The race over who becomes the occupant of the Presidential Villa in Nigeria has begun in earnest ahead of the 2015 polls. In a calculated effort to yank President Goodluck Jonathan off his closet in Aso Rock Villa, to either declare his intention now or non-interest in the presidential poll, lots of harm is being done to the country’s image by some of our unscrupulous politicians, who are known for their grandstanding.
Although, as a person I detest politicians as a group, yet I must confess that I still respect a handful of them.
President Jonathan, while speaking during the dedication of the All Saints Anglican Covenant Church, Mpu in Aninri Local Government Area of Enugu State, south eastern Nigeria, built by the Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu. The President “asked those Nigerians who are bent on pulling the nation down on account of their dissatisfaction with the political set up to have a rethink, saying political leadership is transient and there is no need for people to fight over it”.
He said those who are not too comfortable with any particular situation in government should patiently wait for the expiration of the tenure of the holder of such a political office and vote him out rather than engaging in violence that would have adverse consequences on the nation.
The President told the congregation that what should be uppermost in the minds of Nigerians now is how to join hands to build the nation, saying he is committed to making those little things that would make a difference in the lives of the people.
According to him, one major desire he had on assumption of office as President, was to sanitize the flawed electoral system which had made Nigeria a laughing stock among the comity of nations, stressing that he had succeeded in effecting a positive change which could make votes really count in elections”.
Worried by the way and manner the country is been bashed in the name of politics, I am forced to ask the country’s security agencies to act now, before we are faced with another Somalia or Afghanistan. My reasons for asking our security agencies to act, is that, it will be a relief, if our security outfits could assist us as Nigerians in urinating on the roses of some politicians. A little misdirected urine is not going to upset the political and economic balance of life in the country. The action of the security agents will assist Nigerians in deciding who among the groups presently jostling to occupy the country’s presidency come 2015 is really worth voting for. As far as I am concerned, the pious hypocrite among the people seeking to occupy our country’s highest office, honestly, deserved a good thrashing in 2015.
Before my intentions are misunderstood and misinterpreted for ethnic and religious purposes, let me try as much as possible in this fiction, to create an artistic impression of the scene, which I would ordinarily want our security agencies to re-produce, before or during the forthcoming elections, so that the ordinary Nigerian could be free from the strong hold of our political charlatans.
It goes thus: Senator Abu Emeka Oduwa of the land of old had other problems, though he’d tried to forget them.
Nine years earlier he’d toured Southern Africa to find some facts. As always, he and his colleagues from the National Assembly flew first class, stayed in nice hotels, and ate lobster, snails and bush meat garnished with pepper. They drank bottles and bottles of chilled champagnes all in an effort to study poverty in Africa and to get to the bottom of the raging controversy brought about by corruption. Early in the journey, our distinguished Senator met Niketi in Pretoria, and, feigning illness, decided to stay behind while his colleagues in the Senate and House of Representatives continued their fact-finding mission to Cape Town and later Zimbabwe and Botswana.
Her name was Niketi, and she was not a prostitute. She was a twenty-year-old secretary at the Nigerian Embassy in Pretoria, and because she was on his country’s payroll, Senator Abu Emeka Oduwa, felt a slight proprietary interest. He was far away from Abuja, from his wife and five kids and his constituents. Niketi was stunning and shapely, and anxious to visit and study in Nigeria.
What began as a fling quickly turned into a romance, and our distinguished Senator had to force himself to return to Abuja. Two months later, he was back in Pretoria, as he told his wife, for pressing but secret business.
In nine months our distinguished Senator made four trips to South Africa, all first class, all at taxpayer expenses, and even the globe-trotters in the Senate were beginning to whisper. Our distinguished Senator pulled strings with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja and Niketi appeared to be headed for Abuja.
She never made it. During the fourth and final rendezvous, Niketi confessed that she was pregnant and as a Catholic, she cannot abort it. Our distinguished Senator stiff-armed her, said he needed time to think, and then fled Pretoria in the middle of the night. The fact-finding was over.
Early in his Senate career, our distinguished Senator, was a fiscal hard-liner, had grabbed a headline or two by criticizing the Nigerian Security Agencies for wastefulness. Ade Bunu Ibok Head of Nigeria’s Security Agencies, said not a word, but certainly didn’t appreciate the grandstanding. Ade Bunu Ibok had dirty and implicating files on hundreds of politicians, past and present. As a group, they were an easy bunch to trap. Place a beautiful young woman in their path as bait, and you gather some nasty things for the file. If women didn’t work, money always did. Watch them travel, watch them crawl in bed with some of the ladies that work in the National Assembly, watch them pander to any foreign government smart enough to send lots of cash to Abuja, watch them set up their campaigns and committees to raise funds. Just watch them, and the files keep on piling and thicker. The rather thin file of our distinguished Senator was dusted off and given priority, and when he went to South Africa for the second time an agent of the Nigerian Security Agencies went with him. Of course he didn’t know it, but they sat near him on the flight, first class also, and they had people on the ground in Pretoria. They watched the hotel where the two lovebirds spent three days. They took pictures of them eating in fine restaurants. They saw everything. Our distinguished Senator was oblivious and stupid.
Later when the child was born, the Security Agencies obtained the hospital records, then the medical records to link the blood and DNA. Niketi kept her job at the embassy, so she was easy to find.
Our distinguished Senator had five children with a wife with a big mouth. They were a team.
Now our distinguished Senator is a godfather of one of the political parties in Nigeria. After lot of horse trading, our distinguished Senator has emerged as one of the presidential candidate of one of the political parties in the country. One quiet evening, after a hectic day of campaigning, his entourage settled into a motel in Damaturu, Yobe State, North eastern Nigeria, for the night rest. It was there that the Senator finally came face to face with child number six, though not in person.
An agent named Okonobo, who has been following our distinguished Senator in his presidential campaign as a journalist, had befriended a senior aide of our Senator. Now over a late drink in the hotel in Damaturu, the journalist confessed that he had something in his possession that would destroy our distinguished Senator’s presidential ambition. It was a note book, with a bomb on every page: an affidavit from Niketi setting forth the broad details of their affairs; two photos of the child, the last of which had been taken a month earlier and the child, now seven, looking more and more like his dad; blood and DNA summaries indelibly linking father and son; and travel records which showed in black and while our Senator had wasted twelve million dollars in tax payers’ money to carry on his affair on the other side of Southern Africa.
Now the deal was simple and straightforward: Withdraw from the race immediately, and the story would never be told. Okonobo the journalist was ethical and didn’t have the stomach for such trash. Quit, and not even our distinguished Senator’s wife would know.
Shortly after 1 a.m. in Abuja, Head of Security Agencies, Ade Bunu Ibok, got a call from Okonobo. The package had been delivered. Our distinguished Senator was planning a press conference for noon the next day. The high profile Presidential Candidate, our Distinguished Senator is gone. Good riddance.
These are the kind of political scenes; I would want to see as 2015 beckons.
E-mail-gabrielomonhinmin@yahoo.com.
