Presidential Afghanistanism, what in the name of God is that? What clap trap?
But please, at least, hear Hardball out.
To start with, you know of Afghanistan, an old civilisation, rich in fairy tales, but brought into recent disrepute by Taliban stone-age men, who threw up the Al-Qaeda terrorists and Osama bin Laden, who bombed the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, USA, which resulted in a long-drawn US-led anti-terror war.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
An Afghan is a citizen of Afghanistan.
And Afghanistanism?
It is a media term for running away from urgent news at home, to feast on often irrelevant news abroad. Call it media filibustering, and you are not entirely wrong.
And presidential Afghanistanism?
Ah, that is today’s gist! And you could make concrete examples of that from the foreign trips President Goodluck Jonathan makes, and local trips he refuses to make. Call them fleeing from the hot front of presidential duty and you are not entirely wrong.
Yet, Goodluck Jonathan did not invent presidential Afghanistanism. In years gone by in the Second Republic, President Shehu Shagari took to the skies, even while the NECOM Building, the tallest building in Nigeria and corporate headquarters of the defunct Nigerian External Telecommunications Ltd (NET), was gutted. The gentle president would rather not be frazzled by the NET-generated heat.
Even then, President Jonathan appears to have perfected the concept of retreat-by-travel (abroad) and retreat-by-non-travel (at home). It is perhaps his own unique style of maintaining his personal sanity in the midst of so much madness. But what about the American quip: if you can’t stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen?
After the Abba Moro fatal job interviews that claimed the lives of 19 Nigerian job seekers, the president simply hee-hawed. Moro he would not sack or un-sack. On his fate, the president just opened and closed his mouth, and nothing came out of it.
Of course, you must applaud this presidential focus on issues and not personalities. Pronto, he has cancelled the scandalous interview, ordered relations of the dead should be offered three jobs, in a three-jobs-for-one-death philosophy, and offered the living the opportunity to have another go at those jobs, hoping of course that the interview(s) would be far less fatal next time round.
Not only that: the Jonathan awards also approved a job apiece for the injured in the job melee. So, do we now expect another crush from veterans of that ill-fated interview, struggling to show their wounds and scars to land another job?
Of course, all these were too much for our dear president, who quietly pressed his retreat-by-travel (abroad) button, and took off on a jaunt to Namibia, the Vatican and Holland. It’s invaluable days of rest from the Nigerian nuthouse!
Meanwhile at home, the rival All Progressives Congress (APC) has shouted — and is still shouting itself — hoarse on why the president must visit Yobe to condole with parents and guardians of the slain Federal Government College, Bunu Yadi, minors. But apparently APC has not studied the retreat-by-non-travel (at home) Jonathan presidential manual.
The party should — and be soundly educated – on the latest techniques in presidential Afghanistanism.
