My 2006 article on Femi Fani-Kayode by Kola Ola Olaniran

; 9 yrs after l wrote this article on Femi Fani-Kayode's idiotic flippancy, the misguided nincompoop has not changed; RUDENESS RUNS IN FANI-KAYODE'S FAMILY In the first republic when the late Odemo of Ishara, Oba Samuel Akinsanya called the duo of late Chief Ladoke Akintola, the then premier of the Western region and his deputy, the late Chief Remi Fani-Kayode "misguided small boys" following their decision to mete out some punitive measures to some Yoruba Obas who owed their allegiance to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, little did we know that there would be a re-enactment of this scenario this time on the part of Chief Remi Fani-Kayode's son, Femi Fani-Kayode, the special assistant to the President on Public Affairs, the loquacious mouth piece that misrepresents and mispresents the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo. Oba Akinsanya was unperturbed by the duo's action and he felt a man of his exalted position should not be joining issues with rude "boys" .One would have expected the children of these two politicians to learn from whatever informed their fathers' widely unacceptability in the western region in comparison to Chief Obafemi Awolowo's cynosure of all eyes. Indeed Akintola's children have been known to guide their utterances in making public statements in a manner highly suggestive of preserving the vestige of their father's political past but Femi Fani-Kayode opts to retain some of the objectionable features of his father and also contain unsavoury characteristics of his own.In the second republic, two of Chief Akintola's children, Chief Yomi Akintola and Dr. Bimbo Akintola served in the cabinet of President Shehu Shagari as ministers of state in the Federal ministry of Finance, Yomi first served and was replaced by Bimbo. Though these two served in the republic that was chafing under the irresponsible leadership of the N.P.N. controlled federal government, they carried themselves with finesse expected of respectable persons.I first saw Chief Remi Fani-Kayode popularly known as Fani Power in 1978 in the company of Alhaji Shehu Shagari on their campaign trail to my home town, Ipetumodu. Later, I came to know him through barrister Pade Adewuyi (a reputed lawyer in Ile-Ife) who in the company of thirty attorneys (including Mr Femi Falana) defended me and the other 22 students in the case of unlawful assembly instituted against us by the illegitimate government of Col. Oladayo Popoola of old Oyo State in our school days at OSCAS, Ile Ife. Since we belonged to different ideological camps ( I am a staunch Awoist), I could not probe further into what Chief Remi Fani-Kayode stood for. advertisementI first read about Femi Fani-Kayode in 2001 when he, under the cloak of ethnic irredentism was threatening fire and brimstone to have Obasanjo removed by all means possible. He then put up a meretricious facade of a true defender of the Yoruba race. Obasanjo must have seen in him another ethnic militia in the making but decided to give him the appointment to drive home the point that "omo buruku lojo ti e" (a bad boy has his useful days). Femi was angry and hungry for appointment and desperately in dire need of prominence. He applied the contumacies of ethnic irredentism to balloon himself into the corridor of power, ever since then, he has eaten all his words against Obasanjo. He became a full time agent provocateur, he accepted the ephemeral appointment to mortgage his future, he now looms so large in giddy heights of notoriety and pomposity that he has forgetten that the nuisance value in him is all Obasanjo needs to use and that in the fullness of time, I mean when his notoriety runs its full tragic course, he will be consigned to the garbage heap of history like the Alex Akinyeles and Ofonagoros.I have been following carefully the groundswell of negative opinions that trail his unguided, reckless, and ghastly utterances against Obasanjo's critics, latest on his misadventure of disrespect for people who hold divergent views from his boss was his denigration of the person of the retired Gen.Yakubu Gowon, that he, Gowon lacks the locus standi to evict the tenant of Aso- Rock and relocate him to his Sango-Otta ranch. Femi was sort of telling Gowon to stop parading himself as the care-taker of Aso-Rock and that Gowon with immediate effect should divest himself of the stake in the Nigerian elder statemanship because Gowon was not the Landlord of Aso-Rock, neither was he (Gowon) one of the caretakers that the tenant Obasanjo signed the tenancy agreement with. Gowon admitted his own mistakes and asked Obasanjo to learn from it, what more did Femi expect him to say?Femi's attack on Obasanjo's critics has ignited for him (Femi) another fierce attacks from the Nigerian public. Many people say that they don't know what principles he represents, some say he does not have sound moral principles, some see him as morally deficient, intellectually delinquent, diplomatically decadent and ethically bankrupt. He run a chaotic mind that has been submerged in a quagmire of mendacity. However it