One of the dangers of the study of history is that many do not know how to use it. Hence, scholars have introduced a course of study known as historical consciousness. It is not just the knowledge but how to translate it into contemporary experience. Men like Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, ought to take a class. The man gathered the coalition of the wounded in Ibadan at the weekend, and his mouth spewed out foul things. He said we should remember that Wetie detonated the city. He was referring to the whirlwind of violence in the First Republic when citizens torched houses and cars in a rage against electoral fraud.
Here is another chapter of impunity from his opposition groups. Thank God, Makinde had company last weekend. This saves him the lonely angst last time when he hosted a one-man convention.
Invoking Wetie was irresponsible for an officer of democracy, which is what a governor is. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. He should realise that to burn down a system does not take guns and military bombs alone. It takes the lips and little other things. The Yoruba wars began over a bowl of pepper. It took the killing of one man named Yusuf for the Boko Haram inferno still burning after 10 years. The arch Duke of Sarajevo, an unknown profile before 1914, set the world on fire for the next four years in the First World War. It was a rumour from a newspaper that precipitated the Spanish-American War. He should be careful when he incites violence. As somebody said, anyone that throws a stone in the market cannot guarantee the safety of his mother. He should go to the Bible and read the story about Assyrian king Sennacherib and the consequences of rumour. The West was daubed wild, wild west. The term came from the American west in the 18th and 19th century when anyone was a thief or murderer or fleeing from both. Wild, wild men made the West. Makinde’s tongue makes him a wild man. We need wise men in office. Makinde’s lips undermine mankind.
