Say it! Recant in your own words! Let the whole world know!”
“Say what?” his askance eyes popped out.
“Go on!” he jeered, a glint of triumph in his mocking eyes. “When the going was tough, you were blabbing: Obama ti d’abamo o! Obama ti d’abamo o!” [Yoruba twisted pun, which could mean Obama has turned a joke or regret]. “Now that Obama has earned a second term, you must recant. Really,” he declared, rubbing it in, “you must!”
“O, that! But it was only an election!”
“Yes, it was. But you swore Obama would head back to his Kenyan Luo tribesmen, by the time the Republicans had finished with him!”
“But asodun n’iyen now! [That was just sweet talk!]. I was only jiving.”
“No, you looked earnest enough! Why don’t you admit it?”
“Okay, okay. I goofed. You win.”
“Better!”
“But you must credit the American electoral system – so transparent, even when they had challenges, as those voters in Chicago who gave up after hours of trying, because the computer crashed.”
“Yes, you’re right,” he admitted, nodding.
“But did you see the celebrating Kenyans? Obviously, the irony was totally lost on them.”
“What irony?”
“You mean you couldn’t get it?” It was the other’s turn to lase his partner with a triumphant glint. “Could a Luo man, a hapless minority, ever likely to become president in Kenya? And what rebuke Obama hands the Kenyan president!”
“Rebuke?”
“Yeah. President Mwai Kibaki was, for donkey years, a victim of electoral heist and political repression, during the Kenyatta and Arap Moi years. Yet, he replicated these same despicable conducts after he himself became president! See how he virtually forced the Kenyan electoral chief to declare him winner, even when the poor man could not vouch for the tally he announced? Can you imagine that?”
“I think it is an African curse.”
“African curse? You’re dead right!” he agreed. “Even here, all our leaders falling over themselves to congratulate Obama, with their mealy mouthed, empty and annoying cant. Have they ever learnt anything from the American democracy which they jump on the bandwagon to celebrate? I mean!”
“As for that,” the other conceded yet again, “I think our political elite are beyond redemption. But you know, Obama’s victory speech was fine. What blew me out, however, was Mitt Romney’s concession speech. It was simply majestic and brilliant, and after such acrimonious campaign! When would our politicians concede defeat with such grace and such majesty?”
“When the hurly-burly is done, when the battle is lost and won!” he said with laughing eyes. “But the problem is the Nigerian electoral battle is never lost and won; and the hurly-burly is never done: not with the pre- and election proper rigging, and post-election bickering, not to talk of the mindless violence that comes with the electoral territory!”
The other burst out in a guffaw. “I can feel you: professor of Macbeth and Shakespeare expert! Indeed, it is a classic case of how not to run a democracy!”
“But you know my real heroes of the Obama victory?”
“Who?” the other wanted to know.
“The WASP: White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, the American landlords and majority, since the discovery of the so-called new frontiers, after which they made savage mincemeat of the native red Indians and took over their land. But now,” he added with a sardonic, sententious air, spiced with laconic wit, “the WASP have an electoral wasp to contend with. They sting hard and take no prisoners! That is what has gifted Obama the American presidency for two terms – some historical comeuppance?”
“You know, you have a solid point there. Very solid point!”
“Yeah, I know!” he returned with a wink. “While a slice of the WASP voted for the other side, the minorities solidly voted for their own. Now, what sort of democracy is that, where the minority could band together to lord it over the numerical majority? Is democracy turning from majority rule to conspiratorial rule? I just wonder!”
“Don’t be so alarmist and sinister!” the other quickly cautioned. “It’s only two elections, in an electoral history of more than 200 years for God’s sake! Your generalisation is too sweeping.”
“You’re right; and I’m sorry, if I sounded alarmist. But I just wished one day, voters here too would behave like the American WASP – be enlightened and broad-minded enough to vote for quality and conviction and not be rabble-roused by passion and primordial sentiments. It makes democracy all the more beautiful!”
“I agree. But here, it is a different kettle of fish.”
“Meaning: that angels live in America and baboons live here?”
“Of course not – and don’t be silly! It is just that unlike America, even with its bias against the Black and even other minorities, there is a national consensus on how the state should be run. Here, it’s far from that – and the chaos at elections is only a symptom of that political anomie.”
“Meaning your favourite pitch for a national conference?”
“And why not?”
“I don’t see why not. But the regnant political elite would rather push their luck. To them, Nigeria is a gambit to be pushed to breaking point.”
“That is why we must not fold our arms. Nigeria is damn too important to be left solely to the politicians and power racketeers.”
“I agree, but back to the US elections. Obama, faced with a formidable foe and dead heat poll forecasts, told his electors that in four years, he had rapidly aged working for them – and he was evidently believable, for indeed he had aged, and his hair had turned grey out of punishing work.”
“And if I may add,” returned his partner, “Obama was not the first to be sentenced to such excruciating work. It took President Bill Clinton just 100 days in office to grow a shock of grey in his hair and develop bags under his two eyes – bags of glory he has carried till today!”
“Now my friend,” the other added, “show me the Nigerian equivalent of Obama or Clinton: straight-from-prison Mr. Anti-corruption, Olusegun Obasanjo, who left the presidency with rosy cheeks but bequeathed his country the gaunt cheeks of his Abacha gulag days? Or even present incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, under whose unsteady hands Nigeria faces a meltdown, yet whose hand couldn’t be steadier in his pursuit of a 2015 encore …?
“Your point, precisely?” the other snapped, almost rudely.
“That the presidency, or any other public office for that matter, is no booty to be enjoyed but service, service and ceaseless service to be endured. That, to me is the lesson of American democracy and the triumph of Obama, who our shameless leaders crow is the pride of the Black race – which indeed he is.”
“Again, I agree. They admire Obama so much. But can they pay the Obama price, in selfless and quality service?”
