Did anyone remember the day Charles Chukwuma Soludo was denied access into the Very Important Persons (VIP) stand at the Eagle Square in Abuja? Yes! At the inauguration of Bola Tinubu as President in 2023..

Don’t forget Soludo’s role in the election that brought in the President.

Now, do you think that incident happened by chance? Do you think it was the handiwork of some overzealous government officials overshooting their brief?

Did you not see how much he laboured and what happened eventually?

Now, surely, you must have watched the video of Hope Uzodinma fiddling with the entrance door at the Presidential Villa, where a meeting of top All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftains was in progress, in an attempt to gain entry. What did you make of that one, too?

In that particular outing, some people labored to give a cozy interpretation.

In one of the explanations, it was said that there was a problem with the locks that made it difficult to open immediately.

An Aso Rock door jamming? How many people would swear that the video the world watched had to do with the locks to the door in the Aso Rock Villa going bad?

Indeed, words were actually out that the difficulty of ingress into the presidential fortress was the handiwork of Nyesom Wike, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, with whom Onwa Gburugburu – the powerful Chairman of the APC Governors’ Forum – is currently dragging power.

So, then, the authenticity of what truly happened is yet to be determined.

In fact, the jury is out on which side of the story to believe. It might even be an AI-generated video, for all anyone could know. .

But a faulty Aso Rock door surely sounds quite incredulous, if not funny, or even infantile. But then, the jury is still out!

Yet, imagine in the heydays, when Rotimi Amaechi was holding the fort as Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party Governors’ Forum (PDP-GF) and whether heads would not roll for him to be confronted with such oddity – on video, to boot!

But nobody knows if heads are actually rolling privately at the Villa that the all-powerful Progressives Governors’ boss had to go through such public discomfiture – don’t call it humiliation!

Now, come to the latest! Dave Umahi! Our dear Dave – the Lion of the South East.

Did you see the public assault – the public disgrace – the public humiliation? It was all rolled into one – before the glaring eyes of millions of viewers across the globe.

Caveat emptor: Please, refrain from watching the clip if you’re faint-hearted – particularly if you’re Igbo. You surely must drop a tear or two.

People, how could a whole Nigerian Minister be speaking in public and the microphone is wrenched from his fingers with such ferocity, as if by a trained commando soldier or taking a dangerous weapon from a brigand – not just any other Minister, but Dave Umahi, who has been all about presenting himself as the poster boy of South East politics, to whom all must listen and all must bow?

In fact, at the time this public disgrace was happening, the echoes of Umahi’s notorious outing on The Morning Show, the breakfast programme on ARISE NEWS Television, were still reverberating beyond the seven seas and seven wildernesses of Nigeria.

In his obviously visible bid to impress the delectable Ojy Okpe, one of the anchors of the programme, who appeared to be egging him on with some prompts which mimicked mockery more than questions, he even boasted of being a billionaire and coming from a wealthy home – as if that would change the cost of kpomo, which is already eluding ordinary market women in Nigeria.

Now, for this man, who had made a song and dance about stopping Peter Obi, clearly Tinubu’s most feared enfant terrible, the world would have thought that he would not only be eating from special platinum bowls at the Aso Rock table, but would be adorned with special princely apparel at a gathering such as Saturday’s.

But what did we have? Before the selfsame Tinubu, his earthly god, someone had the temerity to serve the prince half-cooked beans?

Who is sure the Lion is not nursing some broken fingers from the manner the microphone was snatched from him, even before he was done with the praise and worship to lullaby his master?

Who cares about “with the greatest humility!” Who wants to hear “Our dear father?” Who knows the authority that ordered the microphone to be taken from him? Surely, that person must be quite powerful – perhaps the numero uno himself, for such speed and force to be applied.

Now, check the records. In the history of Nigeria – okay, say since 1999, which is still recent enough – could you folks recall any governor who has ever been barred from the VIP lounge at any ceremony in Nigeria?

Have you witnessed any who was videoed strutting about in confusion because the doors of heavenly places were locked against him?

Coincidence? Okay, have you ever heard of a governor speaking in public and having the microphone snatched from him? You saw it for the first time on Saturday? And who was the victim?

Again, did you see the EFCC – Economic and Financial Crimes Commission – descending through the roof on Yahaya Bello of Kogi State as they did with Rochas Okorocha, even though the amount he was accused of stealing was mere pocket change by comparison?

Now, what is the common denominator in all these cases? Simple!

They’re all Igbo governors! They’re all receiving these treatments from the APC and in APC times!

Do you still think all the above cases are coincidences?

Then, you’re simply pretending to be asleep rather than sleeping.

I have said it a thousand times that the APC is not a party for Ndigbo.

Maybe there will be tens of more cases like the above to hit the nail on the head.

The foundation, the philosophy, and the psychology of the APC are to see the Igbo man lying prostrate and caged beneath a glass ceiling.

If you didn’t see it in 20 appointments without an Igbo man, you will see it in the offices allotted to them.

If you didn’t see it in the misery budget for the area, you would see it in their exclusion from the gas and rail master plans, or even the zero allocation to the River Basins – as in the instant case – and the derision and disdain for South East leaders.

Further I say, and further I maintain, this is the manifest evidence of the toxin, the venom, and the poison the late Muhammadu Buhari injected into the Nigerian polity. Clearly, his major remit on earth undoubtedly included plunging the Igbo man into a bottomless pit of hopelessness in national affairs, where it wasn’t possible to totally annihilate him!

This was the result of his bed-fellowship with Tinubu in forming the APC.

And when the President vows at every turn to continue where he stopped, it is all the more palpable that the Igbo man is central to that oath.

The Jagaban knows how much his ally hated the Igbo man and recognises that any favour shown to them will make him turn in his grave.

While the Lion continues to nurse his fingers and lick his wounds, he should do well to check the Tinubu of yesterday, as Governor of Lagos State, who opened the doors to Ndigbo, against the Tinubu of today, after the Buhari alliance, and determine if he still thinks Peter Obi remains his problem. I won’t say more!

_The Tiny Voice!