Modesty, siren immunity & other matters

Long ago, I stopped wailing and whining over spilt milk. I also stopped complaining about the perceived excesses of our venerated political elite and those who, out of sheer envy, like to make noise over them. In the past week, I could count the number of stupid things that citizens complain about instead of facing […]

Long ago, I stopped wailing and whining over spilt milk. I also stopped complaining about the perceived excesses of our venerated political elite and those who, out of sheer envy, like to make noise over them. In the past week, I could count the number of stupid things that citizens complain about instead of facing their jobs or the lack of it. So, his Excellency, a governor’s convoy was passing. Usually in the dog gone days when soldiers held sway, roads are closed for governors before they leave the warm embrace of their wives or sidekicks. They remain closed until they finally make up their minds to use the road and sometimes remained closed until they return to their lair.
Today, things have changed because Naija people watch too much American movies while every Yoruba person has a stowaway abroad who feeds them tales by moonlight on civil rights, they whine. So, a lady with her toddler inflated the size of her car to block the convoy of Governor Tanko Al-Makura. The governor’s outrider, usually the most patient of all uniformed men leveled up to her and gently whispered to her ears – Madam, can you please excuse His Excellency the use of the road for a second? He has an appointment in Lafia and overslept as a result of the sedative he was given to prepare him for this bumpy ride.
Instead of counting herself among the lucky and pilot her car into the ditch, she raised the middle finger; her toddler’s eyes popped and a silly little girl who had just replaced her Chinco phone with an i-series began to snap away.
Now, put yourself in the governor’s shoes. But Al-Makura the gentleman ignored the seditious attitude; wound down his windows all by himself without help from his ADC, looked at the woman dressed in skirt revealing her shapely legs instead of a burqa. In other words, she was trying to seduce the governor and cause fitna on the highway an offence that could have led to the pronouncement of a lapidation fatwa. But the governor magnanimously chose the better option of valour and tongue-lashed her wardrobe sense or lack of it – shikenan o. The irate woman picked on her sister, smashed her to destroy the evidence then then began to vandalize her own car just to give the governor a bad name. Then she recruited online campaigners to start a hashtag aimed at tarnishing the bad image of the governor. What in living Lafia is the world turning into? Where is the respect that madness should elicit from sanity?
Move to Ekiti where Digbolugi Ayo Fayose apparently has a son, daintier than his father. Fayose loves populism and the noise that usually goes with it. Okay, he may not particularly be great when addressing elders, but heh, he is good at what he does either taking over from butchers, riding okada, becoming a VIO or even playing the role of a village headmaster to late comers. When he became governor for the second time, he did the unthinkable. He opened Kayode Fayemi’s swimming pool to the public with a thousand lifeguards on standby then allowed them to sleep on his bed for a night. For an inauguration car, he imported a classic Mercedes Benz, which should make Herr Merkel very proud.
But gossips have it that his son has better taste and may be challenging my own sinnator, Champagne Dino Melaye for his taste in cars. It is reported that Fayose’s son has bought a Porsche in a country where people give testimonies when they finally get a scrap metal rejected by Europe and America. A Porsche 918 Spyder would cost close to a million dollars but I know that being modest, Fayose’s son would have settled for the smaller series going for $60,000 before tax. Now, only people like me whose fathers never bought a bicycle would be jealous of such modesty.
Naija people are idle. They spend a huge chunk of their time on social media trolling other people’s humility. Flashy has levels, the other day, His Excellency, Bindo Jibrilla was in the home of Turaki decked in his resplendent babariga, yet he chose the dusty floor of Atiku’s parlour rather than soil Turaki’s dainty fauteuils with his unwashed behind. You wouln’t believe that some people found that condescending?
I understand that Mama Peace still hangs her husband’s picture in her posh hotel in Yenagoa where a plate of gari takes an hour to prepare. It also emerged that PDP states won’t touch Sai Baba’s pictures starring down at them like the Sword of Damocles. Some people find this irritating, but not me. They have now realized that it is better to loot in oblivion than under the unseeing eyes of a Sai Baba portrait. The portraits may have hidden cameras offloading pictures to the new improved EFCC or ICPC vaults. Prevention is better than cure.