is, the halloween costume of intellectuality which Obasanjo saw in him will soon drop off and be given to the ghost to celebrate.Many well-meaning Nigerians have called on Obasanjo to get rid of this despicable and 'misguided small boy". Just last week, the Achbishop of Lagos, Dr Ola Makinde lent his voice to the number of people calling for something serious to be done to obfuscate the misdemeanor of this rapacious rascal and many have called on the need to cut to size the rude toga draped over his loutish behavior. If rudeness is a legacy he inherited, he needs to be told in clear term that the modern day Nigeria can not tolerate this kind of behavior. Looking at the people of different backgrounds in the government of President Obasanjo, one will see that Femi is not the only son of a fomer politician in this government, we have Awo's grand son, Akinjide's son, Shagari's son, Zik's and many of them, why did Femi Fani-Kayode singled himself out to be so much obsessed with his appointment, has he forgotten that this appointment is transient and even that its transiency is imminent?Femi is not good for the image of Nigeria. He needs a break to travel out of the country to be properly tutored on the art of defending the government policies. He lacks the decorum to sell Nigeria to the Nigerian public and the outside world. I hope the diplomatic community in Nigeria have not started making Nigeria a laughing stock for appointing an unrefined, uncivilized, untutored, ill-mannered Special Assistant. Government officials should have at least a modicum of decency to carry out their official duties. If his role was to be likened to that of the White House Spokesman, then Femi has many a time overstepped his bound to usurp the authority of whoever he claims to be representing. President Obasanjo is in good term with the President and the government of the US. Obasanjo shoud come out of the shadow and tell Nigeria and the world what his next move would be rather than allowing an unproductive, unscrupulous, overindulgent, overambitious and overzealous Special Assistant to be hauling insults on Nigerians or foreign Ambassadors in Nigeria. Nigeria needs to make more foreign friends and their co-operations to keep Nigeria on a sound economic footing. When the Swiss Government demanded to know how the money stolen by Sani Abacha and his cronies would be spent if repatriated, we did not tell them to keep away from our internal affairs even though we knew it was an affront on our sovereignty. These countries, the Swiss, the US and many of them have their foreign missions in Nigeria and they are watching events in the country as they unfold. Some are our genuine friends and they are sympathetic to our cause. We need them and they need us too and now that the whole world has been compressed into a global village, what affects Nigeria or Nigerians today affect the US, the Swiss and other countries of the world. Fani-Kayode should stop acting as if Nigeria can do it alone.Criticisms they say are meant to correct anomalies and if anyone thinks he is too big to be amenable to corrections, then, something is wrong somewhere. Femi has turn his deaf ear on those calling on him to watch his utterances. He carries out his defence of Obasanjo with malicious intent to be rude and he does it with planned, deliberate and sustained efforts. It is so sad and disheartening if one has to be taken down the memory lane to his father's antecedents in order to rectify his unhealthy behavior. I don't know when rudeness became a conduct to be celebrated in government. If rudeness was a prerequisite from Obasanjo for Femi's sustainability of his job, then Femi is doing himself and his future a great disservice. Obasanjo will soon go and a day of reckoning will come for Femi.Public officials must know how to conduct themselves both in the privacy of their homes and in the public because they not only represent the government, they also represent their families, their friends, the society in which they find themselves and their future because whatever they do today will reflect on their future. Those who are so enamored by their appointments must know that time is running fast on them and they will be called some day to give accounts of their stewardship.It's time Obasanjo stopped keeping us in suspense. Now is the time to draw up a program for the next dispensation, Obasanjo has about 16 months to relocate from Aso-Rock. Nigerians have been patient enough with him and in fact 16 months seem too long for people wallowing in sorrows, anguish and abject poverty.OBASANJO MUST GO. Any person asking him to stay wants to see his downfall, that' s why he (OBJ) should be wary of any advice that comes from a Special Assistant who does not have a vision of what next he would do when his boss' two terms expire. Nigeria needs hope, Nigerians need decent life, Nigerians need love from patriotic leaders who will put the interests of the masses in their hearts. We do not need the uncouth mouth of a Special Assistant to add to our pains, sorrows and anguish http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2006/jan/101.html