|
Obasanjo's Fuss Over Soludo's Wardrobe By Nduka Uzuakpundu President Olusegun Obasanjo may need to keep a close watch on Professor Charles Soludo - the Governor of the Central Bank. Reason is that Soludo's fixed - and quite striking sartorial elegance is well out of tune with the gripping lean economic times that the country is going through. His hopeless taste for expensive, black three-piece suit - and well-seated penchant for natty appearance: shiny shoes, a very low hair-cut and well-polished dentition; are indexes of Soludo's private ambition that he belongs to an entirely different economic milieu. Not the present one by Obasanjo, which calls for a decidedly low profile. Thus, it is difficult to explain Soludo's sartorial elegance, especially in the face of the conclusive evidence of the austere - and woefully unapplauded dressing taste of aggressive and unsmiling Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo -Iweala. Whereas Okonjo-Iweala believes - and swarm of law-abiding Nigerian consumers with her - in budgetary austerity - as glowingly demonstrated in her record-breaking feat in making Nigeria the first African country to pay all her debts to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and helpless taste for Nigeria-made ankara, Soludo's unrivalled predilection for natty mien tells where lies his priority. It makes one wonder, though, why Soludo - an ordinary economist - should dress in more expensive attire than Okonjo-Iweala, who, in any case, is his boss. Although Okonjo-Iweala, may be the last person to frown upon Soludo's sartorial elegance - in the mass, because she's too busy trying to curb financial waste, in the interest of budgetary austerity - and so save more money for the treasury - there appears to be, at least, an instance of a prima facie case against Soludo: the imperative to have him divulge how much he budgets for his wardrobe. His buoyant and astronomical craving for shiny, black three-piece suit and well-polished shoes is incongruous with the financial astringency, for which the Obasanjo administration has won international acclaim. Perhaps, it may interest Obasanjo - in his position as a caring and concerned father - to invite Soludo to Aso Rock, for a tête-à-tête - in the course of which he should compel "my dear son, Charles", to defend his rather curious taste for expensive three-piece suits. And whatever his response, Obasanjo should insist that: "henceforth, Charles, you must follow the foot steps of your sister, Ngozi. You have to conduct yourself as a true Nigerian - and as a true patriot and an economist, who is desirous of seeing that this administration's programme of industrial recovery succeeds; with our small - and medium-scale enterprises running at full capacity, and the naira behaving as a strong contender in the international currency market. I would like you to slough this taste of yours for expensive three-piece suit, not because I am jealous of your neat and winning appearance, but it's just that, sometimes, I wonder how you feel in those expensive foreign attire of yours, even when the sun is most unforgiving, or when NEPA . sorry, it's like I'm still living in the past . . . whenever the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) 'takes light'''. "I will very much like to advise you, that in your own interest, you should emulate your diligent sister, Ngozi, whose modest taste portrays her as a better patriot and more sensible economist, because she dresses and looks like a typical disciplinarian - and a Nigeria woman at that. She wears ankara, not only because she wants to promote Nigerian goods, and shave off some percentage of unemployment, but because she's hell bent on her solo effort to re-define the country's code of dressing, especially for any future occupant of her highly exalted position. Suppose you switch over to my camp, where agbada is the modern, but cheap and winning taste? I can link you up with my very efficient tailor, who will be glad to sew different styles for you, at a very good discount. And, with you in my camp of wearers of agbada, I'm sure that we'll wallop your sister, Ngozi, in the present undeclared competition for the expensive trophy for simple dressing. That way, you and I would have started a new sartorial revolution in the country. Otherwise, the alternative, but less expensive, advice that one may offer, is that, with effect from the next anniversary of your appointment as the head of the apex bank, you should start dressing as a typical red-cap chief from one of the hamlets in Igboland. I will be more pleased with that than this your three-piece stuff." "Your fixed appearance in three-piece suit, as if you are a foreigner, presupposes that you are a good material for the organised private sector. And I can imagine you coming first in an unrigged competition to find out which one amongst the country's swarm of professors, economists and bankers has the most appealing and expensive taste for sartorial elegance. But, tell me, Charles, what