Indulgees woke up today laughing and completely raving out of character, as if it’s the first time they had seen 2Face Idibia wearing sunglasses in the pitch of darkness because, as they would want to claim, he is covered by showbiz licence. Phew! That’s the problem with indulgees! They think because they are the prim and proper, etiquette-infused types, that everyone else should follow their footsteps! Haba!
One particularly “bad-belled” indulgee, in her effort to prolong the laughter at the Square Table, even goes as far as reminding us of the line from the Nigerian rapper MI’s song, where he gave it to one-time famous Nigerian bleached-hair singer, whom he alleged bleached his hair because he wanted people to mistake him for Sisqo, the popular American singer/rapper who was famous in the 90s. Tony Tetuila must one day get back at MI, surely! And as if that was not enough, another indulgee comes into the fray, looking all over the place like a lost Eskimo who mistakenly wondered into the hot African sun, screaming: “I’ve seen the first igloo in the sun!” That’s what politicians do to us here, telling us cock and bull stories, promising everything but nothing and ending up showing us their utter, utter incompetence!
The laughter on this particular occasion, though, is induced by the fact of this indulgee looking lost. However, there is a bigger reason why indulgees have woken up laughing their lungs out! As I do a sweeping observation across the Square Table, I can see and hear people doing LiL (laughing in loud) and LoL (laughing out loud). As Chief Indulgee, I am not in any position to begrudge them, especially because it is their own way of dealing with this insanity called Nigeria. Or is it not insane that three successive administrations (Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan) would misuse more than N1 trillion Special Funds Accounts on issuing loans to all manner of bodies, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to buy property outside the country, and to a foreign government, while irresponsibly abandoning the main purpose for which the fund was set up. What kind of country is this and who, pray, are these people called government people? What kind of leadership did these people provide and what kind is the current president providing in respect of this matter? Why is leadership in this country so, so sick in the proper place one shouldn’t be sick in (try and see if your eyes can look up your face)?
If this does not make one feel really sad for this country, then nothing will! Wonder now why indulgees woke up today laughing more than usual? Well, there’s even more. They have just realised that since the nonsense appellation called “Transformation Agenda” hit the Nigerian lexicon, the wool of deceit that it represents, especially amongst ministers and other government officials who like to use it as an ego massaging, sycophancy hash-tag (to borrow Twitter), has fallen off their eyes. I am sure you all must have had a bellyful of speeches from ministers, heads of government departments and agencies, always going parroty like this: “This is in pursuit of President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda.” Here’s a short list of them: Shabby airport remodelling is in pursuit of this agenda; agriculture without food is in pursuit of this agenda; hospitals without equipment (hence everybody, including the president’s wife, runs abroad for treatment) is in pursuit of this agenda; creating more universities like water hyacinth invading the lagoon, without properly providing for quality teaching, is in pursuit of this agenda! Haba! What kind of country is this? You wonder if there is a pool of speechwriters for these people who don’t even bother to try to be different as they continue to sing from one speech book (pun intended)!
Anyway, those are the hard facts. The laughter is accentuated by Jonathan suddenly appearing to make life difficult for the speechwriters when he declared that the so-called Transformation Agenda is not about him as a person but about Nigeria. It appears the man has become tired of sycophants! He must be sick and tired of hearing speech after speech by ministers and heads of departments and agencies that their failed projects are in pursuit of his transformation agenda. He now wishes to put a stop to that. And by just that simple stroke of a statement, various speechwriters must be licking their wounds! How are they going to write and spin the next speech for oga? Hmmm!
Politically, in Rivers State, Governor Chibuike Amaechi also wakes up and declares: “We are not part of Jonathan’s transformation agenda.” Like the Yorubas would scream, this is serious “Yepa!” moment. Who is part of it then? At a barbing salon the other day, there was a large noise about cluelessness as to where they are taking us, not to mention a transformation agenda! Pray, who and what is it transforming… or meant to transform? Indulgees are still laughing and just waiting for this man to, like Shakespeare, act out his part on the stage and quietly return to Otuoke, where I hear shoes are still not going round, not to talk of the entire country.
PHILLIP ISAKPA
08052202354
