MALALA WILL KNOW

This is a good weekend for me. I am revelling in an aha moment. Sometimes all you need is not to force something to work your way, but to find out how best a thing works. I have discovered how best Jonathan works. I have wasted the past year trying to get Jonathan to respond to my WhatsApp messages. I even tried to get his BB pin, but he wouldn’t add me. And it’s not just me. Oby Ezekwesili has been screaming herself hoarse at the Unity Fountain trying to get his attention, which earned her the title “psychological terrorist”.

However, when 17 year old Malala got on a plane and came to Abuja, I heard he ironed his best overalls with spray starch, didn’t drink, wore his prescription glasses and got all his aides to work overtime. As soon as he set eyes on her, he started talking, telling her everything, the things she wanted to know and things she didn’t really care about. Like apologising for the creases on his overall and for wearing the same colours all the time. He swore, by all the gods in the Niger Delta, that she had no reason to get angry with him, because he was doing his very best.

I appreciate this, because as long as a confession is made, it does not matter who that confession is made to. All that remains is for Oby Ezekwesili and the rest of us noise makers to channel our grievances, protests, questions, hashtags and tweets to the right office – the Malala Trust. Henceforth I will advise that requests should be made directly to Malala and copied to Jonathan. Tweets seeking the President’s attention should end with the hashtag #MalalaWillKnow. I’m not sure that Malala will have time to handle all our requests immediately. But I know one thing, when she does get round to handling it, our president will take immediate action.

After writing so much to Ebele Jonathan, I’m afraid for my career. I like to believe that I’m a good student of history. Sanusi wrote to Jonathan, he lost his job. Nyako wrote to Jonathan, he lost his job. Obasanjo wrote to Jonathan, I am sure that if he had a job he would have lost it too. For the sake of my job, I just want to tell Jonathan what we used to sing during football matches as kids: ‘Ba fada ba ne. Wasa ne.’ Rough translation: ‘No be fight.’

Speaking of Nyako, I hear that the old soldier disappeared right after he was impeached for having a monopoly on corruption, together with his four wives and children. While I agree that deregulated corruption would have saved his job, I am more interested in Nyako for other reasons. First, I like mangoes and he owns the largest mango farm in the country. And next, he was somehow able to summarise his four wives into one office of the First Lady. In fact, it has been reported that in the appointment letter of the chief press secretary to the First Lady, signed by Mr John Manassah, the SSG, it was stated that he was appointed ‘as the chief press secretary to the wives of the governor’. And you know, I want to be like Nyako when I grow up: 71 years old and still able to perform conjugal duties with four women. I am certain that if his heart was able to withstand that quadruple level of activity, then we don’t need to worry about how he will take his impeachment. But as an aside, what happens when a man upon whom four women (not counting concubines) depend on for sex, suddenly disappears? Can Adamawa afford to have that many unsatisfied women? Is this what Jonathan wants? Really?

Rauf Aregbesola has been on the campaign trail, begging the people of Osun state not to vote in Senator Iyiola Omisore, who was once at the centre of allegations in the assassination of Chief Bola Ige. I know the incumbent governor has reason to take his campaign very seriously, especially after the recent loss of his brother-governor Kayode Fayemi. But Rauf has nothing to fear. Even without uttering a word, his face and beard are sufficient campaign promises. They tell a story. And while people may look at Omisore’s face and think ‘See this big man’, they will look at Rauf’s face and go ‘See what life has done to this man’.

Apparently, 67 live giant African snails were seized at the Los Angeles International Airport early this week. The snails, which were coming from Lagos, made US customs officials panic and say that it was ‘the first time this pest has been encountered in such quantity’. Instead of sending it back where it came from, they proceeded to burn the snails alive. I just want to say that I’m disappointed in Jonathan. Of all the bad things he did this week, known and unknown, I find it most unconscionable that he would stand by and watch a national delicacy being called a pest. Why do we have a president, if 67 giant African snails can be burned to death with not so much as a response from Africa’s most powerful leader? Where are the animal rights groups that held global protests against the Chinese Yulin dog meat festival, because dogs were being ‘cruelly bound, confined, and slaughtered’? Which is worse: the meaningless torture and killing of 67 giant African animals or Chinese guys who slaughter dogs for consumption? I will send a memo to Malala on this. I trust Jonathan will listen to her.

Ps. My heart goes out to all the women, and boys of Borno still held in captivity by Boko Haram. Especially the school girls of Chibok who have spent almost 100 days in captivity. I cannot begin to imagine the havoc each day spent in insurgent camps wreaks on their lives. My thoughts are also with the bombarded Palestinians who have endured decades of military occupation, land seizures, blockades and death from the apartheid Israeli government. More especially those in Gaza labouring under the less than competent leadership of Hamas who by their ineptitude play into the ready hands of Israel and put Palestinian civilians at risk. In war, except perhaps for people dealing in arms, there can be no winner.

