I have been asked this question several times since Muhammadu Buhari won the March 28 presidential election. Not because the enquirers really need an answer that will be of any benefit to them, as I later found out. It is mere rhetoric emanating from the excitement of the moment – a feeling of being part of history.
But, talking seriously, dear reader, where will you be tomorrow? I take it for granted that you know what is on in town. Buhari, soldier, farmer, administrator and politician, will take the oath as President at the Eagle Square in Abuja. Millions around the world will watch on television the ceremony, which will symbolise the change Nigerians voted for on March 28.
Just before the big show, it is fitting and proper to revisit this innocuous but loaded question in relation to some of the actors in the President Goodluck Jonathan administration. Where will Dr Jonathan be tomorrow? Eagle Square? No. I guess he will be somewhere watching it all on television or taking a rest after all those long sanctimonious farewell and thanksgiving services.
For those debating his future, Dr Jonathan gave them more than a clue last week when he said he would be a “peace ambassador”, a statesman preaching peace. Will he be going to Iraq? Syria? Kenya? Somalia? Burundi? I really don’t know.
Sir, not so fast and cheap, a cheeky reporter said. “Your wife, we recall, recently proclaimed herself Mama Peace and before the nickname could stick, she had mounted the rostrum to tell your supporters to stone your opponents,” said the fellow, adding rather insolently: “Is statesmanship a fedora (Resource Control) hat to be snatched off the rack and decked just like that? Is it petrol that can just be bought at the black market? No.”
In his warped view, Dr Jonathan should return to the classroom to oblige students of his experience, telling them how a man of humble background, a man not many gave a chance and a man not given to struggling for anything was catapulted to the dizzying height of the highest office in the land only to bungle it all like a novice, beg for forgiveness and dare the new administration to probe him. He said yesterday that Buhari should extend the probe to previous administrations, how “oil wells, marginal fields and oil fields” were allocated. Easy, Mr President, easy. Statemanship beckons.
In the alternative, said the fellow, Jonathan can simply go back to rustic Otuoke, relive those shoeless old days and revive the family’s age-old trade of boat making.
Incidentally, Elder Godsday Orubebe – remember him? The one who became the subject of beer parlour jokes after his thuggish attempt to disrupt the collation of the presidential election results failed – had last week advised the Ijaw to return to their God – given trade of fishing and gin making. Words of elders are, indeed, words of wisdom. He spoke at a seminar organised by the Ijaw Professionals Association in Lagos.
Where will Femi Fani-Kayode be tomorrow? Thankfully, it is a public holiday. The courts will be closed. He won’t need to be there in pursuit of his desperate battle to stave off jail for alleged money laundering. I guess he will be watching it all on television even as he rues the day he took up the job of a presidential Rottweiler. Forget all the I-have-no-regrets braggadocio in newspapers. A little bird tells me he has been in a foul mood, frowning, flouncing and floundering since Jonathan lost the election.
Fani-Kayode’s partner Dr Doyin Okupe – where in the world has he been? – must have calmed down now, dazed by the reality of a Buhari presidency, after he had sworn that the man would not take the prize. He too will most likely be sitting in front of his television set, cursing his poor luck. Or be busy in a gym, according to a close associate who pleaded not to be named because of what he described as the confidentiality of the information.
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the one with the bombastic title of Finance minister and Coordinating minister for the Economy, probably has a first class ticket tucked away in her handbag. She will likely be set to return to Washington for a handshake, a pat on the back for playing it by the book. On her way to the airport, she is sure to be confronted with crowds and queues of people tearing at one another in a suicidal bid to get petrol. She will find long rows of jerry cans and people, among them some of the proud owners of the N5b stoves – ah! What a great investment – just delivered to the Presidency, struggling to buy kerosene. Apocalypse? Not quite.”Petrocalypse”? Yes.
So much for the champion of rebasing and all those exotic and esoteric obfuscations.
But, trust Nigerians; in the pains of the fuel shortage the fecundity of their minds has found hilarious expressions.
I have seen on the Internet a picture of movie star Funke “Jenifa” Akindele holding a bicycle on one hand, a helmet on the other and saying: “Thank God for my bicycle. Wonder how I would have got to church today.” And somebody passed a comment: “In these high heel shoes?”
In yet another posting, there is the picture of a man sleeping in the night, his right hand on a jerry can full of petrol and the other on his power generator, the type popularly called “I better pass my neighbour”, chained to his bed.
In another posting, an Alsatian dog stays on guard over a jerry can of fuel that is chained by the owner to his window’s iron burglar proof. Another had a big padlock on his car’s fuel tank cover.
A fellow suggested cynically the other day that petrol will soon be part of the items to be demanded at marriage engagements by some wily in-laws. You never can tell.
Jonathan, said a colleague of mine, has decided to turn us all into trekkers for Buhari – a curious parallel to those who have embarked on trekking to Abuja to mark Buhari’s victory. Many have queried their integrity. How were they feeding on the way? Were there no robbers on the highway? No sore feet? No wild animals crossing the road? Anyway, isn’t this an unusual season of unusual actions?
Former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Adamu Muazu is somewhere in Singapore where doctors have been telling him to take it easy. I am told he has no life threatening ailment, just a post-electoral defeat trauma which the doctors have assured him will not lead to long-term neurosis.
Those who are anxious to rebuild the PDP have forced him to throw in the towel. Muazu is not likely to return tomorrow. The mere sight of Buhari on the podium, taking the oath of office may cause a fatal relapse.
Chief Tony Anenih has surrendered his chairmanship of the PDP’s Board of Trustees (BOT). I am told he was yielding the position to Jonathan, who is said to have turned it down. His admirers have said “the fixer” should have tarried a little longer before taking what they describe as a precipitous decision. They are wrong; the chief is experienced enough to know that when a blind man ceases to hear the noise at the market place, it is all over; he will pack and go home (apology to the late Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola). Will he be watching the TV? I really can’t say.
Where will Interior Minister Abba Moro be tomorrow? A source tells me how busy the minister has been, supervising the jobs and promotions bazaar at the Immigration Department. Those who got injured in the March 15, 2014 jobs stampede in which no fewer than 18 youths died, have lost out in the scramble for space in the department, despite a presidential directive that they should be employed. They have been dumped for those who have the right connections.
The minister, many have suggested, should be made to explain whose idea the huge cash-for-jobs scam was. Have they refunded the cash they got? How do we prevent this kind of mass murder in this era of change? Remember it was a major campaign issue during the general elections.
Moro will surely look morose tomorrow as he follows it all on television.
When Buhari was proclaimed winner of the election, a friend of mine, an accountant with an exceptional culinary skill and taste, called a party at his Magodo, Lagos home. I understand another jollification is afoot. I hope to be there as we celebrate CHANGE, just before the serious business of clearing the mess to pave the way for the great future Nigeria deserves.
Where will you be tomorrow, dear reader?
