It is more than a coincidence, I think, that at about the same time a new season of the popular Big Brother Naija TV show was starting, another equally spellbinding show also premiered on TV screens across Nigeria. It is the investigative probe panel of the House of Representatives on the activities of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Season 1 of this block burster show has already featured many intriguing episodes. In one of those episodes, a former housemate (sorry, MD) of NNDC, Ms. Joi Nunieh held national audiences captive with tales of how the Minister of Nigeria Delta, Godswill Akpabio, tried to teleguide her, from the moment of her appointment, to award questionable contracts, sack serving staff for no just cause, and even swear an oat of personal allegiance to him!
As a bonafide Ogoni heroine, we heard, Joi Nunieh stoutly resisted these moves. But the minister, she claimed, was not done yet. He also made sexual overtures towards her at his official guest house. In defence of her diginity, she avowed, she gave him a dirty slap on one occasion.
Stunned by these damaging revelations, Godswill Akpabio, a seasoned warhorse who has survived many battles over the past 20 years, fired back with a barrage of his own. He said Ms Nunieh’s temperament and character make her testimony unreliable. For good measure, he urged the audience to ask the lady’s four former husbands! He added that he was happily married and had no need for extramarital trists.
Although none of these responses by Senator, Governor, Minister Akpabio addressed Joi Nunieh’s multiple allegations, a small section of the viewing audience went into ecstatic laughter. This seemed to infuriate the Niger Delta Amazon who promised more damaging revelations in the next episode.
As if to preempt further damage, Minister Akpabio orchestrated a daring move to arrest and deal with the woman with a loose tongue. So, early one morning, a battalion of police officers invaded Joi Nunieh’s Port Harcourt residence. They had no arrest warrant, it turns out. Yet they insisted on forcefully breaking into the woman’s home and arresting her for “interrogation at the station.”
At times like these, I am tempted to think that the Nigeria Police Force is overstaffed. How could so many able-bodied men go to arrest a single, harmless woman? Who takes care of the rest of us whilst they are on this great mission? What were they afraid of that they went with such a large contingent?
Only heaven knows what could have happened to the Ogoni Amazon if those “policemen” had laid their hands on her. Some say George Floyd’s experience in the hands of Minneapolis police officers would have been child’s play. Others swear she would have been surreptitiously given a slow-acting poison which would have finished her off days after “release” from police interrogation. And an endless “investigation into the matter” would have commenced as usual.
But the bad guys did not count on the arrival of a Knight in Shinning Armor. His name? Nyesom Wike, Emperor (sorry, Governor) of Rivers State. He personally led a battery of his own security details to neutralize the attackers who were apparently acting on “orders from above.” It was a tense standoff captured on multiple phone cameras and broadcast live to national and global audiences.
In the end, the “good guys” won, the “bad guys” left with tails between their legs, and Cinderella Nunieh was ferried in the Emperor’s carriage straight to the palace where she was treated like royalty…
Phew!
In the next episode of the epic reality show, several housemates clearly resolved not to be outdone by the heroics of Nunieh. After all, no one came to the show just to make up the numbers. The Probe Committee Chairman, “honourably” recused himself following earlier allegations that he was an interested party in the matter. He gave a moving speech as he bowed out. And when the current Chief house mate of NNDC took the microphone, things got even more interesting.
That was until questions from the probe panel became too hot to handle. Suddenly, the Chief housemate who is a seasoned professor used to fielding questions from clever students, began to slump. It looked like a scene rendered in slowmotion for maximum cinematographic effects. Some viewers say they thought it was “the usual” signal failure from DSTV. But alas, the professor slumped and the scene ended abruptly.
At the time of writing this report, a fierce debate was still ranging on whether the prof actually slumped from medical reasons or it was simulated to escape further damage from a barrage of questions.
Those who thought they had seen the climax of the day’s drama were wrong. When Godswill Akpabio took his turn to answer questions from the panel, he quickly broke the sacred Calabash.
Asked why the NDDC was still spending money like it was going out of fashion, instead of going into hibernation mode until ongoing forensic audit was concluded, he fired back with gusto. First, he said, the Commission was “too important for the stability of the region” to contemplate closing its doors. Second, he said, it needed to service its obligations to contractors, and in any case, “most of the contracts were awarded to members of the National Assembly.”
Nobody remembers what happened after this point, except that the probe panel chairman was heard begging the honorable minister to stop and/or switch off his microphone.
This promises to be one of the the most entertaining seasons on national television ever! Whilst late teenage and young adult demographics are busy watching the new BBNaija season, older Nigerians will be camping in front of their TV sets as well to catch the latest episodes of the unfolding thriller in Abuja.
For homes without the luxury of dual-view decoders and extra TV sets, I foresee a fresh crisis brewing across the country: The scramble for custody of remote control units may be fiercer than the European scramble for and partition of Africa in the late 19th century. The Europeans settled theirs at the Berlin Conference of 1884 under Otto von Bismarck. Who will settle ours?
Victor Anazonwu is a journalist, historian and author of “The 8 Habits of Highly Ineffective People” (amazon.com 2019)
