By Wole Olujobi
At every last supper, there is always one Iscariot, and this as a compulsory side-effect of imminent spiritual or political transition. As we had Judas Iscariot in the spiritual essence of Jesus Christ among the Jews, the same way we have dark angels among partisans in politics, particularly at the closing page of a political chapter.
In his moments of sanity, Judas, the inimitable records keeper and deft treasurer to boot, was a darling among the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ that dictated the pace in the Upper Room of the Jewish ecclesiastical engagements. Remarkably endowed with somewhat infectious allowance of good looks, in his bosom and callous wits, Judas Iscariot, a grand patron of rank dubiety, harboured a manipulative and treacherous animosity of a consummate traitor. Jesus Himself was not Christ enough to escape Iscariot’s kiss of death that took the son of Mary to the Golgotha!
Judas Iscariot gambled for riches, playing ludo with his soul on the judgement day in Paradise. For him, paradise is for the covetous that hankers for the unholy pleasures of the world while Jesus can keep His kingdom for Peter, James and John. Today, Judas Iscariot remains damned both in the hallowed pantheon of the holy and the accursed assembly of the profane in a hostile embrace of Karma.
This, indeed, is an apt parable of the sower and his harvest, and there is no other breeding ground for this complex metaphor for treachery than in Nigerian politics where people taken for granted for their love and loyalty turn their malicious daggers, in broad smiles, to strike when least expected, to damn the lives of their benefactors, friends and colleagues into the life of sorrow, pain and indignity.
But treachery is as old as life itself. From the Eden’s Garden in the famed eating of the fruit of life and death; Marcus Brutus of Rome; Austria’s Alfred Redl; Harold “Paul” Cole of Britian; the Rosenbergs of the United States of America; Mir Jafar of India; and to Aldrich Ames also of the United States, there are enough stories to tell about compatriots in hoods, even in the dark, who were propelled by callous pursuit of money and power to ruin their countries and fellow men.
If competition for betrayals of old from the unexpected quarters were to be staged, Austrian army officer, Alfred Redl, would take the cake.
Before and during World War 1, Redl worked as a spy for the Russian military and sold secrets about the Austrian army to Russia. Redl leaked to Russia the Austrian invasion plan for Serbia, which Russia in turn sold to Serbia. Redl continued to double-cross his countrymen by supplying the wrong information about Russia’s military strength and exposing Austrian agents to the enemy.
The results were catastrophic for the Austrian army: his actions contributed to the deaths of half a million Austrians. Redl committed suicide after Austrian police discovered his betrayal.
Harold Cole of Britain, who was the deputy commander of Scotland Yard during the end of the World War 2, was considered one of the worst traitors of the war. He was responsible for divulging information to the Gestapo about the French resistance escape lines, which he had helped create.
He also divulged information about the French resistance leaders to the Axis, resulting in the death of at least 150 people. He was shot dead after capture by French police in 1946.
Then consider how the tyrannical rule of Roman Emperor Julius Caesar came to a very sticky end when his own nephew, Marcus Junius Brutus, took part in the murder plot against him. Brutus joined the Roman Senators during the time revolt against Caesar was reaching its peak. Despite remonstrations from his wife Portia, Brutus accompanied a group of disgruntled senators who savagely attacked Caesar to death. A distraught Caesar moaned in pain as end-time loomed: “et tu Brute” (and you too Brutus?), that choked life out of him, ending both his reign and life as he fell bleeding onto the Senate floor at the feet of the statue of Pompey. But facing Mark Anthony’s reprisal, Brutus summoned the Roman’s courage of his own ill by dying at the edge of his own sword.
Or what do you say about the Rosenbergs of the United States of America? They were a married couple with communist sympathies who sold atomic secrets to the Soviets during the height of the Cold War. Julius Rosenberg helped exchange covert information and also recruited other spies for the Soviet Union.
