“I will tell my daddy for you” is one line I daily overhear my children threaten one another with. And it is a line that readily comes to my mind, as I compile the long list of persons and happenstances to report to our robustly recovering President Muhammadu Buhari, now that the circus of visits has started.
But, before I begin to update our president, let me say I’m still angry that we’re still playing politics with this matter of the president’s health.
Why, for instance, was it only APC governors and leaders that were invited?
Now, I’m beginning to think a video would serve us better, than a still photo, where the president is seated still and smiling for the camera.
But, at least, this is not nearly as stomach churning as that purported national Ramadan broadcast in Hausa.
Even at that, ‘men of little faith’ are alleging that the photograph must have been taken in Abuja during the last Ramadan. They readily site the Coke and the fruit drinks, all of which look very local to us here.
But the believers counter these arguments, adding that Coke is a universal brand, with largely similar cans and packaging. They also pick out the banana (which all the guests are staring at, without eating).
They say the banana is definitely London banana – that it’s too yellow to have come from Nigeria. Of course, the proponents of this banana theory may not have ever visited Nsukka and Obollo-Afor, to see finer-looking, more appetising and more yellow bananas.
But, come to think of it, if our convalescing president could be obliged his therapeutic ration, is that why the others are using fork and knife to eat banana? Haba!
But, don’t get me wrong; I do not doubt the lunch-in-London photo. I’m just worried that most of them in the photo, instead of eating, are staring at the president, whose fixed smile does not portray him as eating either – just putting up his best face for the camera.
And they’re all drinking fruit juice a Coke (jedi-jedi) and water. No red wine! No sparkling wine! Chai! That must have amounted to torture for, at least, two of the guests. I won’t name names.
But then, what were you guys expecting on the president’s platter? The head of Queen Elizabeth? But that’s just by the way.
Mr. President, while you were on treatment table, Boko Haram grew new teeth – although the army told us over 700 of them surrendered. Chibuike Amaechi and Magnus Abe left Nyesom Wike and began to fight themselves. I don’t know if the gods are angry with one or both of them.
But even that has not reduced the wars Wike is fighting. In fact, when you return, you’ll have to think out a way to give Wike and his brother, Ayo Fayose, their own country. Haba! If they’re still this ‘stubborn’ at this age, you can then imagine what they would have been in their younger days – or what trouble they could have caused in their poor mothers’ lives if the women did not give birth to them.
But they say the truth most of the time o! It’s just that they don’t seem to understand that it is not every truth that must be said.
Mr. President, I must also report the judiciary. While you were away, the Supreme Court judges (spoil sport, all of them) did you a huge disservice. They ruled unanimously in favour of Senator Ahmed Makarfi’s PDP faction. By so doing, they frustrated the final collapse of the PDP – even after we were already grinding the beans to fry the symbolic memorial akara.
Now, the justices have left your in-law, Modu Sheriff, stranded with the script talebearers alleged you gave him to act out, at Wadata Plaza.
But don’t lose sleep over this, my dear president. For the PDP has contrived a fresh war from the peace that was handed it on a platter, by the ‘partisan’ jurists. The former ruling party, true to type, is bent on sacking some people and punishing others for going to court. It is talking of “amnesty” (like those who supported Sheriff committed a heinous crime).
Like Gowon did, after the civil war, they have declared no-victor, no-vanquished. But, like in Gowon’s case, it exists only on paper. The victors know themselves and the vanquished know themselves – and each knows that the other knows what it knows. Meanwhile, they’re pretending to be making up.
Oga PMB, while you are in London, the state governors have also been organising, rigging, officiating and adjudicating in what they have told us is local government elections.
If you were around now, Mr. President, you would have asked Saraki and Ekweremadu to use the opportunity of this constitution review debate to scrap the state independent electoral commissions. But that would be putting too much on your already overloaded platter.
And, lest I forget, the Prof. you put at INEC also had the effrontery to register even more parties. And they are so emboldened now that about 15 of them are now hallucinating about ganging up against our dear APC in 2019.
Your Excellency, I won’t know if they told you that we’ve caught one phantom called Evans. Yes, we did. And he has been singing like cannery. But the children kidnapped from a Lagos model secondary school are still with kidnappers, even after N31 million ransom has been paid.
So, Mr. President, also consider creating a new republic, to be named Republic of Badoo, to cover Ikorodu (Lagos) and part of Ogun tate. Since all the God-fearing people have long vacated their homes in Ikorodu, we can save ourselves the headache of administering the place and just abdicate it to kidnappers and cultists – the same way we gave up Bakassi to the Cameroonians.
Oga, lest I forget, floods also visited while you were on the sickbed. But for divine intervention, the flood would have relocated the whole of Lekki and Victoria Island to Benin Republic. You may consider adding a yacht or two to the presidential fleet before you return.
The floods also came to Suleja (dangerously close to Aso Rock). In fact, if all the predictions of the weather men had come to pass, you’d probably return to see that the Villa is now somewhere between Okene and Kaduna. I know you wouldn’t have minded, as that would mean you could work directly from Daura – moving from ‘ze oza room’ straight into the office.
The only trouble there, however, is those parts are home to too many angry Nigerians – kidnappers, herdsmen, armed robbers and even Kogi state workers, who are owed several months of unpaid salary.
And talking of Kogi, Your Excellency, Dino Melaye is still in the senate o! Maybe, when you come back, you can encourage INEC to recall both the senator and his governor, so Kogi can have peace. Welcome back to life, sir!