By ‘Diran Ademiju-Bepo
In all of the shenanigans I have read of since the news broke from the grapevine of the potential and imminent appointment of a legal luminary, a fertile mind and a robust administrator, Joash Ojo Amupitan, JOA for short, the one that bemused me more was the reference to the narrative of his birth and educational journey. That he was born in 1967 and how could he have become a Professor of Law at the age of …?
May be I should share a bit of my personal history at this point. I had humanly speaking, planned to become a university graduate at the age of 19 years, having completed secondary school about a month to my 16th birthday. But lo and behold, I gained admission at that same 19 years of age! So, I came to the realization that It was necessary to adjust…I dreamt of my PhD at 27. Profess at 37. And so on. It never worked out the way I had planned because my thoughts are not the thoughts of God…but His good plans for me subsist!
Why all this personal reflection? Out there, unknown to me, someone else was running his race of life on a different track. And like a track and field event, he ran faster than others on the tracks and breasted the tape ahead of all. That someone is Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan (SAN). Why the fuss? Was he not born a year before me?
Has anyone bothered to investigate the place of “the fear of the unknown” in multiple streams and diversification? We are currently witnessing one of such streams. If Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan had not been announced last week Thursday by the Presidency, sequel to the Council of State affirmative nod of his nomination by the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the next INEC Chairman, we would not be having this scrutiny and probe into his life’s journey the way those who fear the unknown have been doing.
We read of citizens of the same nation eulogizing the President for his careful choice of a man of integrity, a man of impeccable character, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, whose pedigree was never in question as at the time of his elevation as a Learned Silk, whose numerous contributions to the growth and development of his motherland and fatherland have never been in doubt. This is because for a long time, a round peg is coming to fill a round hole as the next Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC; on the other hand, we also read of other charlatans who are fretting from the fear of the unknown.
“There are a lot of grey areas in this Prof Joash Ojo Amupitan’s CV as put forward in the Statehouse Press Release signed by Mr Bayo Onanuga”, as I read from one writer. Hmmm. They have come to realize that their plans against the electoral institutions have hit a dead end. They have resigned to rejoice in the fact that nothing good can come out of Nigeria. But they are ignorant that it is God who can call His own a tree of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour. …who will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations (Isaiah 61: 3b-4).
Earlier in Judges 6: 11-31, we read of Joash, who was the father of Gideon, the one who hath cast down the altar of Baal. It is instructive that Prof. JOA is the Joash himself who stood for his son, “And Joash said unto all that stood against him, Will ye plead for Baal? will ye save him? he that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning: if he be a god, let him plead for himself…”(31).
That is the Fear of the Unknown that is already unsettling the camp of Baal adherents in the Nigerian polity! Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan is coming to pull down the altar of electoral Baal. It is not going to be business as usual. Welcome the Joash of our time!
*Diran Ademiju-Bepo, a Professor of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), is also a Journalist and Public Affairs Analyst