He, alongside his wife Ethel, was arrested in 1950. After a controversial trial, both were executed for conspiring to sell atomic secrets to Russia on June 19, 1953.
Mir Jafar of India also fits the bill. Jafar was the head of army of Bengal during the mid 18th Century. However, his ambitions were much higher for the better part of his lifetime when he conspired to usurp the throne of Bengal.
In his quest, he joined hands with the British forces during the decisive Battle of Plassey. The battle was fought between the East India Company forces led by Robert Clive, and the Indian forces led by Nawab Sira-ud-Dowla of Oudh, and was the culmination of tensions and suspicions between the two sides.
Though the Indian forces greatly outnumbered the British, Jafar’s actions ensured British victory. He and his large troops sat idly by as the battle raged, and without his help, the British forces were able to defeat the Nawab’s men and gain full control of the Indian subcontinent.
What about Aldric Ames of the United States of America, too? Spurred by an alcohol addiction and a wife of expensive taste, Aldrich Ames readily sold US government secrets to Russia during the 1980s. Ames’ work at the CIA gave him access to military intelligence and the name of every US agent in operation against Russia; the intelligence he willingly surrendered to Russia in an act of betrayal.
His efforts earned him $4.6 million and resulted in the compromised position of 100 military operations and the execution of 10 US operatives. Ames was eventually sentenced to life in jail.
In all these cases, there were repercussions of unhappy ends for the perpetrators of these treacherous and heinous acts.
All these treasonous acts compete with the one in a state in Southern Nigeria in her chequered political history, where a certain “dubiously overloyal” and fawning disciple of some top leaders, who these purposeful and visionary leaders took from the gutters to stardom, later became the arrowhead of a scheme to undo these benefactors and great leaders of history at the time these prime benefactors needed him most to support their career growth to the zenith.
From all accounts, this Judas, who still straddles political corridors, has comely looks tucked inside a depraved heart. Just like Judas Iscariot too, he is superb in records keeping, but easily swayed by the magnetic lucre of capital. He also likes to secretly record his fellow politicians and close friends on tape in lively banters and later manipulate the contents of these recordings out of context to put them in trouble with the boss at the top; all in a bid to sell himself as a super loyal aide for the benefits that come with unalloyed but pretentious loyalty, even though in reality he is the most heartless, disloyal traitor; for in his smile, there are arrays of poisoned daggers.
Not that he is vaguely malicious towards others; treachery naturally and permanently lives in his bosom as a way of life, which often assists him to get whatever he wants even though such treacherous acts knock down his victims in deep pains.
He can strike at ANYONE if the profit is right. He hates talking glowingly of anyone, not even his supposed most adored friends. He trafficks in backstabbing, lies and blackmail; his most profitable trades to make profits, which earned him a sobriquet “scavenger” among a legion of his victims.
In sycophancy and servile flattery, he fawns at his leaders and benefactors in the day for favours, and scandals them at night, still in pursuit of interest on the other side. Bountifully, he was rewarded for his evil deeds against colleagues until his false and evil lifestyle was exposed while plying his trade in the office of an online publication where he had gone to write under fictitious names alleging varying crimes against his greatest benefactors on earth.
Multiple media sources confirmed that when nemesis would finally catch up with this Judas, this Alfred Redl of Nigeria that takes pleasure in secretly recording others on tape to put them in trouble for personal profits, was himself paid back in his own coin where he had gone to ply his trade in an online publication to ruin political image of his prime benefactors and destroy their destinies. And so Karma finally played its last jokes on this consummate Marcus Brutus of Nigeria for his deadly blows on his principals and benefactors!
But at what point did this betrayer strike his benefactors to put their political future and destinies in jeopardy? Of course at a period leading to his state’s administration’s last supper; the Eucharistic feast by an administration preparing for an electoral transition process for an imminent transfer of power, which this Judas reasoned must also go with the usual exchange of burnished loyalty baton in his desperate angling for greener pastures.
