And Ethiopia insults us
Just when I was about rolling out the drums in celebration of my president’s change of heart, something shows up to break my already shattered heart. The best news that came out last week from Naija is not that the IMF is proposing a noninterest loan to Naija; it is not that Timipre Silva has had his sins forgiven him and recouped his three or 48 houses (depending on whose account you believe) in Abuja. No. It was not the ululations in the Irrational Assembly as the charges against Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu have dropped like ripe mangoes blown by the wind of change or the fact that Santa Dasuki has been rewarded with millions of our dollars by the ECOWAS court - incidentally so close to Christmas.
Last week after one year and a half of flights to remote and far destinations, my president finally took the time to count the number of planes in the hangar of the presidential wing at Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport. Never assume that it was an easy task to ditch two and keep nine. It must have been a very hard decision coming at a time when children of lesser political dispositions were stocking up on antique cars. But Sai Baba decided to sell off two of his planes - hurray!
I am not uncharitable and I would not play the role of Oliver Twist. Those who do think he should have sold nine and retained two. Others, not knowing that gbeleko (imaginary) writers were responsible for the stories attributed to late candidate GMB that he would relaunch Naija Airwaste and make it profitable instead of keeping eleven planes when we are not engaged in an air football tournament with Gulf nations. Those who lack home training even suggested that the president is suffering from amnesia. I will not insult the man Allah has re-anointed to rule over those who claim to have certificates. Tufiakpa!
You see, as the giant of Africa, we have never been known to shirk our responsibility to be our brother’s keeper. It is an open secret that we would fuel our planes and ferry the ruiners of poorer nations to global jamborees or give them a lift back home from junkets across the globe. That is the traditional expectation of a big brother in the African extended family system. Added to that, in the years of the locust; it was rumoured that those planes would shuttle to import ladies of easy virtues for weekend romps in Abuja and be returned home with pockets laden with petrodollars.
That was then. Alhamdullilah, nobody could accuse our president of being a womaniser. He has eyes only for Aisha. But even if he were to delight in delectable damsels from other lands, he would have been deterred by the perennial scarcity of aviation fuel occasioned by creek brigands and the scarcity of dollars in an economy in recession. So congratulations Mr President. Selling two out of nine may make only tokenist sense, but it is a deft move to silence professional critics whose father’s can’t afford bicycles. Once you have found a buyer for these two, kindly keep the cash in a safe so that you can buy spare parts for the remaining nine. If there are no buyers, kindly consider approaching my own sinator, Champagne Dino to up his game and start collecting presidential jets instead of antique cars that cannot be driven through the Lokoja-Kabba pothole.
I wish I could write Ban Ki Moon to counter Ekweremadu’s protest and announce with glee that, having lost your campaign promises blueprint, you are finally recollecting some of those ideas that defined change. Don’t blame me please, blame Ethiopian dictator Hailemariam Desalegn. He stole the show by surreptitiously building a 750-kilometer high-speed electric train between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. By this feat, he has opened his landlocked nation to global markets and economic power. This, at a time when Lai Mohammed is worried about who plagiarized a lame slogan and warning speculators that only he can announce which national assets are to be sold off.
This is a serious slap as most Naija equate Ethiopia with dictatorship and famine. I mean, unlike Naija where only five bloggers have been arrested and detained since May 2015, Desalegn singlehandedly detained Zone 9 Bloggers, his country does not accept international SMS and his critics say his style of governance needs a dose of perestroika and glasnost, but see what he has done.
Next time my president is in Addis Ababa, he must warn Ethiopia to stop denigrating giants. While our Harvardtrained economists vow that government has no business in business, Ethiopian Airlines continues to soar. Now its electric trains are set to conquer the continent. If Desalegn continues like this, the new improved Lugard rail line between Abuja and Kaduna may witness a lull in patronage. Desalegn should stop insulting the giant of Africa, because Allah would judge any African leader who tries to make the strides of my president look like an economic blueprint frozen in 1984.