By Ologun Ayodeji
To contend with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding the responsibility to others in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavouring to convert an atheist by scripture.
Enjoy, Sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting on how you so much was loved and lost encomium within a space of time. It is the prerogative of the wicked and no man will envy you these honours, in which a savage only can be your rival and a bear, your master.
As the generosity of this state rewarded your services in the last elections of 2016 with an elegant monument of an Eyitayo Jegede – coming behind Aketi and how beautifully you lost your senatorial election of 2019, it is consistent that she (Ondo State people) will bestow some mark of distinction upon you by making you fail through the candidature of Agboola Ajayi not because he is not good nor stand a chance despite his flaws, but because it is on your back he seeks to ride.
You certainly deserve our notice and a conspicuous place in the catalogue of extraordinary persons. Yet it would be a pity to pass you from the world in the state, and consign you to magnificent oblivion among the tombs, without telling the future beholder why Judas is as much known as John, yet history ascribes their fame to very different actions.
Mr. Mimiko, you undoubtedly merit a monument; but of what kind, or with what inscription, where placed or how embellished, is a question that would puzzle all the heralds of Ondo State in the most profound mood of historical deliberation.
We are at no loss, Sir, to ascertain your real character, but somewhat perplexed how to perpetuate its identity, and preserve it uninjured from the transformations of time or mistake.
A statuary may give a false expression to your bust, or decorate it with some equivocal emblems, by which you may happen to steal into the reputation and impose upon the hereafter traditionary world. Nature or ridicule may conspire, or a variety of accidents combine to lessen, enlarge, or change your fame; and no doubt, but he who has taken so many pains to be singular in his conduct, would choose to be just as singular in his exit, his monument and his epitaph.
The usual honours of the crafty-like you, to be sure, are not sufficiently sublime to escort a character like you to the republic of dust and ashes; for, however, men may differ in their ideas of grandeur or of government here, the grave is nevertheless a perfect republic. Death is not the monarch of the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest, he loses a subject, and, like the dribbler of a leader you are, will, in the end, wear himself out of all his dominions.
As a proper preliminary towards the arrangement of your political funeral honours, we readily admit of your new rank of torchbearer to Agboola Ajayi but it is the beginning of an end to finally seal your tomb in politics. It is for sure the zenith of your career.
The title is perfectly in character and is your own, more by merit than creation. There are knights of various orders, from the knight of the windmill to the knight of the post. The former is your patron for exploits, and the latter will assist you in settling your accounts. No honorary title could be more happily applied than the ‘Maradona’ that you bear.
The ingenuity is sublime! And your royal master has discovered more genius in fitting you therewith, than in generating the most finished figure for a button or descanting on the properties of a button mould.
But how, Sir, shall we dispose of you? The invention of a statuary is exhausted,
As you have already made your exit from the moral world, and by numberless acts both of passionate and deliberate injustice engraved a “here lieth” on your deceased honour, it must be mere affectation in you to pretend concern at the humour or opinions of mankind respecting you. What remains of you may expire at any time. The sooner the better. For he who survives his reputation, lives out of despite himself, like a man listening to his own reproach.
As for Ondo election beckons, Mr Mimiko, make less noise. Please off your Mic. It is deafening.
It became you to have supported a dignified solemnity of character; to have shown a superior liberality of soul; to have won respect by obstinate perseverance in maintaining order, and to have exhibited on all occasions such an unchangeable graciousness of conduct, that while we beheld in you the resolution of an enemy, we might admire in you the sincerity of a man. You came to us in Ondo State under the high-sounding titles of working for us and commissioning us to greatness but not only to suppress what you call rebellion, by arms but to shame it out of countenance by the excellence of your example. Instead of which, you have been the patron of low and vulgar frauds, the encourager of cruelties; and have imported a cargo of vices blacker than those which you pretend to suppress.
Mankind is not universally agreed in their determination of right and wrong, but there are certain actions which the consent of all nations and individuals has branded with the unchangeable name of meanness. In the list of human vices we find some of such a refined constitution, they cannot be carried into practice without seducing some virtue to their assistance; but meanness has neither alliance nor apology. It is generated in the dust and sweepings of other vices and is of such a hateful figure that all the rest conspire to disown it.
Mr. Mimiko, please off your mic.
