Underlings are like faithless dogs who swiftly transfer their love and affections to new masters when the old one runs out of milk and meat and bones to feed them. This is the reality of Nigerian politics which drowns the unwary in a sea loneliness once his time in the limelight expires.
Such is the situation that has befallen former president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, once the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic but now a fond relic of a bygone dispensation. No sooner had the sun set on his tenure than most of his so-called acolytes began to display their true colours.
While some began to maintain their distance from him as if he were infected with a deadly transmittable disease others shamelessly denied him and jumped into bed with the new administration. Those who remained his true and faithful friends are as few as the number of trees that stand tall in a desert.
One of Jonathan’s closest buddies when the picture was rosy was none other Aigboje Aig Imokhude, the charismatic former MD of Access Bank. When the going was good Aig was one of the former president’s staunchest backers, especially in the industry side. He was a trusted advisor behind the scenes and was every ready with donations to oil the campaign machinery of Jonathan and his people.
Confirmation of the closeness between Jonathan and Aig came when the the-president ignored the hue and cry from dissenting voices to appoint Aig head of the presidential committee set up to look into the subsidy scam that gripped the country in 2013. Sources even revealed to Lagos Times that Aig was a whisker away from being chosen to replace the current Emir of Kano Lamido Sanusi as CBN governor if not for some unforseen developments.
However since the advent of the new dispensation, the story has changed and Aig’s train has left Jonathan’s station, never to return apparently. Aig has allegedly dumped his former benefactor like a bad habit and zoomed off to lounge in greener pastures.
According to those who should know, the co-founder of Coronation Capital, a Mauritian-based private equity investment management and advisory company, is in no haste to associate himself with a defeated man. Since he left the stock exchange last year, Aig, who turns 52 in a few months, has devoted his time entirely to his family and business.