Corruption has changed its name
If jealous zealots would allow us, we should shout hallelujah! Sai Baba has ordered the justice minister to investigate corruption allegations. For those ignorant of how things work in government, order must be given if you must breathe. That is why evil servants always begin letters with ‘I am directed’. You don’t have to know […]
If jealous zealots would allow us, we should shout hallelujah! Sai Baba has ordered the justice minister to investigate corruption allegations. For those ignorant of how things work in government, order must be given if you must breathe. That is why evil servants always begin letters with ‘I am directed’. You don’t have to know who gave the directive, but now you could hazard a guess.
Everybody knows how hard our president has been working since he assumed office. He started work with a body language that was said to have sent shock waves into the corruption cesspool that is the Naija bureaucracy. Then, in spite of his frail but apparently strong frame, Mr President revved up the planes bequeathed to his frugal lifestyle by President Jones and traversed the entire globe, using his famous turare to attract investors.
Forget the wicked assertion of the cynics that not even the much-touted Chinese deal to be denominated in Yuan has materialized. Most cynics live abroad anyway and rely on PDP relatives who never give them the right picture to heckle government. Alhamdulilahi Sai Baba is undeterred. After visiting the ancient city of Rabat, Sai Baba has added a Moroccan deal to the equation. But the only thing the cynic see as worth celebrating is how the Nnamdi Azikiwe presidential wing was parked to extension with royal planes. It was a bitter lesson for those who think that eleven presidential jets are too much for Africa’s most populous joke. The Moroccan monarch also came in with a modest entourage of 300. The last time Sai Mama bought her ticket to shore up the Naija gallery at the UN with her beautiful daughters, sniggers would not let us rest. After the Moroccan visit, they were permanently shammed, shamed and silenced. In a matter of months, half of the Europeans, Russians, Americans and the emerging super rich Chinese would be making Naija the world’s most favoured tourist destination. Bring a few dollars to Naija, and you’re a confirmed millionaire. Yes, they may have to take a life insurance at home before coming and invest in life vests and special bulletproof helmets. Nothing drives tourists to a destination like the ability to get away with anything just by flashing a few dollars. We are truly on the road to mend except of course we are way too bent.
The foreign enemies of this regime, who use their foreign passports and their cheaply available mobile data to heckle government would soon be disgraced in Wuse market when residents of Dubai begin to queue up at our embassy in Abu Dhabi just to marvel at Buhari’s promised land. We expect that they are battle inoculated after watching the trend in their neighbouring nations of Yemen, Syria and Iraq. So, they don’t need to be worried about the state of security or the lack of it. Usually foreigners are immune from the vagaries of daily subsistence in Naija. Only the lives of locals are not worth much, which should interest anyone wanting a license to use real human beings as target practice in 2016 and beyond.
When tourists flash a few dollars, they could shame Jan Seski, the American doctor who shot into limelight for killing Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwean lions are worth way much more than IDP kids who sleep on empty stomach (ssshh, do not let Garba Shehu hear this); while companies loyal to regime friends make millions cutting invasive grass in the camps. May the enemies of Babachir Lawal, Abba Kyari and Ibrahim Magu live long to see what they become in Sai Baba’s cabinet of saints.
Corruption has changed colour, it is not corruption if you have close ties with Sai Baba. In the chemistry class of Sai Babarians, whenever the water of corruption mixes with the oil of Sai Baba’s integrity, the water must sink for the oil to rise and burn.
Those who accuse Magu of renting a convict’s home should publish a house built in Maitama that came from sweat and toil or forever keep quiet. So what if Magu lives in a convict’s house, do they want him to live in the hovels of Karmo, Kado, One Man Village or Zuba?
Sai Baba has ordered investigations into these allegations knowing fully well that confidence in his transparency could bleach any scarlet garment of sin associated with his friends. The rest of us may be ignorant about it, but Sai Babarians swear by it. I hope that Sai Baba would order an investigation into how the best of our young officers are needlessly killed in the boko haram insurgency that was technically defeated in December last year. It’s time to make General Saint Tukur Buratai the first Field Marshal of our victorious army, except that there may be confusion if a general has to salute his General C-in-C. As Kanawan Dabo would say, in transparency, ko da mai ka zo, Sai Baba ya fika. For those who pretend not to speak the Hausa lingua franca, Sai Baba’s transparency is ahead of you – supra-naturally!