Obas, don’t spear our president

The gory scene at the Ooni’s palace was supposed to be a campaign stop by the embattled PDP presidential candidate who was paying a visit to Obas in Osun State. The Ooni assembled 50 of them to welcome the president and after some welcoming speeches, the obas stood up to bless the august visitor. President […]

The gory scene at the Ooni’s palace was supposed to be a campaign stop by the embattled PDP presidential candidate who was paying a visit to Obas in Osun State. The Ooni assembled 50 of them to welcome the president and after some welcoming speeches, the obas stood up to bless the august visitor. President Jonathan then knelt down in their midst while they surrounded him, each oba pointing his sharp staff of office – a sword – towards the president’s scalp. For the next five minutes they shouted some incantations with the raised swords. The president was totally helpless because his eyes were closed and his cap was off his head.
Many people were asking why a committed Christian who has been to virtually every church in Abuja in the last two years should partake in a pre-Christian era ritual such as this one. Some people even alleged that hot on the heels of this ritual, President Jonathan could be on his way to the Okija Shrine in Anambra State since its rituals are not very different from the one he just underwent in Ile Ife.
My puzzle is who was it that posted this picture on the web for the entire world to see that pre-Christian rituals come alive and well in Nigeria during election season? You won’t believe it but it was Reuben Abati, the President’s special adviser on media and publicity that posted the gory photos. Abati even added a comment in Yoruba “Bi e ti wi lo ma ri,” that what will be, will be. He did so in the firm belief that the picture held the potential to turn around his oga’s political fortunes in the all-important South West ahead of the presidential polls now less than three weeks away.
Well, it may not. Instead Abati’s slip has landed Jonathan into another swirl of controversy, with one newspaper carrying front page pictures of the event side by side with the president’s kneeling down before Pastor Enoch Adeboye and another picture of his praying intently at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. It said, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Indeed you can’t. After participating in this Okija-like ritual, which church will like to welcome Oga Jonathan again?
 
School building without the schoolgirls?
Coordinating Minister of the Economy and all-powerful Finance Minister Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala apparently thought she did a swell campaign job at the weekend when she sneaked into Chibok with the help of the army and laid the foundation for the rebuilding of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, which was destroyed during a Boko Haram raid last year. I say “sneaked in” because neither the Borno State Government, which owns the school, nor Chibok community leaders living in exile in Maiduguri, were told beforehand of the visit. The army ferried Madam in under heavy security; she hurriedly laid the foundation stone and, just as hurriedly, jetted out.
What an embarrassment it must have been when Chibok community leaders later said in a widely publicized statement that their priority is not rebuilding the school but to get back the more than 200 schoolgirls that are still held by Boko Haram a year after their abduction. Who will fault them? For a parent whose child was abducted from a school and held in a terrorist camp, what is the use of a classroom block however tastefully rebuilt and furnished? Which one is more important, classroom or students?
We have seen many examples in Nigeria that a school can exist without classroom blocks as long as there are students and teachers. They can sit under trees and learn, for instance. Madam Ngozi, is it the World Bank that told you that you should forget about the abducted girls and rebuild classrooms? Who will put his child in that school again unless we see the safe return of the abducted Chibok girls? I am not surprised. World Bank priorities are always upside down.