After a few months of what may have been a period of isolation, reflection & some serious soul-searching, Hon. Desmond Elliot appears to have arrived at a rather painful political realisation: that whatever electoral value he possesses may be considerably diminished when severed from the political structure, machinery & godfather who helped propel him to prominence in the 1st place.
And having apparently discovered that he may, after all, be more of an alternative foregone than an indispensable political force, the prodigal son has returned. Cap in hand. Without shame as it were. Head bowed.
And, metaphorically speaking, on bended knees.
He has returned to plead for forgiveness from the very man he once pointed his left hand at in the heat of their very public falling-out.
Politics, they say, is a game of numbers. But it is also a game of memory, loyalty, relationships &, above all, power. And every now & then, it teaches an ambitious man a lesson that no amount of celebrity, popularity or self-confidence can erase.
So, like the Biblical prodigal son who eventually discovered that his importance to the sun had much to do with his proximity to it, Desmond appears to have eaten his humble pie & retraced his steps (battered image) to the very fold he once seemed so willing to abandon, by throwing to the dogs!
He has come home. And there is something almost poetic about the journey.
At the height of the disagreement, perhaps he genuinely believed he had arrived. He had the celebrity. He had the visibility. He had the supposed exposure. He had occupied political office &, perhaps more importantly, had acquired enough confidence to believe that he could stand alone & prove his mettle.
He may even have imagined that embracing notoriety, throwing a few political punches (unnecessary tantrums) & casting aspersions at the very platform that had helped shoot him into the limelight would demonstrate that he had outgrown the political structure that nurtured him.
Perhaps, somewhere in that heady moment, he thought the fear of controversy would make his godfather blink, retreat or reconsider. It didn’t.
If anything, it produced the exact opposite. There was no retreat. There was actually a resolve.
And the more he appeared determined to test the limits, the more determined the other side became to remind him that political loyalty is not a garment one wears only when it is convenient.
For daring to look the tiger squarely in the face & seemingly demanding a direct, one-on-one combat, the former actor-turned-lawmaker discovered that political warfare is a very different theatre from the make-believe world of the screen.
He was stripped. He was defeated.
And then he was thrown into the wilderness with ignominy, left to lick his wounds & contemplate the consequences of having mistaken visibility for invincibility. This wasn’t Nollywood ooooo…
For that, perhaps, is one of the most enduring lessons of politics: never confuse the applause that follows you with the structure that carries you.
A man can become popular & still be politically vulnerable.
A man can become visible & still lack electoral value.
A man can become powerful enough to make noise & yet discover, when the music stops, that the orchestra was never his.
And so, after what must have been a sobering spell in the wilderness, the prodigal has apparently decided that home is not such a bad place after all.
And as a magnanimous overlord, the deputy emperor himself, in the person of the former Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives & current Chief of Staff to the President, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, appears to have looked beyond the foolery of the past, swallowed whatever bitterness yesterday may have left behind & welcomed the prodigal back into the fold.
Such magnanimity is not always easy. Because betrayal cuts differently when it comes from someone you once lifted.
Disloyalty is painful precisely because loyalty is an investment. It is the currency of relationships, the invisible bond upon which political families, friendships, institutions & even empires are built.
And when that bond is broken, it is not always the enemy who causes the deepest wound. Sometimes, it is the son. Sometimes, it is the protege.
Sometimes, it is the man who knows exactly where the ladder came from, yet suddenly behaves as though he climbed into the sky entirely by himself.
But politics, like life, has its peculiar capacity for 2nd acts.
And with another person already replacing him as the candidate of the party, Desmond Elliot would not be returning as the senior Lagos lawmaker he once was. The possibility of eventually occupying the Speaker’s chair has, for now, seemingly disappeared from the immediate horizon. Yet political careers, much like fortunes, are rarely linear.
If the APC once again wins the next gubernatorial election in Lagos & Dr. Obafemi Kadri Hamzat eventually emerges as Governor of the state, there may still be another chapter waiting for the handsome former actor & now politician.
Perhaps there could even be another political reward somewhere down the road. Maybe commissioner for entertainment or SSA on Nollywood affairs, etc…
After all, in Nigerian politics, today’s wilderness can become tomorrow’s waiting room.
But one wonders what those who may have pushed the former actor down the road he travelled would make of this sudden & rather dramatic return to the same political household he once appeared so willing to throw into the gutters.
Would they be pleased?:Would they be embarrassed?
Or would they simply look away & pretend they never encouraged the journey in the 1st place?
Whatever their feelings may be, there is a lesson here that transcends Desmond Elliot, Gbajabiamila or even Lagos politics.
Loyalty matters. It matters when things are good. It matters even more when things are bad.
Indeed, the real test of loyalty is not when the relationship is rewarding, but when standing by someone becomes inconvenient, uncomfortable or personally costly.
Anybody can be loyal when there is something to gain. The true test comes when there is nothing immediate to gain.
Disloyalty, on the other hand, is a dangerous currency. It may produce temporary excitement, temporary applause & perhaps even the illusion of independence. But sooner or later, it comes with a bill.
And sometimes, that bill is delivered at the very door from which one once proudly walked away. So, welcome home, prodigal son.
The knees may have bent.
The cap may have come off. The wounds may have healed, or may still be healing.
But perhaps the greatest lesson of this entire episode is one that every ambitious man should tattoo somewhere deep within his consciousness:
Never despise the hand that helped lift you. Never mistake the ladder for the height you eventually attained. And never allow temporary applause to make you forget permanent loyalty.
Because power changes hands. Positions disappear.
Crowds move on.
But loyalty, or the lack of it, has a memory of its own. And rte results of it can be devastating.
And perhaps that brings us, rather beautifully, to the famous words of a super gentleman & former Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola:
“May our loyalty never be tested!”