is the price of this very three-piece stuff that you are accoutered in? I mean how much you bought it. What is the amount in dollars? Where did you buy it? Was it at behind Mandilas on Lagos Island or Alaba International Market or Onitsha?" Obasanjo should leave Soludo alone! He should stop harassing him over trivialities. It is a free, democratic and sartorial world. If the Obasanjos and Okonjo-Iwealas elect to dress modestly, Soludo has a right to be sparklingly different. In case Obasanjo doesn't know, Soludo has assiduously sown the seeds that amply justify his peerless taste for sartorial elegance. In any case, how much matter is it, if - in a show of his rich harvest from those seeds that he planted outside Obasanjo's farm - Soludo spends N25,000.00 - a 'chicken change' by any professorial or banking standard - on a strip of textile called tie! Obasanjo and his cohorts, who are jealous of Soludo, should bear in mind that he's a shy and soft-spoken professional, who treads the path of peace. He belongs to a special class. He's a rare breed; a banker of distinct qualities, who has a peculiar taste. For that, Obasanjo should stop bearing him hard. If Obasanjo feels so bad for Soludo's ingrafted love for three-piece suit, the professional tiller of the earth that every Nigerian voter and tax-payer admits he is has a constitutionally-guaranteed, inalienable right to embark, right away, on what may promise to be an award-winning campaign for a new national, presidential, sartorial elegance, by dressing ruggedly - like a typical, professional farmer from a hamlet - somewhere in Yorubaland - in tattered calico or ragged ankara to Aso Rock. Soludo won't care a hoot! Obasanjo's camp, which swarms, rather dangerously, with anti-Soludo elements, should note that the banking world has little quarters for the austere taste of those who, whatever they say is their defence, prefer to accouter themselves in ankara. Soludo's God frowns, quite awesomely, upon poverty. The manner, in which Obasanjo has been conducting himself, since it felled on him that Soludo the Dilly personified sartorial elegance, smells of unpresidential envy - and undemocratic ingratitude. Obasanjo has, to this day, refused to congratulate Charles the Great on his N25 billion merger-acquisition feat in the banking industry, simply because, as he told his sister, Ngozi, at the end of the last National Executive Council meeting, "he's not a member of my professional tribe." The widely held suspicion, until then, was that Obasanjo might say it was for "his naked disloyalty to my democratic leadership, just like that traitorous thug who calls himself Atiku." Besides, in place of probing into Soludo's privacy, by posing such childish questions as to how long it takes him to put on his three-piece suit, how much weight he nets, when he is well-fitted in it, how long it takes him to squeeze himself out of it and, amongst others, whether, it's, indeed, the gospel truth that he's a regular caller at a particular shop - owned by a popular red-cap chief - which is celebrated for its inexhaustible stock of second-hand, three-piece suits - located somewhere behind Mandilas, Obasanjo should be grateful that the professional banker in Soludo has done one of the rarest assignments that could make Charles the Great proud: there's so much confidence in the banking industry, now, that, not only are foreign portfolio investors rearing to pump their money into the country's political economy, there's, also, an undeclared rivalry amongst the chief executives of the newly-consolidated banks to see who comes closest to Soludo. Which is why tailors and importers of three-piece suit are boundlessly happy. The first economist to head the CBN has rightly consolidated his sartorial elegance amongst bankers. His sister, Ngo (zi), has proved, quite remarkably, that you just have to be uncompromisingly aggressive and sullen, if you must succeed in instilling a culture of budgetary austerity in the Ministry of Finance - and have, not only a gargantuan national debt paid, but, somewhat miraculously, win back, as well, international respect. Both siblings have set national records: Ngo (zi) has brought some divine and miraculous blessing to the country by dragging it out of what, on till now, was regarded as a hopeless debt peonage - by tying a strap of tattered, second-hand ankara on its neck; her equally diligent brother, Charley, has re-structured the banking industry, so as to ensure some durable peace therein. Night-night to the era of distress. Thus, flamboyant Soludo, who has chosen the path of non-violence, should, for one, advise Obasanjo that instead of bothering, unnecessarily, about his sartorial elegance, he should, as a latter-day Abel, flood the Nigerian market with cheap, locally-produced food items. That way, Obasanjo, who, until recently, had been stubbornly opposed to Okonjo-Iweala's tattered third term bid, may take the sheen off Soludo's fossilised nattiness.
*Nduka Uzuakpundu is a Lagos-based journalist |