WHY WE NEED OUR FIRST LADY'S TEARS

If ever I had any doubts that Goodluck Jonathan has been avoiding me, those doubts were cleared this week. I was watching the news when John Kerry, speaking on behalf of the American government, said he had placed a call to Goodluck to offer his support and that Goodluck went on his knees in gratitude. My sources further informed me he called the President on the same MTN line that I have been trying unsuccessfully to reach him on. Immediately I heard this, I scrolled through my phone contact list to see if I still had the number and when I dialled it, I got the same response I had been getting since I declared my candidacy for 2015- nothing, but a caller tune. So an American will call him and he will pick, but a fellow presidential candidate will give him advice and he will ignore. I want to remind Jonathan that there is God. I also think a president shouldn’t be using noisy caller tunes.

So I have been going out to protest every day in Abuja on the #bringbackourgirls campaign. As a presidential hopeful it is important to lend my voice to the global cry to release the abducted girls of Chibok. I am also getting street credibility by being on the march every day. I have long complained about being marginalised by security forces when they arrest activists. Sadly, this protest is not the type one gets arrested for. As if that is not bad enough, on Wednesday I was sitting at the protest when Dino Melaye drove in with a car whose likeness I had never seen before. As I write I am still trying to use google to find out what type of car it was. You will recall that I had earlier written about how God had blessed Dino’s activist hustle in spite of all the wife battering and luxury fleet of cars (Dino01- Dino10) scandals. Tuface said, “who God have blessed no man can curse”. I say “which activist hustle has been blessed, no columnist can curse”. You remember how God smiled on Dino by sending an overzealous policeman to arrest and detain him during a protest against our ‘armoured-car’ aviation minister. And even though the arrest turned to be about some other issue, the news reported what the news reported: Police Storm Activist Dino Melaye’s House For Protesting Against Aviation Minister. I don’t have a problem with Dino attending the same protest as me. Hustle and let hustle is all I am saying. Because the chances of me getting arrested and boosting my activist credentials are greatly reduced if there is a flashy Dino granting interviews about a campaign he just joined. Hustle and let hustle.

I watched the First Lady harass people from Chibok at a meeting in a video that has since gone viral. This has made me amend a lot of my proposed policies. As president I will insist that INEC conduct a separate election for spouses of gubernatorial and presidential candidates. Because if a first lady is going to be able to set up a committee to investigate abductions and order people to appear before her or worse get arrested, then we should have a say in bringing her to power. I am still working out the technical details, like what if we elect a man but his wife loses? Would we be able to do a wife swap in the event that the wife of a different candidate wins the first lady election? In that case we might need a law declaring that intercourse resulting from a marital merger during elections is not to be considered adultery.

At this point however, I want to reiterate one of the points in my original manifesto. I have declared that if elected I will not marry. This makes me clearly superior to the other candidates who have wives waiting to become parallel dictators. I promise to defy every ‘settling-down’ bone in my body and keep my relationships simple; an unofficial partner at best, who will visit on the weekends. And like I said, no, my partner will not sleep over at the villa. Because that is how one gets roped into marriage, to the detriment of a whole nation. Imagine the headlines: “PRESIDENT IMPREGNATES GIRLFRIEND. PRESSURED BY FAMILY TO MARRY.” God forbid that such a thing should happen. God forbid that a first lady should truncate my presidential hustle.

But so that I do not sound ungrateful, let me thank Her Excellency, Mama Peace, for contributing precious presidential tears to the #bringbackourgirls campaign. Imagine, the first lady of the United States just posed with a cardboard sheet and every one was retweeting her photo. Our first lady cried. Broke down and cried into a white handkerchief. Let us pause and consider the significance of this. Crying is the ultimate symbol of mourning, but crying, tears or no tears, into a white handkerchief says: I mourn, but as a believer I have hope, I see the light, I see better times ahead. I don’t know how people missed this. I guess it is easier to hit retweet on a photo of Michelle Obama holding a cardboard sheet than to analyze the immense significance and symbolism of Patience Jonathan crying into a white handkerchief. Me, I choose to be patriotic and do the latter. And no, I refuse to discuss whether or not there was menthol on the handkerchief. Because I care.

Ps. I am a believer in the saying that size doesn't matter. Size shouldn't matter. I was thinking about this when an Abuja biker, in all his fancy apparel decided to make the loudest sound as he passed by us doing a sit-out protest by the roadside.  Instead of anger at interrupting our meeting, I felt an inadvertent sympathy for him and his apparent need to compensate for some other thing missing in his life. I haven't figured out what he was missing. But I still believe this and that people need to be reassured that size doesn't matter.