Between Yar’adua, Jesus Christ and Obasanjo

When I screamed from the rooftops and took immense risks to let Professor Soyinka and his SNG, and just about anyone who cared, know that all their lampooning of Umaru Yar’adua was in Obasanjo’s favour, I was shouted down.  Now Umar has departed, but we are left with more problems.  Umar has gone to rest, […]

When I screamed from the rooftops and took immense risks to let Professor Soyinka and his SNG, and just about anyone who cared, know that all their lampooning of Umaru Yar’adua was in Obasanjo’s favour, I was shouted down.  Now Umar has departed, but we are left with more problems.  Umar has gone to rest, away from Nigeria’s myriad ‘issues’, away from an ungrateful and unthinking people, and we have allowed Obasanjo to now restart the business of riding roughshod on the people.  Could Soyinka, with his Nobel Prize, and Bakare, in all his loquaciousness and their co-travellers in the so-called civil society, and the shallow-minded journalists and editors that we celebrate in Nigeria not see beyond their noses? Or perhaps they were part of the plot to take Nigeria to another cliffhanger.  How could Soyinka have worked for the same people in PDP whom he referred to as ‘NEST OF KILLERS’, after they whacked his friend, Bola Ige?

Then Obasanjo came out blazing again, poopoo-ing the idea of zoned presidency in his mega-party creation – the PDP.  He forgot quite conveniently that he rode to civilian presidency on the blood of MKO Abiola.  Things like that don’t mean much to the great Obj; it could as well be that he bathed with the blood of a million Nigerians.  But if there is God, his games will come to nought one day.  Has anyone ever wondered why bad people live long and the good ones – like Umar Yar’adua, and his brother, Shehu, go so soon?  Somehow, God continues to use Obasanjo to torture this country.  He was in the saddle when crude oil prices hit an all-time-high but we have nothing, but a few crony billionaires and more poverty, to show for it.

True, it is good for someone from South-South (Jonathan) to ascend the presidency.  But anyone who gets to the position of president in this country, should just simply represent, and think for, the entire country.  But this line of reasoning can only be understood by the educationally savvy among us, who are in the minority. One great flaw of democracy is that the majority will always have their way, into perpetuity.  And that is why it makes sense to have things like ‘zoning’.  If we don’t adopt such a ‘primitive’ recommendation, the ‘North’. The ‘Muslims’, the ‘Poor’, the ‘Uneducated’, will always have their way FOREVER in Nigeria, because they are undoubtedly in the majority.  ‘Zoning’ is indeed an arrangement that favours the South of Nigeria, and the minorities.

Obasanjo is simply uncharitable and dishonourable. He has always been someone to disparage others, and like MD Yusuf said recently, he is out to destroy this country except someone stops him.  No one will anyway, for the powerful USA is in cahoots with Obasanjo, to create another civil war situation in this country, so that they can come and sell some arms and drop bags of flour and rice, to us SAVAGES, from the skies.  But again, if there is God, he will one day deliver his people. I use the word if, for one’s faith is often shaken, when bad people have their ways in this world, and the innocent suffer.  Indeed we live in a world where the saints are daily guillotined, executed and jailed, while war criminals, illegal weapons dealers, absolute frauds, are conferred with Nobel Prizes. What a laugh!

Then I received a call on my way to London, from a friend recently. He had been to my house a few months ago and I tried to convince him, with no success, that Yar’adua was not the problem, but a part of the solution.  My friend will have none of my arguments, for Soyinka, Bakare, the press and the entire Nigerian intelligentsia had convinced him that Yar’adua was holding the nation to ransom and his wife, Turai, was the devil incarnate.  People travelled down to Abuja to demonstrate and engage in an irresponsible blame game and celebration of tribal and religious hatred unfortunately spearheaded by my people, the Yorubas.  My friend called to ask me why people are now writing about Yar’adua after his death, as if he was Jesus Christ.  

The deification of Yar’adua is increasing in his death and I am so thankful that God has called him to rest, free from earthly pains and the rank stupidity of his people.  Nigerians used to lampoon him for not attending United Nations meetings and so on.  But if they want to know, Yaradua knew he was a marked man and so the number of places he could visit safely were terribly limited.  Still, he trudged on, but at the end of the day, they got him.  Just like they did Abacha.  Or Lumumba. Or Sankara.  In fact, just as they did anyone who tried to put ideas in the heads of black Africans.  The only men who are still riding the bull as it is, today, are Muammar Ghaddafi, Hugo Chavez and to a lesser extent, Vladmir Putin, Dmitri Medvedev and Mahmud Ahmedinejad, none of them black Africans.  How far they can go, no one knows.  Only a suicidal person pitches a war with a well-organised, strategic EMPIRE.  My approach with the reigning superpower, is conciliatory.  I respect and fear the USA, and because it is a nation built on strategy and intelligence, it may end up as the longest-running world empire.  But for Nigeria the future is quite bleak and I will have to write an article soon titled ‘USA/BARACK OBAMA, LET MY PEOPLE GO’.

Those who are now writing about Yar’adua as if he was Jesus Christ, or Julius Caesar, are not too far off the mark.  Like Jesus, he hardly uttered a word in anger, even when people called him all sorts of names.  Like Jesus, he was humble, simple and gentle to a fault.  Like Jesus, he never believed in acquiring the world, but in giving of himself.  Like Jesus, he was surrounded in death, by the poor and downtrodden.  He was buried without frills and gold caskets which evidence vanity.  Yar’adua is more Christian (lived like Christ), than the millions of materialistic Nigerians who throng the churches every Sunday, just to go and ask God for more money.  Our ‘Christians’ showed once again, that like the Jews of old, they will do more than crucify the Christ if they had a chance.  I hope Yar’adua’s tormentors feel great with themselves now.  I hope all their life problems are now solved.  I hope they find other ‘devils’ with which to replace Turai and the ‘cabal’, for of necessity, they need devils in their lives; to hold them down perpetually.  Like we say in the ghetto; ‘shame to bad people!’