People are talking and saying that What Turai did was mere childsplay that we are about to see the mother of all First Ladies in 9ja ! READ ON: Shocking Revelations await
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It used to be that our government officials, their wives, aides, and hangers-on were prolific in the exercise of poor judgment and the making of horrible choices that always exacted a terrible price from the rest of us. When I read newspaper reports last week that Mrs. Patience Jonathan had travelled to Dubai and Beirut “on a private visit”, I concluded that our nightmare had just been made worse. It means that these fellas ruining our lives in Abuja and the state capitals have now graduated from the congenital exercise of poor judgment that afflicts all of them, to an outright assassination of judgment.
Let’s dispense first with some of the half-witted commentaries of the ponces of power that have been running riot on the Internet. Dame (the title maniacs have quietly introduced the ‘Dame’ thing in the media) Patience Jonathan, we are told, has the right to travel anywhere privately as a free citizen of Nigeria bla bla bla and more bla. Fine. The emergency contractor-defenders of the civil rights of the First Lady should please remind her not to use the presidential jet for the Abuja-Lagos leg of such private trips next time. Once the Nigerian taxpayer foots the bill of any part of the First Lady’s private trips, it is our responsibility to make our basketmouths to start dey leak again - apologies to Fela.
Of all the destinations that Patience Jonathan could have visited on this horribly ill-timed and unbelievably ill reflected “private trip”, it had to be Dubai, an increasingly popular money laundering route/destination for Nigerian politicians, government officials, and their courier-wives and concubines. And this is a Patience Jonathan who is still waiting for her day in court for corruption charges bordering on money laundering (by the way, her EFCC indictment file must not disappear)! Pray, when your neighbours suspect you of stealing the dogs in the neighbourhood for 404 purposes, must you be heard boasting of your affection for puppies in the market?
It gets worse.
Our friend, Elder Chief Stakeholder James Ibori, was apprehended by Interpol in Dubai. One week later, Patience Jonathan is on the plane to Dubai. Is there, by any chance, any of the handlers of the Jonathans who was thinking correctly?
The couple has a retinue of aides and advisers responsible for the packaging of their every move. We need to know which of them thought it was a great idea for the Patience Jonathan to head out to Elder Chief Stakeholder Ibori’s embrace in Dubai at this most inauspicious of times.
Ibori’s embrace? Am I perhaps stretching metaphor and speculation? You bet I am! I am more than happy to help the Jonathans ruin the little goodwill that ushered them into Aso Rock since squandering that goodwill appears to be their first order of business. And that is precisely what Nigerians are doing online. It’s an orgy of wild speculations out there. What does Elder Chief Stakeholder Ibori know?
What is the nature of the beans he is threatening to spill to the Dubai and British authorities that may have warranted presidential pacification? Does he perhaps have more embarrassing details on that little matter of Patience Jonathan’s money laundering wahala? Who knows what the Yar’Adua cabal revealed to him about the Jonathans when he played godfather over Aso Rock.
There is also considerable Internet chatter about madam having gone on a jewelry shopping spree. All the chatter about going to pacify Elder Chief Stakeholder Ibori or waste our money on jewelry is deserved. That is what you get when you have a Presidency that has been so perennially clueless in the management of public perception. Segun Adeniyi and his crew perpetually mismanaged the public perception of the Yar’Aduas. They were so incompetent that they couldn’t even tell coherent lies to the Nigerian people. Ima Niboro and his crew don carry dem own come. Not one of them suggested to their Oga and his Madam that this woolly-headed trip couldn’t have come at a worse time?
Beyond Internet chatter about the ill-advised trip to Dubai, it does appear that we, first lady-weary Nigerians, will once again have to contend with the spectre of that unconstitutional assault on our sensibilities. Patience Jonathan is already showing all the symptoms of a looming no break no jam first ladyship. There is always a competition to surpass the last occupant of that constitutionally non-existent office in overbearing showiness, gra-gra, and ostentation.
What is wrong with Nigerian men? Why do they find it so difficult to tell their ever ambitious madams that our Constitution does not recognise their predilection for transforming oga’s political office into a divahood launching pad? Every time someone gets selected to office, they make a heck of a noise about not tolerating the first lady aberration, only to get to the bedroom and sing a different tune to madam. After Maryam Babangida, Miriam Abacha, Stella Obasanjo, and Turai Yar’Adua, Nigerians are more than ready for a return to the first ladyless days of Shehu Shagari and Muhammadu Buhari. Deopka Goodluck Jonathan must therefore be advised to exercise no patience with Patience on this matter.
By Pius Adesanmmi
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