For him, contrived loyalty thrives where the power resides. For instance, in one of his blackmail stunts in the media, he had called his principal and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu “religious prostitutes and presidential hope fools” over their political ambitions. But today, to him, Tinubu, after becoming Nigeria’s President, and his principal who he had earlier thoroughly degraded, are the best leaders the world will ever know.
Such are the colours of chameleonic loyalty among deceitful jades in Nigerian politics that often results in heart-ache and everlasting injury in the lives of their leaders. As it is said, some people didn’t die when the arrow was in their chests; they died when they saw who threw the arrow. Julius Caesar up till today bears me witness, as the burning daggers of his nephew Brutus struck!
Prior to a leadership transition in his state, this Iscariot had on a false assumption reasoned that his benefactors were working against his personal interest in the next political dispensation for which he had desperately schemed to have his hands on all the pies, and, so, he must hit them hard to change the course, to have his way. And he struck! The desperado hit the target and his victims wailed their hearts out, as they became the villains and victims of their own generosity to a man they gave a life.
And of course like Macbeth, he was further suborned by a mistress’ dream with the prospect of governing his state if he could seize the moment.
Pronto, the professional blackmailer started dealing in conspiratorial antics and crass rebellion, writing in pseudo names, such as Osatuyi, Victor Omogbemile and later Bolaji Akinyemi, in his usual hackneyed phrases, syntactical summersaults and trademark grammatical accidents in deadpan language on several online platforms, to paint his benefactors in the most contemptible epithets, and alleging that they stole in billions of naira from the state’s treasury in alleged connivance of another innocent man he deridedly tagged “chef-in-chief”, to pursue a political position; all this blackmail driven by a borderless love of money and vaulting ambition for power exacerbated by a deadly augury contained in a mistress’ dream that divined a prospect to clinch the reins of power by foul means.
This Nigeria’s Macbeth got himself involved in other unspeakable schemes to sabotage the God-anointed, but the Almighty God spoke loudly to fulfil His plan, and here we were with the grace and voice of God Almighty that spoke loudly in June 2022 after which this Judas went about triumphantly without conscience, refusing to show remorse that he had put the lives of innocent people in jeopardy over his wicked and selfish acts in pursuit of money and power.
But today, after several other desperately manipulative tricks and subterfuge to have his way to power failed, the vicious and vengeful Karma has bloodied the nose of the traitor and overthrown this son of treachery and slave to lucre, even as he always feels unsafe among his colleagues and “friends” who are among the many prime victims of his depravity, and who formerly suffered together to achieve a common goal.
For his treachery, the sceptre is gone for a mob-cap to adorn a barren head. And what is more, 99 percent of staff in his work place where he turned himself to a scorpion spoke/speak ill of him without reservation.
As they say, those who know how to bite hardly endure the teeth of others. But Karma has no respect for such whimsical indulgences among accomplished narcissists. Treachery always has its day with Karma in its deadly blows and buffets. And so Karma, time and fate, the three cruel tricksters and bosom comrades in vengeance and impish solidarity, traded and trafficked in riddles and game of shame with this reckless and desperate slave to ambition. They waited patiently and laughed heartily to deliver their harsh, summary judgment to teach the wicked a lesson of life.
Therefore, beware the fallacy of the treacherous loyalists in hoods! They are sowers of miseries in the lives of others, but Karma has a large barn of sorrows waiting for them at harvest time.
MORAL: There is no escape route for narcissists and destiny destroyers. If you put smiles and happiness into the lives of others, joy and success will NEVER depart from your home. If you sow sorrow and tears into the lives of others, LAMENTATIONS will make your home a permanent abode. As they say, when you destroy someone’s life with lies, take it as a loan; it will come back to you with interest.
No evil man will escape the day of judgment, for there is always a price for every Iscariot and harsh judgment for the fallacy of decorated loyalty. That is the principal law of Karma.
Olujobi writes from Ado-Ekiti
20th June, 2023
