A Final Wake-Up Call

By

Kombo Mason Braide, Ph.D.

kombomasonbraide@msn.com

Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Baba, You Dey Kampe:

Struggling to reconcile the ever-widening gap between what General Obasanjo’s special assistants claim to be true, and what is actually true, is getting progressively harder, and harder by the day. Fortunately, Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (retired) made a timely, even if disquieting, diagnosis, backed up by hard facts: Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, has been overwhelmed by a band of extremely Machiavellian religious fundamentalists.

On the administration’s two defining populist slogans – anti-corruption and revamping the Nigerian economy - the former military governor of Kaduna State painted a scathing portrait of a cabal of tiny-minded zealots, stubbornly refusing to allow anything as trivial as fact, evidence, or the truth to get in the way of their dogmas, and unshakable forgone conclusions. To be precise, according to Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (retired), Chief (General) Olusegun Mathew Obasanjo (retired) is a failed elder statesman in disguise. Simple!

By the way, blackmail is the weapon of first choice in all Nigerian conflicts, particularly political manoeuvres. Predictably, the presidency did just exactly what General Sani Abacha or ex-Freedom Fighter Robert Mugabe (The Megalomaniac of Harare), would have done: i.e. desperately build up a dossier that is based on a farrago of dubious facts, twisted half-truths, circumstantial quarter-truths, and/or even outright lies, just to fit a predetermined outcome. Why let distractions like “reality” get in the way of a perfectly good excuse for sycophancy-boosted official propaganda, backed by executive verbal diarrhoea? The picture of Aso Rock Villa, teeming with religious fanatics, gets even clearer with Colonel Umar’s depiction of Obasanjo’s dogged predilection for mindlessly invoking the name of God Almighty, at minimum provocation.

Before we go any further, one vital piece of advice for the Aso Rock attack dogs, now unleashed on Colonel Umar (retired): If, (as usual), they want to disparage his credibility and integrity by resorting to rudimentary blackmail, they have to work pretty harder, and come up with something far better than what one of Chief (General) Obasanjo’s quixotic personal praise-singers tried to do recently. Of course, Holy Ghost Fire Fighter Femi Fani-Kayode painted Dangiwa Umar as a cross between Beelzebub, Jezebel, Delilah, and Lucifer. (Wow! what an anti-disestablishmentarian freak!) Anyway, whether or not the Aso Rock mob listened to him, certainly, Colonel Umar (retired) listened to them, and now he is doing exactly what the Obasanjo administration painstakingly makes an obsession of not doing: i.e. telling Nigerians the bitter truth about what their government has been doing.

The true believers surrounding Chief (General) Obasanjo are all devout disciples of the first commandment of the Obasanjo faction of the PDP, the Obasanjo Praise-singers’ Cult (OPC), headed by Pastor Femi Fani-Kayode: “Thou shall not rock the OBJ boat. Always ensure continuity for Baba, no matter the cost to you or the greater good of Nigeria”. They have all drunk very deep of the “nascent democracy ogogoro” jar, and simply do not give a hoot about any debate on the subject matter of Obasanjo’s divine attributes, or on any other subject for that matter. According to Holy Ghost Fire Invoker Femi Fani-Kayode, to disagree with a God-ordained, heaven-certified, messiah-compliant ruler like Chief (General) Obasanjo is to truly really hate the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Moreover, in classic fanatical fascistic fashion, there is a glaring betrayal of utter disdain for Nigerians who assert their fundamental right of dissent. Is it actually possible for the Obasanjo presidency to so badly misunderstand what 21^st century Nigeria, or, indeed, democracy, is really all about?

It is a measure of how rather simplistically the so-called young Aso Rock radicals have framed the political culture space in Nigeria, with their warped conceptualisation of personalised “opposition”, “criticism”, and “disloyalty” as the very roots of all that is evil. Suddenly, even staunch pro-establishment figures like Alhaji (Major General) Mohammadu Buhari (GCFR) and Lieutenant General T.Y. Danjuma (GCON) now come across like progressive radicals, in comparison. The most alarming observation from Colonel Umar’s revelations is the sad truth of the total failure of leadership on Mr. President’s part.

At the very moment that Obasanjo’s re-election cabal was gearing up to bombard Nigerians with massive doses of fabricated images of their divinely conscripted President as a macho, heroic General, who would keep Nigerians safe from armed robbers, assassins, “illegal bunkering” mafias, treasury looters, and coup plotters, here comes a mere Colonel Dangiwa Umar with his devastating assessment of a whole General Obasanjo, more or less, as a drunken blind teacher in charge of a room full of deaf pupils. Will this be the wakeup call that finally opens the eyes of Nigerians to the deadly consequences of being governed by a disengaged dolt in the hands of a gang of cheeky religious extremists?

Mad Goat Disease:

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq’s irrepressible former Minister of Information, and official mouthpiece in the dying days of the regime of ex-President Saddam Hussein, is fast becoming a major cyber-celebrity on the Internet, thanks to what fans see as his great sense of sick humour. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf became the subject of fan sites, spoof web logs, merchandise (like coffee mugs, and T-Shirts), and even petitions to get him his own TV show with the BBC.

While most of the international press took al-Sahaf semi-seriously, and a lot of the public dismissed him simply as a pathological liar, many perceived something else in his words: a unique but bizarre brand of humour in the face of overwhelming tribulations, and impending defeat. Al-Sahaf’s patently absurd claims about the course of Gulf War II, his florid insults against the USA, and the fact that he appeared to be about to bust out in laughter, showed that, in fact, he was enjoying an outrageously sick private joke. Actually, the minister was making fun of his own bleak predicament.

As US marines approached Baghdad, al-Sahaf nearly burst out laughing as he said, “The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad”. As American soldiers stormed central Baghdad, al-Safah dismissed the grenades and gunfire around him as a simple media trick, in which US President George WMD Bush (The Younger) manufactured a media-centred war, in order to deflect a nagging domestic scandal, post-election rigging in Miami, Florida, in the presidential elections of 2000.

Incidentally, al-Sahaf studied to be an English teacher and a journalist. He is from Iraq’s Shiite minority. And although he held a number of ministerial and diplomatic posts under Saddam Hussein, he was not an insider. In fact, it has been suggested that the former Iraqi regime regarded him as dispensable, giving him the unenviable job of holding down the fort while others escaped. Al-Sahaf's current whereabouts are unknown.

If al-Sahaf survives the Iraqi edition of the War on Terrorism (worldwide), he clearly has a bright future in advanced public relations, and image laundry. He is precisely what Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, needs right now, and that appears to be Holy Ghost Fire Prayer Warrior (Pastor) Femi Fani-Kayode’s current role in the Nigerian presidency. The guy is a classic comedian.

The “Cat-and-Mouse” battle continues.

Kòmbò Mason Braide (PhD)

Friday, 13 February 2004 @ 5:14 pm.

Reference:

1.     Umar, A.: The Devil Is It, Mr. President”; An open letter to Chief (General) Obasanjo (retired) by Colonel Abubakar Umar (retired); ThisDay Newspaper; Leaders & Company Ltd, Lagos, Nigeria; (Friday, 23 January 2004).