By; MAR ABUSALWA
There is a saying that a fool at forty is a fool forever meaning that if a man attains the age of forty and he did not forgo his atrocious pastime, that person is doomed forever and will live a condemned life. It is in this light that we view the tirade of a familiar blackmailer using the borrowed saintly garb of a crusader.
The truism of this wise saying is manifest on Ahmed Sajoh, who at over seventy years of age, has failed to make amends and reconcile with God over his lifestyle.
It is, therefore, plausible to conclude that Sajoh, a renowned professional hack writer, will find it difficult to make a detour from his sordid and shameful pastime. For him, anything goes provided the lure is salivating.
It is unfortunate that at his current age when he ought to reflect on life and start meditating about his meeting with God to account for his lowly and sordid lifetime, the old man is busy cooking up “cock and bull” stories from the pit of hell to fullfil his innermost loss of getting lowly patronage at all cost. In order to attain such a devious goal, he can go the whole hug to besmirch others.
One thing that Sajoh must know is that only his gullible and overzealous paymasters will listen to his outdated prosody, but discerning minds will not touch his piece of trash with a ten mile pole. What a pity?
It is curious that a man who has carved a niche for himself in double standards, sleaze and betrayal and has lived a putrid lifetime will think he can confuse the people into believing his medley of lies and crass fabrications.
We are yet to forget how Sajoh, who was one of the most influential figures during Nyako’s administration, sold the former governor to his arch enemy Governor Bindow for a pot of porridge. His desire to get a commissioner portfolio to fulfil his lifetime ambition can make him commit even worse atrocities. That was why he felt no qualms to take Nyako to the slaughter house of his arch enemy, despite the fact that Nyako virtually picked him from the gutters.
When Bindow learnt about the Sajoh’s double standards and his propensity for mischief, the governor tactically tried to put him in the coolers by blocking him from being part of his cabinet.But some Nyako’s elements who, based on Sajoh’s closeness to their boss, sympathized with him for losing his job after Nyako’s impeachment, pressured Governor Bindow to carry him along.
But the man who cannot maintain fidelity in his lifetime, thought that he can only survive through scaremongering and blackmail. By that, he started spreading malice between the two sides based on his inside knowledge about the two camps.
Fed up with his double standards, some Bindow’s lieutenants who were enraged at how Sajoh was planting seeds of discord between Nyako and Bindow, decided to call his bluff by going public with an audio clip in which Sajoh spited and rebuked Bindow and his government to no avail and even wished for the removal of the governor by the courts.
But despite that show of shame, utter infidelity and symbolic treason, Sajoh whose capacity for interminable shamelessness was profound refused to throw in the towel even though his shameful act has exposed him to ridicule and ostracization within the system.
So we are not surprised that such a lily livered, incorrigible cheat and a lowly blackmailer is at work again to earn a living in his usual distasteful mannerism.
In fact, initially there was never an attempt to join issues with the discredited old man, but for the fear that silence in the face of this outlandish hubris may be misconstrued as acceptance, we decided to put the record straight and unveil the true villain that Sajoh really is.
In his avowed move to garner attention and probably gain some crumbs, Sajoh decided to create a comical fiction from the comfort of his bedroom. But the fiction cannot sell because it lacks tact, finesse, and substance. If Sajoh taught that the people would buy his poorly scripted comedy hook, line, and sinker, then he should reexamine his old and tired brain.
Even a rookie skit maker knows that for his work to gain any mileage, there must be synchronization in time and actions of characters. But Sajoh thought he could deploy innuendos and half-truths to infer to some certain individuals in APC who, in his warped thinking, are opposed to his paymaster. We believed that Sajoh must have conceived the idea of writing such a foolish treatise from his dream, and on waking up, he foolishly penned it down.
Unknown to him, a dream will remain a dream no matter how anyone wishes to actualize it. Since Sajoh has refused to mention names in his fiction but want to abuse peoples imagination with the sole aim of spreading mischief, it is necessary to reiterate to Sajoh and his co-travellers that the APC in Adamawa State is in no way subservient to the ruling party.
And any such meeting only took place in the sordid imagination of Sajoh. And to put it on record, on the putative day Sajoh mentioned, the chairman, the secretary, the publicity secretary, organizing secretary, youth leader, women leader and majority of the APC leaders are not even in town.
At this point, we challenge Sajoh as a Muslim to swear by Allah that such a meeting has ever taken place anywhere and again we challenge him to bring out any material evidence to substantiate his claim. It is trite that a man of Sajoh’s age will stoop so lowly to make such claims without making even the most feeblest attempt to bring life to his libelous statement which is a serious infraction to the pen profession which he practiced all his life.
We also challenge Sajoh if he has any conviction on what he said to come openly and swear with the holy book that such a meeting took place. As for the APC members who came under severe censorship by the fifth columnist, they are ready to swear by their holy books that such event never happened. We are awaiting Sajoh to come forward and accept the challenge for the sake of his name and posterity.
Although it is wicked for a man of Sajoh’s age to lie and deceive the people, it is not totally a strange thing for an old, weary and lost mind to be consumed in a pitiful, hilarious dream.
ABUSALWA writes from Yola
