Lamidi Adedibu:

There used to be a Lamidi Adedibu. His words were laws in Ibadan politics. He dominated Ibadan politics. Very powerful, very influential. Then, he went the way of all mortals and his Molete home became a ghost town.

Umaru Dikko:

Though a minister in the Second Republic, he was more powerful than President Shehu Shagari. He once told off MKO Abiola sometime in 1981, that the presidency of the country was not for sale. Abiola got the message and left the NPN.

He, it was, in an attempt to pooh-pooh the notion that there was hunger in the land, said that until people would start eating from the garbage dump, he wouldn't believe that there was acute hunger in the land.

Then, Buhari struck with his December 31, 1983, coup, and Dikko fled to London. In his unconventional attempt to bring him to justice for alleged corruption, the Buhari junta attempted to kidnap him in London by injecting him and putting him in a crate to be cargoed in an aeroplane to Nigeria.

His smart secretary saw what happened and alerted the British authorities, who foiled the kidnapping. Today, Umaru Dikko is gone.

Al Mustapha:

Major Hamza Al-Mustapha was the powerful Chief Security Officer to the former Head of State, General Sani Abacha. He was so powerful that even Generals genuflected before him. He was more or less the de facto Head of State. He drove the critics and opponents of his boss underground, some into exile, and some lost their lives.

Then, Abacha died suddenly, and Al-Mustapha's day of reckoning came. The Obasanjo government arrested him and put him on trial for various issues. The all-powerful Al-Mustapha was riding on the Black Maria, just like Keke, and never imagined he would spend 14 years in Kirikiri Prison.

DCP Abba Kyari:

He was a crimebuster with lots of garland for his successes. He was applauded everywhere and was even humoured as a potential IGP. Then, he stepped on the banana peels and fell, currently facing trial and in Kuje Prison.

Emefiele:

The one-time billionaire Governor of the Central Bank. He even attempted to do what was unthinkable – to contest for the nation's presidency as a sitting CBN Governor. He was that powerful.

Today, he is a shadow of his former self, facing various charges of financial malfeasance in and out of court. A fall from grace to grass.

...Right now, there is another one, in the current dispensation, behaving like the alternate president. Loquacious, erratic, pompous, arrogant. He is so audacious and inebriated with power and money that he once rode in a Rolls-Royce.

He forgot that power is like an aphrodisiac, and he has refused to learn from the men of power of yore. However, history beckons. It's a matter of time. His fall would be loud and heavy. God willing, we shall be here to chronicle the events.

Richard Akinnola