Mujica, the curse of presidents

This is no time for reminiscing on culinary charm as the key to a man’s heart, my suave compatriot, Funke Egbemode, is best suited for weaving a serious story round the mundane without losing focus. I am looking for sabbatical tutorials.Last Sunday, my congregational pastor was away on other duties and the incredible Professor Contey […]

This is no time for reminiscing on culinary charm as the key to a man’s heart, my suave compatriot, Funke Egbemode, is best suited for weaving a serious story round the mundane without losing focus. I am looking for sabbatical tutorials.
Last Sunday, my congregational pastor was away on other duties and the incredible Professor Contey took the pulpit. A man of interesting character, Professor Contey had reason during his homily to talk about how Pentecostals pampered their pastors. He started by talking about how he was chauffeured from the airport to his hotel in a pristine Toyota; of having someone open the door for him and how, having settled himself in the ‘owner’s corner’ and belted himself down, he reached for the handle and settled for the ride to the hotel vowing to enjoy every mile of the ride.
Unfazed about the uproar he was causing, he concluded that it must be great being a Pentecostal pastor. Behind me, an African sister whispered that this is the single reason why African rulers never resign from office even when they have outlived their relevance. The sinful part of me nodded an agreement (imagine that in Gods house!).
Looks like there’s no need to count the number of grass-to-grace ruiners that African has produced. Of those who moved from prison to the presidential palace, not one called Mandela’s bluff. From pretended freedom fighters to shoeless Joes power has turned out being an intoxicant inebriating the simple. If you had no shoe as a kid and suddenly becomes the commander of eleven presidential jets, a whole nation’s army, the police, secret police and orderlies, why must you be stopped by traffic lights?
For instance, the president of Naija can host the entire Abuja without any qualms. The day Barrack Obama let’s that thought transform into action for his cousins at the White House, he must have mortgaged the future of Malia and Shasha for single coloured overalls in a state penitentiary and global outrage. So, when people call Obama the world president, they have no idea how fake the façade is.  Mama Peace recently ordered a citizen detained and the heavens did not fall. This is a thought that won’t cross the mind of Michelle.
There are presidents and there are presidents. A few days back, my good friend, Ernest Omoarelojie posted an incredible picture on his Facebook timeline. It was a story from Uganda’s The New Vision and it showed a slouching Uruguayan president, Jose Mujica taking his turn on the sitting pew of a public hospital. If that picture had been of Yoweri Museveni, that paper would have been history. Just ask the editors of Nation Media who were recently banned from state functions for embarrassing a sleeping president. In Uganda, Naija and other African states, Mujica is a curse on the office of the president. Never mind, until his country attempted to contest at the current Mundiale, Uruguay is known to few Naija people like yours truly whose best friend is a mocha-drinking Roberto Elissalde.
If you pray for a presidential aspirant (not Buhari, silly) to be a president like Mujica, you better change your return route because you cannot guarantee that they might not try to prevent you from saying another prayer. Mujica became president in 2010 and has been described as the globe’s ‘poorest president’ having donated 90 per cent of his legitimate earning ($12,000) less than somebody’s daily tea allowance to charities.  
Unlike his predecessors, he lives in a farmstead on the outskirts of the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo where he and his long time comrade grows chrysanthemums. His ‘official car’ is a fairly weather beaten Volkswagen Beetle and his neighbours are farmers. His wife and a three-legged dog share his fenceless presidential palace. If Mujica was a Kanawa, he’ll be in the Dala Asylum since he professes himself an atheist.
Not all Uruguayans like Mujica. In a BBC report, some citizens believed that a president should have some form of finesse and sophistry which they regretted theirs lack especially when addressing issues of international importance. But the political hermit has promised not to change. Don’t ask me if I like Mujica.
It is difficult to feed the simple on the aphrodisiac of absolute power and expect them to remain the same. Transforming from a man who depends on a cobbler to fix his best shoe to being able to buy Bata or Lennard’s, does something to the psyche of the African.  Not many of them can resist the allure of not outdoing Imelda Marcos, except that they never relinquish power for the Guinness Guys to record the feat. See why Professor Contey enjoyed what he called his “my fifteen minutes of fame,” not talking of the fortune.