s was a short diagonal parting from the left, pointing towards the dome.
Again, Tyson’s improved punk cut was relatively very low, with the sides round the skull blended in skin level shinny pattern in such a way that it was difficult to identify the exact spot from which the punk started. This was different from the clear line of the same cut in the sixties.
Thus, Tyson’s improved version of punk hairstyle was finer, neater and more pleasing to the eye, compared to the real punk hairstyle of the sixties. It is virtually the same thing in several other facets of life’s endeavours, including politics.
Unfortunately, while the advanced climes have attained their present status by seemingly adhering to improved and more appealing ways of doing old things, in the Tyson hairstyle fashion, developing climes like Nigeria are still embroiled in either repeating the same old ways, or, worse still, going back beyond the old ways in a modern fashion.
This is what my crystal ball showed me in the currently contemplated issue of postponing elections in Rivers State when the 2019 elections kick-off this month.
A peep through my crystal ball into the two statements by the National Commissioner and Chairman, Voter Education and Publicity in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr. Festus Okoye, presented the picture of a gloomy cloud over Rivers State. It showed an imposed darkness in which people are compelled to feel their path almost blindly by the touch of their hands. Soon, a very heavy wind came from nowhere and swept the gloomy cloud away. In its wake, two scenarios played out: in the first, people were seen walking in different directions but around the periphery of the scene in focus. In the second, fewer people, walking in deliberately calculated strides, were converging at the center, and with all audacity. By the time the majority at the periphery turned around and saw that the few had converged at the center, all hell broke loose.
Okoye’s first of two addresses relating to the elections in Rivers stated in part: “… If the court gives an order too close to the elections and it is impossible then to conduct the elections, especially for that stream of elections, we would have no choice but to undermine the elections and then move it a little bit.
“Based on the Electoral Act and the constitutional provisions, we still have a small window within which to act. That presupposes that the issue we are going to have will just be state-specific. We are going to conduct such an election as a slightly off-season election away from the general elections”.
In his second address, which came after his first had attracted widespread condemnation, Okoye said: “The commission reiterates the fact that only the political parties and candidates whose names appeared on the list released by the commission on the 17th day of January 2019 will contest the February 16, 2019 elections in Rivers State and it is only the parties on that list that will be on the ballot on election day and returns for the election will also be made on the basis of such parties and candidates.
“The election will, therefore, be conducted on the basis of the political parties and candidates that emerged through valid party primary elections and whose names have been published by the commission.”
A peep into my crystal ball suddenly showed such a disjointed picture: first, over Okoye’s first speech, a silhouette of zigzag movement in a path that gloomily showed what looked like signs leading to Ekiti and Osun States momentarily surfaced and disappeared.
The second, which was a clearer picture, showed a finger from the cloud attempting to ensure that identified officers on a chess board are placed strategically on the chess board in order to capture the opponent’s King, which is the essence of a chess game.
In the ensuing bluff and counter bluffing attacks that followed between the two players, the hitherto unassuming opponent roared. And, suddenly, the chess board was covered with a thick cloud. Nobody could identify any official, not even a pawn, on the chess board.
The message from my crystal ball may be clearer when one considers that, in Nigeria, any time a sensitive message suddenly pops-up and is played down because there is an opposition, the essence of that message has a way of turning up on an appointed day, even if it has to be in a deceitfully improved version.
This is where those in positions to make history repeat itself would need to know that, like the Tyson hair style, which was pleasant to the people, any history not appealing to the majority of the people can only spell doom.
If nothing else, one thing is certain: however the Rivers election turns out, it will be a precedent that will hunt everyone concerned, directly or indirectly. The question is which version of repeat do we need: improved, or disproved, for the sake of the people? The reason is that, at the end of the day, the people will still note what transpires, no matter how incapacitated they are made to be, and all of it will come to play some day, maybe in ways none of the key players now can ever envisage.

Soibi Max-Alalibo