Abia’s commissioners’ list and the fruitlessness of sycophancy
I know four men from the same LGA with the 34-year-old (three of them are in their mid-50s and the other, in his 40s) who have faithfully held the mantle of servile flattering for 20-years and counting, still they have never been considered for an appointment once
Though it sounds invidious, there’s no honour in sycophancy. Sycophants are comparable to mendicants (beggars) who implore for a favour, with little or no expectation of reciprocation. The dissimilarity is that mendicants are found in public places such as motor parks and markets, while sycophants display exaggerated blandishment of their benefactors to survive.
They are like handicap dogs that endure all sort of humiliations from men with protruded stomachs to feed on their excreta. No matter its obeisance, it can never eat from the pot of its masters. This narration explains why none of the obsequious flatterers made the recent commissioners list, even the voluble ones who tour radio stations gibble-gabbling.
Sycophancy destroys all the processes of ratiocination; the reason a handful of them immediately started singing the praises of a 34-year-old man used to replace his raddled father. For 20-years, (1999-2019) these men sang the praises of his father, yet were not found, worthy successors but his son who lived and schooled abroad until his appointment. That should be enough reason to have a rethink but, as expected, they still tholed.
I know four men from the same LGA with the 34-year-old (three of them are in their mid-50s and the other, in his 40s) who have faithfully held the mantle of servile flattering for 20-years and counting, still they have never been considered for an appointment once. One had expected the younger sycophant to learn from the predicaments of his older colleagues but, sadly he is always online thanking Governor Ikpeazu for sending him and others to Nasarawa State for only God knows Agricultural programme.
I perused through the commissioners’ list and found not the names of the adopted sons who make a public spectacle of themselves praising “Papa Ukwu and Papa Nta” from one radio station to another and on Facebook. Their reward for the senseless fawning is money for Choko and Ogogoro. The irony of the whole cul-de-sac is that they are approaching 50-years.
I saw one of them the last time I was in Umuahia, singing with all seriousness under the influence of alcohol, “Jesus settle alu nu muoo, kam soro ibe mu nuriaaa, Jesus settle settle alu nu muoo, kam soro ibe mu nuriaaa,” (Jesus settle me, let me rejoice with others) as if he served apprenticeship under Jesus.
I looked at him and quietly asked him, “Enyi igbara Jesus Odibo, I na asi ya settle luo gi”? (Did you serve an apprenticeship under Jesus that you want him to settle you?) I was told that four years ago, he constituted nuisance within the neighbourhood chanting, “Ikuku Ochendo ofe se le gi”?
Show me one sycophant in Abia State and I will show you a robot (Zombie) programmed to serve decades of years of peasant servitude. They have exhausted all their hopes of making it big while they are still alive. All they do is to fantasise good life in their next world. “Ifu la uwa ozo m’gi ilo, agam iburiri big man. O dughi odi motor m’na agaghi igba.” (In my next world, I must be a rich man. There’s no exotic car I will not buy) Mtchewww! Ndi Apari!