SATIRICALLY YOURS: The president tells us the Koko

By Carlang Mbofung

March 22, 2011 01:31AMT


Sometimes you’ve got to wonder about the brains behind Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign. You’ve got a president who is facing what is building to be the stiffest Nigerian election since NTA tried to decide if Voltron was a better child puller than Super Ted. All around the country, rallies and debates are being held as the nation struggles to decide who they’ll be voting for. It’s four weeks to the election and the president’s popularity is appearing to be on a decline. Something urgent has to be done to reverse the tide. It has to be something sharp. Smart. Intelligent. A game changer. And so the brains of the campaign sit together and come up with their bright idea.

Let’s call Dbanj

Six years ago, Dbanj broke onto the music scene with his hit song ‘Tongolo’. He never did tell us exactly what the koko was but we’ve slowly caught on to the bulk of his act. After 72 months, most Nigerians have already formed some ideas about Dbanj’s secret. For instance, we’re sure that the ‘koko’ does not lie in his skills as an interviewer. It’s been almost a week since that infamous interview with Dbanj but I am still yet to get over it. It’s the kind of argument that political students are going to struggle with for decades to come. Why would Jonathan have picked, of all the possible candidates, the lord of the Koko Mansion?

Yes, the argument can be made that Dbanj was chosen not because of his acclaimed hold over his kokolettes but because of his reported status as the Youth Ambassador for Peace in the United Nation Association (no, they’re not a part of the UN). But that would be wrong. Millions of Nigerians love him and many more will forgive him for his latest foray into politics. But very few Nigerians recognize Dbanj as a youth ambassador and the only relationship Dbanj might likely have with peace is one with a kokolette by that name.

Don’t get me wrong; I respect Dbanj as an artist. Yet, I can’t help but think that in accepting the offer of the president to host the interview, he let millions of Nigerians down. There were dozens of better placed candidates who could have handled the job a lot more admirably than he did. I’ve thought about the impact that the interview might have made had it been led by more impressive candidates such as, say, Chimamanda Adichie, and I have to say that the president got this one wrong. His bad decision was further worsened by his failure to attend the presidential debate which was held less than 48 hours later.

That in itself is distressing. Nine out of every 10 people who heard about the idea of a Dbanj interview probably thought it was a funny joke. Eight out of every 10 who heard that the president missed the first Nigerian presidential debate to be held this century probably hissed at the other two people who were trying to defend his actions. In choosing Dbanj as the host of his interview, the president showed that he really was not in tune with the desires of the Nigerian. Despite having close to a million fans and friends on Facebook, President Jonathan appears to still be ignorant about the general tide.

In the last few weeks, the president appears to have adopted a ‘throw on the wall’ approach to his political campaign. Some of it will strike home but most of it will fail miserably. I’m one of those Nigerians who are still convinced that Jonathan might yet emerge victorious come the April elections but if this does happen, it certainly will not be because of a well thought out and organized campaign. Regardless of this, in the event of a win, the president’s interview with Dbanj will be touted by some as being the ‘brilliant stroke’ in a brilliant campaign. A few political pundits will eat this mop up and suddenly Sarah Palin will find herself being interviewed by Flavor Flav.

Still, its early days yet. With any bit of luck, if the president’s campaign advisors continue on their sting of bad marketing decisions, we might yet encounter many more ludicrous ideas. For instance, we might wake up to find that we now have a third video of the song ‘Endowed’ featuring Dbanj and a surprise guest star. It’ll have a familiar sequence. We’ll see Dbanj dressed in green trousers dancing in the rain with skimpily clad kololettes. All will appear to be normal until the closing strains of the song, And then, for a quick three seconds, the video will pan to the right to reveal Mr Jonathan standing in a corner beneath a green and white ‘Umblerra’ protected from the rain. It will be absurdly shocking, daring and legendary. And yes I spelt it correctly. ‘Umblerra’

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