The Road to India

If Sai Baba leaves the shores of Naija on Thursday without inaugurating the long awaited (and hopefully) already approved federal executive council; we, the fanatical supporters of change would see nothing wrong with it. The nation has been on autopilot since the devolution of power from Shoeless Joe Clueless and the heavens did not fall. It would align with the character of the legislathief arm, which has taken more holidays than it has making laws and are buying early-bird tickets for their well-deserved Christmas recess.

The demise of Gani Fawehinmi has robbed the nation of the position of special auditor of presidential junkets. Fawehinmi heckled Baba Iyabo’s penchant for jetting out at the drop of a hat, not knowing that he is prone to dangerous tyre bursts on the roads he didn’t mend. I could imagine privileged family members and friends of the presidential air fleet crew invoking Holy Ghost fire on anyone that would stop their breadwinners from making those regular trips. The exotic gifts from all over the world are not things you want to toy with.

Seriously, not every ruiner can adopt the reclusive nature of Sani Abacha who in eight years would rather host people than visit them. There are those who swear that he would have lived longer and increased Naija’s pariah mileage if he had agreed to fly to Germany for every malaria or bout of tonsillitis. He saved us the forex that paid for Baba Iyabo’s junkets. Abdulsalami Abubakar who could have enjoyed that privilege found the seat too hot to handle. B esides, he was weighed down with the burden of contriving an unworkable parody of a presidential system on Naija people to find the time to fly. But his enemies would swear it was actually the fright of flying that bade him do the crossover from the air force to the army in the first place.

If the trend continues Sai Baba may beat Baba Iyabo and Joe Clueless to the title of most travelled president of Naija. Initially, he used to fly austere, leading to conjectures that he might rehabilitate and turn Naija Airwaste into the African version of Easyjet. Psychological quacks wrongly interpreted that Sai Baba’s body language to mean he had received consultation from Joyce Banda who auctioned Malawi’s only presidential jet to fund more pressing national needs. But Sai Baba was only exhibiting a style of modesty needed by anyone on the verge of inheriting 16 presidential jets. Once in the saddle, he did not waste time debunking the claim it makes sense that if we do not manufacture planes, we should have no problems collecting them.

To those who wickedly insinuate that nothing has come off Mr. President’s junkets other than photoops one of which nearly ruined Rochas Okorocha’s already bad reputation, I have an answer. At 70 plus, there’s every need to have a gallery of famous handshakes at the Villa. Sai Baba has gone to London to visit both the Queen and the Prime Minister; he has been to Europe to drop a shopping list for the people who underdeveloped Africa and he has made a few trips to America for that coveted handshake before Obama becomes a footnote of history.

With the uncertainty over who clinches the American White House in 2016, this Obama photo-op is quite auspicious. It is now widely known (although officially denied) that Sai Baba is shy with women; so, if Mrs Clinton becomes the next POTUS, religious requirements might prevent that handshake. As for Donald Trump, he won’t be shaking hands with anyone likely to send shiploads of immigrants to his country even if that person was wearing gray gloves.

So by tomorrow Sai Baba would be jetting off to India for another talk shop, one with terrorism favourite meal on the menu. This is as good enough a reason as anything to go to India. It is better to fly to India than listen to noisemakers likely to disturb your siesta with the latest blasts and the attendant body bags. Oyibo calculators believe that there have been more body counts in Naija since May 28 than there were in the last year of the Jones presidency. It is not the kind of news that makes us, the supporters of change jump with enthusiasm.

So, we tend to find other issues to underwhelm the constant bloodshed. We may choose to dance agidiga in celebration with Amaechi or against Wike or retweet the new military high command’s last warnings to Boko Haram in the hope that they too would start giving warnings before they blow up disposable people. Sai Baba appears to have said his last on the Boko issue it would be expunged from the political lexicon by December, although as suggested by President Jones we would have to get used to the bloodshed. Americans have failed in helping us end our misery; with luck we may find the silver bullet talisman on the road to India.