At one celebrated point in Roman history, politics achieved its most efficient form of chaos: the Triumvirate. This informal, world-altering arrangement saw Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marcus Crassus share power in a partnership so “stable” that it eventually required a civil war to resolve its internal disagreements.
Two millennia later, one is tempted to conclude that Nigeria, ever creative in its political adaptations, has upgraded the model. If three men once sufficed to unsettle a republic, five now appear adequate to sustain a permanent season of commentary, contradiction, and competitive self-reinvention. They have become the butt of dinner-time jollity among Nigerians.
Thus emerges the Nigerian Quintumvirate – a carefully assembled ensemble of public commentators and jesters whose greatest achievement is the consistent production of verbal fireworks in opposite directions, often within the same news cycle. They represent a Janus-faced phenomenon: looking simultaneously forward and backward, speaking today’s conviction with yesterday’s certainty, and tomorrow’s denial with equal confidence. The membership is distinct: Bayo Onanuga, the Cleon of the group; Daniel Bwala, the Tai Mohammed of the group; Femi Fani-Kayode, the Agadiekwemka of the group; Reno Omokri, the Alcibiades of the group; and Kenneth Okonkwo, the Onuku of the group.
Together, they form Nigeria’s most active museum of ideological elasticity. For them, conviction is a revolving door; loyalty is less a principle than a seasonal wardrobe, adjusted according to the prevailing political weather.
Their defining talent lies in the art of the pivot. Today’s categorical rejection of a position arrives with the same fiery confidence as yesterday’s passionate endorsement. The transition is so seamless that one suspects either an extraordinary intellectual evolution or a highly efficient memory management system that deletes the past upon request.
If Rome had its triumvirs, Nigeria has delivered a Quintumvirate of five leprous fingers – a system where consistency is optional, certainty is negotiable, and the only permanent position is the next one.
To truly describe these five, one must look to their ancient philosophical ancestor: Carneades. Who was he?
In 155 BC, this Greek philosopher was sent to Rome as an ambassador. To the astonishment and eventual alarm of the Roman elders, Carneades demonstrated the ultimate fluidity of opinion through two consecutive lectures. On the first day, he delivered a brilliant oration in praise of Justice, arguing it was a natural virtue and the essential foundation of civilization. The Roman youth were spellbound. On the second day, he returned and, with even sharper logic, dismantled everything he had argued the day before. Justice, he now insisted, was merely a matter of convenience; if Rome truly practiced it, the city would have to return its conquered lands and revert to an unremarkable village.
Carneades did not merely argue both sides; he made both sides look foolish in turn. In that mirror of brilliance without permanence and conviction without anchorage, one finds the philosophical silhouette of the Quintumvirate. They represent a perpetual motion of argument, where certainty arrives fully formed only to be expertly unmade by the same hand.
