Once Upon an Ekweremadu? -By Prince Charles Dickson, Ph.D

There is something hauntingly poetic about the name Ekweremadu — did one agree with any human? or has one consented to mankind? In that philosophical phrasing lies a riddle about power, mortality, and the human condition. Agreement with men is fickle; today’s applause fades into tomorrow’s amnesia. The name itself is a metaphor, a question posed to those who wield authority: to what did you truly agree when you embraced power?

Ike Ekweremadu, docked in the UK

Power, especially in Nigeria, often carries the illusion of immortality. Those who rise to its corridors begin to breathe a rarified air; security details part crowds, sirens declare arrival, and the weight of titles becomes a second skin. But like the dew that dazzles at dawn and vanishes by noon, the sheen of power is a temporary glow.

History, both recent and remote, is filled with names once whispered with reverence and fear that now struggle to echo in memory. Where are the once-invincible generals, the towering ministers, the all-knowing godfathers, the power brokers whose calls could halt storms? They have all melted into that one phrase that swallows even the mighty — “once upon a time.”

Nigeria’s political space is a graveyard of forgotten power. Men and women who strutted with arrogance and confidence, who believed Abuja was their inheritance, who shaped destinies and destroyed others, now live in obscurity, nursing ailments or nostalgia. Their portraits hang in dusty corridors, and their legacies lie buried under the newer noise of current officeholders.

In Nigeria, power is not merely a tool; it is a costume. It transforms men into myths, breeds sycophancy like bacteria, and isolates the bearer from reality. The Nigerian brand of power is not always about service but about spectacle. It is performative, hierarchical, and addictive.

Ex-NUJ leader to donate kidney to Sonia Ekweremadu

A local government chairman behaves like a mini-emperor; a governor struts like a monarch; a minister like a demigod. The distance between authority and arrogance is often measured only in motorcades. But behind the tinted SUVs and designer agbadas is a truth most powerful people refuse to confront; power has an expiry date.

The same crowd that hails you today will mock you tomorrow. The same newspaper that splashes your face across its front page will write your political obituary in the past tense. Power does not belong to anyone; it only borrows faces for a season.

Few stories embody the fragility of power like that of Ike Ekweremadu. A man who once walked with kings, dined in Buckingham, and shaped the Nigerian Senate from the lofty seat of Deputy Senate President. A lawyer, a statesman, a scholar, who could have imagined that the man who shook hands with the Crown Prince would one day be confined within the King’s prison?

Ekweremadu and David Nwanima, the alleged organ donor

There is irony here, not of mockery but of meditation. The same British soil that once celebrated his diplomacy and intellect would later judge him by the same laws he once admired from afar. It is not about guilt or innocence alone; it is about the wheel of time. The crown prince has become king; the senator has become prisoner. Seasons changed; the script flipped.

And in that transition lies a message for every Nigerian who holds power: Nothing stays forever. One’s today of influence can become tomorrow’s cautionary tale.

Look across the decades; from the era of the military junta to the democratic experiment and count the titans of yesteryears. Where are the once-thundering voices of the Senate, the flamboyant governors, the “indispensable” party leaders, the “godfathers” of power? Many are gone, silenced not by bullets but by irrelevance.

Power, like beauty, has a cruel mirror it fades, and when it does, no amount of nostalgia can repaint it. The same Nigeria that worships you today will forget you tomorrow. The followers who sing your praises will switch allegiance to the next dispenser of largesse.

And so, the story repeats: a man becomes a senator, a governor, a minister; he builds mansions, basks in praise, travels in convoys, and issues decrees. But when time comes calling, as it always does, he realizes that even the mightiest are only custodians of borrowed breath.

Ecclesiastes says, “To everything there is a season.” There is a season to rise, and a season to fade. But wisdom lies in knowing that power is not possession, it is stewardship.

The Nigerian political elite often forget this. They treat office as inheritance and the people as property. They mistake tenure for eternity. But time, like truth, has no loyalty. It will humble you in ways you never imagined.

Power, when stripped of purpose, becomes a mirage. It gives the illusion of control but cannot stop aging, cannot buy sleep, cannot silence conscience. It cannot stop the day your convoy no longer arrives, when the sirens go silent, and your name becomes a memory spoken in past tense.

To the Ekweremadus; may grace find you in your humanity. May the harshness of fate not erase the good you once did, nor the lessons you now embody. You have become a mirror for the powerful and a sermon for the proud. Your fall is not just a punishment; it is a parable.

Every society needs its reminders, and you, perhaps unwillingly, have become one. You remind us that power is not a shield; that even the mighty can bleed; that yesterday’s handshake with royalty does not guarantee tomorrow’s freedom.

This is not about one man; it is about us all. About every Nigerian in power today who believes their name will never be forgotten. It is a warning written in living letters — that the throne is only rented, never owned.

For every leader, the time will come when the cameras stop flashing, when the aides stop bowing, when even the phone stops ringing. Then, what remains? Character. Integrity. The memories of how you used your time in the sun.

And so, let every leader pause. Let every powerful man and woman in Nigeria look into the mirror of history and ask: when the season changes, when the spotlight dims, when your convoy no longer parts the traffic, what will remain of your name?

Because in the end, all power stories in Nigeria, no matter how loud, end the same way: “Once upon a time…”

And so, we ask again, in the haunting echo of the name itself —Ekweremadu — did one agree with mankind? May Nigeria win!