Tag: talks

Senate President David Mark was charitable early in the week when he described Information minister, Mr Labaran Maku, as a mere careless talker. Judging from the high voltage of his anger, he could very well have described the minister in more uncharitable terms. After all, this was not the first time the Senate would lose its temper in the face of ministerial bluffing, as Mallam Nasir el-Rufai and Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi can affirm. Maku had last week described the resolution passed by an angry Senate against the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) plan to print N5000 banknote as advisory and not binding. Convinced they were not in the upper legislative chamber to market jokes, the Senate invited the minister to explain himself. A contrite Maku, who had no wish to grandstand like el-Rufai, told the Senate, as any repentant careless talker would always do, that he held the upper chamber in high esteem.

It is a pity Mark offered us no assistance in documenting some of the careless talk Maku had engaged in prior to the Senate hoopla. But there is no doubt both the Senate and the public must have formed the unfavourable impression the minister actually talks nineteen to the dozen. Mark’s putdown resonated with the public, and it was accepted with relish. It will be recalled that the minister was voluble in the days fuel subsidy protest lasted, when he showed how fondly he loved to hear himself speak, sometimes declamatorily on any subject, including economics and law. Though he was still measured in comparison with Dr Doyin Okupe, the now famous presidential attack dog (or lion, as the physician fantasises), but certainly not less melodramatic, he has managed to impress everyone how overflowing he can be when he puts his mind and energies to talking.

Though Mark was unsparing, having described Maku as talking before thinking properly, he and the Senate were nonetheless eager to accept the minister’s apology. They however warned that ministers who talked carelessly henceforth would be recommended for sack. Had they been as angry now as they could have been when Sanusi, the CBN governor, suggested in a lecture on the economy that unreasonably too much was expended on the National Assembly, he would have been the first candidate for the legislature-induced sack. It is well known that when it comes to verbal waterfalls, few people can hold a candle to Sanusi.

But how would the eminent Senate describe one of their own in the lower chamber, the veritable Niagara, Hon Patrick Obahiagbon? Hear him pontificate on the fuel subsidy protest early in the year, according to a popular quote: “I have read with a catalytic disgust, government’s asinine and puerile ratiocinations attempting to justiceate the proposed removal of subsidies from petroleum products. It has asseverated that its intention is guided by the need to checkmate the odoriferous excesses of a Machiavellian and Mephistophelean cabal, and I have said to myself, what a shame! What a self-indicting admittance of the failure of governance! What an hocus-pocus! What an anathemalous disdain for its citizenry!” Perhaps the honourable legislator was misquoted. Or perhaps he was just being deliberately entertaining, and is otherwise a reserved person who is sometimes inflated by a passion for explosive talk.

Though Maku has responded to Mark’s gentle rebuke by quickly apologising, it is not clear whether he understands that the Senate expects him to put a tougher leash on his natural tendency to “shoot before aiming.” But he shouldn’t feel too bad; he is in good company with most of humanity whose natural tendency is to be talkative both to nourish their egotism and to underscore their argumentativeness.