Budapest, Hungary 14-16 October 2005.

As children growing up in Benin City, Nigeria, we longed to see our God parents because such occasions ended with showing unqualified love, kindness, biblical, spiritual and pastoral love and care. Most times the above is topped up with expensive gifts.  The Godfather no longer signifies such in Nigeria of today. The term god father has been bastardized and connotes the boss of an organized political crime outfit against the Nigerian people.

The term Godfather became popular following the film ‘The Godfather’ directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on the novel by Mario Puzo with Marlon Brando as the main character: the Godfather. That film described the attempt by a Sicilian Family or Mafia dynasty (the Corleones) to maintain total control of the drug ring and racketeering in New York. That film debased the original meaning of the term Godfather and the Nigerian political scene has taken the term deeper into firth, obscene, mud and loam.

It is a term now reserved for God forsaken criminals who will go to any length; I mean any length to achieve their set goals of wielding political power including arson, intimidation, warning flogging and sometimes assassination.

I now hate the term ‘godfather’ in the context that it is now being used and popularised in Nigerian politics and in particular Edo State.

The political godfather identify their prey (usually an up and coming but gullible individual), they promise what is not within their power to give in a level playing field. Through bribery, compulsion, intimidation, death threat and sometimes assassination, they achieve their goals of wielding not only political power but economic leverage over Edo people.

With the money diverted from the coffers of the Nigerian or State governments, they equipped their  ‘army’ with the latest weapons with which their foot soldiers or political thugs recruited from amongst numerous jobless graduates and undergraduates from Nigerian and state universities to terrorize, kill and main their kits and kin who oppose them.

There may have been numerous killings by orders from these political godfathers. Assassinations reported as armed robbery gone wrong are so numerous to count, and these killings go unsolved by the Nigerian ill equipped police.

The modus operandi of the Nigerian political godfather is clear even to the blind. The godfather or the godson occupies an exalted position in government, rather than spending the available fund to establish a factory or set up a process that will employ our youths like  school leavers and university graduates, the money is diverted to Swiss or other European or American banks. School leavers and university graduates are therefore made jobless and provide fertile ground for recruiting foot soldiers that will do the evil bidding of these godfathers.

A godfather or a godson in charge of a ministry to look after Nigerian roads for example, diverts money voted for repairs and maintenance of such roads. The roads then deteriorate to appalling conditions that drivers have to negotiate small gullies and puddles on a supposed high or expressway and therefore drive slowly with frequent stops and starts. During these stops and slow movements, armed robbers attack from the roadside. They maim, rape, amputate arms and limbs and sometimes kill their victims. The latest craze amongst these robbers is to undress their victims and carte the clothes away. One wonders what such clothes are worth or are they part of the rituals as directed by the godfathers.

Godfatherism is an evil building block for corruption, retrogression, under development, mediocrity, backwardness and perpetual poverty of the people.

In the past seven years Edo State has witnessed retrogression and destruction of the structure that took the forebears of the present administration many years to build. The present government is now attacking the very fabric that united Edo as one people from one origin. The governor who personifies this non-performing administration, has shown disdain for the plight and yearning of Edo people; he was  probably a godson until he fell apart from his supposed godfather. This godson governor was thrust on our people in spite of his dismal performance in the first four years of his stewardship, by his godfather Mr Fix it.

Chief Anthony Anenih gave a press conference to tell Edo people that there was no vacancy in Osadebe Avenue (the official residence of Edo State Governor).

Edo people bowed and  he had his way.

Since the governor’s second term started, his performance has further deteriorated to the chagrin of Edo people.

Mr Fix-it is now grooming another godson to thrust on Edo people again and repeat the cycle of ineptness, poor performance and deterioration of the living standard of our people. For how long are we going to bow our heads and allow one man or a group of wicked and uncaring godfathers and godsons to ruin our lives and mortgage the lives of our unborn children for their selfish ends?

In an interview by his budding godson, an aspirant to the governorship of Edo State he said and I quote;

‘’If you ask Odion Ugbesia to draw God, because I have
never seen God, by the time I finish it, you will
probably find the face of Anenih in it, you find the
hands of Anenih and you find the legs of Anenih.  This
is a man who has done so much for me.  Everyday I pray
to God to help me in my life, and once and every time
Anenih comes and helps me.  He made me a Commissioner;
made me a Minister, made me a Minister again, help me
to build a house’’

A few weeks ago the UN announced that Nigeria occupied the number 151^st position in the Human Development index. An average Nigerian is now expected to die at the unripe age of 43 as Nigeria slips in the Human Development Index released for the year 2005 in spite of our oil wealth and the foreign- exchange that accrue to the government on a daily basis.