(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, March 27, 2026 )
So, it was to Spurinna that the Roman military general, Julius Caesar, went when the exceptionally important month of March beckoned. In ancient Rome, March was the first month of the year and the start of military campaigns and farming seasons. Caesar offered a bull for sacrifice; Spurinna inspected its entrails, communed with the gods, who showed him that the sacrificed bull lacked a heart, a metaphor for the pool of blood ahead.
Therefore, the diviner went up to Caesar, hit his staff on the ground, and warned, “Roman General, I see danger in March! Beware of the Ides of March! Danger lurks, Caesar. Yes, the Ides of March, beware!” And he left.
But, Caesar, engrossed in statecraft, never remembered the warning until the day the siegecraft of his enemies subdued him at the Senate, and he fell to their swordcraft, as he was stabbed 23 times by his fellow senators, crying, “Et tu, Brute,” at the final stab. Ironically, the assassination that was meant to save the Roman Republic from Caesar’s dictatorship led to its end, giving rise to the Roman Empire.
Just like Caesar, two Nigerian politicians, Chief Dele Momodu and Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, in the March of 2026, forgot the Ides of March. They threw caution to the wind and engaged each other in a dogfight that members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers had outgrown. The bloodless power tussle between the forces of Alhaji Tajudeen Baruwa and Alhaji Musiliu Akinsanya aka MC Oluomo over control of the national headquarters of the NURTW in Abuja a few days ago shows that ‘Up National’ members are far more civil than many Nigerian political leaders.
If we share the same parentage, both Momodu and Fani-Kayode, at 65, should pick pieces of meat ahead of me at the family table. Ẹ̀gbọ́n Momodu should pick meat before ẹ̀gbọ́n Fani-Kayode because he arrived in the world five months before FFK. By reason of age, both should talk before me in family gatherings. And, I should wash the plates and pots if the three of us had a family cookout, and there was no Reno Omokri, who I’m older than, around. But when old men fight dirty and disrobe themselves in the marketplace, society allows their younger brother to separate them, exorcise the March Madness and call a spade by its proper name.
I knew FFK between 2009 and 2010 when he eyed the governorship of Osun State on the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party. In a field brimming with Ife-born political heavyweights such as Senator Iyiola Omisore, former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Chief Niyi Owolade; former Nigerian Ambassador to Cuba, Senator Segun Bamigbetan-Baju; former Commissioner for Education, Prof Muib Opeloye, etc, the young Fani-Kayode stood little chance in emerging the PDP candidate, despite the ‘it is our turn’ clamour by Ife. Femi Fani-Kayode aspired and failed.
Like FFK, Momodu, in 2011, ran for the nation’s presidency on the platform of the National Conscience Party, losing in his ward, where he got just one vote, according to a Vanguard newspaper report. In the PDP presidential primaries, which he contested in 2022, Momodu, who bought the PDP presidential primary form for N50 million, lamented the monetisation of Nigeria’s electoral process. He magnanimously donated copies of his magazine, Ovation, at the PDP primaries. But, for his troubles, Momodu got the type of fat zero mischievous teachers draw in the books of dullard students. PUNCH newspaper reported that no delegate voted for Momodu.
When glitz and glam fuel political aspiration, and public service becomes trackless like a snake crawling on a mountain, prefixes such as ‘former governorship aspirant’ and ‘former presidential candidate’ become mere tickets to the corridors of power.
