28 August 2013 05:00

Written by Tunde Asaju

Tell those who are ‘beefing’ the poor
Namibian girl for beating their idol to the
$300,000 BBA Prize to take it easy. There
are prizes for nobler things to be coveted
than those awarded for shameless nudity and
unmatched debauchery. Our nation never
ceases to oddly but literally inspire, and if
you doubt me, check your local Nollywood
video listings.
A nation under global terrorism watch-list
produced a 14-year-old boy stowed in the
wheel compartment of a commercial flight
between Benin and Lagos. Those we employ
to ensure the safety and airworthiness of
planes were perhaps too busy collecting their
egunje from passengers to notice. You can
understand why most foreign missions ban
local flights for their employees and only
investors fly our national coffins.
With Imam Shekau a subject of ifs and how,
and most international flights either taking
off or arriving at night, God bless those who
must fly in and out of Naija. Without a
thought for the state of his physical and
mental health, the boy was pulled by the
collar, like a dog, and thrown into a police
interrogation centre where hardened
criminals run a parallel republic. Expect a
query or a sack, but not of the big guns –
sloppiness protects its own. Only a month
ago, the video of a police sergeant basically
doing his best not to rob a driver went viral.
The Inspector General of Police quickly fired
the scapegoat and left the deep rut in place.
No talk of disciplinary action to the officers
he was calling to report that the driver did
not play ball.
The caravan of news is likely to perch in
Jalingo by the time the police finish the air
interrogation. Jalingo should be the new
Mecca of news absurdity. Expect full-page
adverts welcoming partially senile and
partially uncons-cious Danbaba Suntai who
flew back home over the weekend. Looking
emotionless, the governor of rustic Taraba
was sandwiched between choreographed
minders through the executive wing of the
Abuja Airport unto another plane to Jalingo.
He is said to be in good condition, a
euphemism for the state of health of the
three ‘this is Lagos’ statues on the Eko end
of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
In October 2012, Suntai crashed one of the
three helicopters he acquired for frequent
junkets outside his state missing death by
the whiskers of state funds. Taraba is buried
in the labyrinth of the political north hardly
making news but for the antics of its comic
rulers. The closest airport to the state
capital, Jalingo, is about 171 kilometres from
Yola. In full health, Suntai could not imagine
himself making the trips back and forth
perhaps on some of the worst roads with
dangers reserved for the unprotected only.
Armed with a flight certificate from a local
flying school, he hopped between both towns
in helicopters until his crash.
He had to be air-ambulanced abroad
courtesy of a policy, which does not punish
for negligence or lack of functional hospitals
in their own domain. A system that can
paralyze the finances of an entire state for
the comfort of one endangered elected
official hardly gives room for rationality or
accountability. Suntai has drawn full salary
in addition to having his medical bills and
those of hangers’ on picked by his indigent
state.
As you read this, he or his ghost should be
sitting at his desk, signing cheques and laws
in total or partial oblivion. Succession, which
is bound to be debated only in whispers tilt
the balance in his favour. He is a Christian in
a state populated by his brethren and so
God’s elect. Dead or alive, Suntai would
continue to be propped up by a local cabal,
Umaru Yar’adua style, until he drops or by
some divine manoeuvrability he gets a
successor. Any attempt to push or shove it
could result in the unleashing of mayhem,
fire and brimstone.
While his ghost reigns, there would likely be
no press statements on his health. His
deputy, chosen more for religious balance
than anything else, is in a delicate balance
and an automatic student of political crisis
management. As a Muslim in a state in
which his brethren are in a minority, he is
expected to suffer the reverse of what
happens in others where his brethren are in
majority. He must navigate the delicate
balance between personal or group ambition
and the uneven scales of treachery. He must
walk, work and talk with rat-like cunning and
sagacious subterfuge. Too much of anything
and he is bound to take the poisonous darts
of suspicious criticism; too little he might
strike a tinderbox.
Taraba, like its mother Naija, is not devoid of
capable hands to steer the ship of state, but
it must do the old Babangidance – a little to
the left and a little to the right – while
praying for a benign escape from its political
quandary. Until then, it’s back to Fela’s
double wahala for deadi bodi and the owner
of deadi body.

http://dailytrust.info/index.php/opinion/4118-double-wahala-for-deadi-bodi

Hmmmm