LET'S MOVE ON

Let's move on
By Funke Egbemode
Sunday, March 07, 2010
I don't understand why everybody wants to see President Umar Musa Yar'Adua. I believe everybody should calm down and toe the line of Uncle Vincent Ogbulafor. The PDP chairman has encouraged us when he said on Tuesday night that there was no hurry to see the President, after all he had been in the country for only one week, just seven days. Can you honestly think of a more encouraging, logical and calming statement on the state of our nation? I can't. One week is not such a long time considering that we had not seen him for more than 100 days.

And Uncle Ogbulafor is a knight. He can't lead us astray or tell us a lie.Why should Uncle Ogbulafor say anything different? He was the old man, the party chairman of the biggest party of the biggest nation in Africa who was turned back and denied access to the president by a few younger Nigerians. He has learnt his lesson. So? He is not in a hurry to see Umoru. What's the point taking his gray hair to the door of that ambulance if he's going to be chased away again? An old man is always wiser than hot-blooded youth. What have we achieved anyway by keeping vigil outside that ambulance, apart from disturbing the President's rest and recuperation? I think we should get serious and let the man recover and return. All this noise will only slow the progress he has made, and can make, down.

I fail to see what else could wrong after all these months? I do not understand this fixation on Yar'Adua. What do we want to see on his face? What is he going to say that his wife cannot tell us? Why are we hanging around the Presidential ambulance in the Presidential Villa? If we truly have faith that our prayers would be answered concerning Umoru, why are we so impatient? When he steps out of that ambulance, we, the good people of Nigeria would be able to sing Shame to bad people.

Did you see the Action Congress House of Representative Member who suggested the House invite the President's wife, Hajia Tura'i? Shege!!! I suspect that Rep's motives. He must have been eyeing her for a while. Treasonable lookery, that is what we'll sue Sejoro for. Kai, Hon. Samuel Sejoro, we no go gree. You can't see or invite Turai. That is haram and hara-kiri rolled into one and this nation will not allow you to commit sin. The House will not be allowed to commit treason in any form. Thank God for Rt. Hon Dimeji Bankole who called Sejoro to order. All these distractions are suspect, if you ask me. I strongly believe we should let Turai nurse her husband back to health.

Her primary assignment is her husband. She does not need the distractions of nursing this complicated country back to sanity.

Our main concern now should be how to convince Jonathan to wake up and smell the coffee. He should get to work and stop peeking at that ambulance. It may be in his backyard but it's high time he started pretending as if it is not there. If Jonathan and his handlers keep their eyes on the ambulance and their minds on the prefix 'Acting', we are done for, finished, lost. Until and unless, we all get over the paranoia of a ghost in the backyard, nothing will happen. The tragedy of all the drama of the last three months would be to wake up one day and find out that the date is May 28, 2011 and that Jonathan had spent 15 months worrying about an ambulance and its occupant.

Then it would be too late to clothe Omoye because she would already have reached the market square naked.

In those days, my teachers in Primary five and six used to give us compositions to write on such hypothetical topics like 'what would you do if you were President' or 'what would you do if you were the head girl'. Ag President Jonathan must also have written those compositions. So, is he going to let us down or pull us up? We are tired of the yoyo dance. We need some action from this Acting President. There are too many things he can do between now and the next elections. He can choose to do them or stay fixated on his sick boss. He has a choice between politics and governance.

I know that he must thread softly because some people who see YarÁdua as their milking cow are so angry they could do anything. Those who think that Jonathan's coming will make them poorer than Job's turkey are probably waiting to drop cyanide in his drink when he's not looking. So, we know that he has to be careful but we have the Acting President's back in more ways than he can think. The other day I was passing by a church when I heard this prayer point: Oh Lord, anybody who wants to harm or make Jonathan fail, send the Angel of Death into their houses. Nigerians are that desperate. We will kill Jonathan's enemies with prayers.

Methinks bros should roll up his sleeves and shock us.

Imagine how Nigeria will feel if we wake up tomorrow and work commences on Benin-Ore road. Imagine if the power projects and the trillions we have spent to get electricity start yielding result. Imagine sleeping without the deafening noise of generators. Imagine Nigerian hospitals with state-of-the-art equipment and diagnostic facilities by December… Resident doctors are going on strike again and that's death sentence for so many people. We need help. We need a saviour. We need to move on and the time is now.

Political quotes
It was so cold last week, even the politicians were walking round with their hands in their own pockets.

Bob Hope
I won't eat anything that has intelligent life, but I would gladly eat a network executive or a politician.

- Marty Feldman
George Washington said to his father, 'How can I et to be president if I never tell a lie?

Red Buttons
A politician is a person who approaches every situation with an open mouth.

- Adlai Stevenson
A politician is a person who will double-cross a bridge before he comes to it.

- Oscar Levant
I have learned that one of the most important rules of politics is poise, which means looking like an owl after you've behaved like a jackass.

- Ronald Reagan
Democracy is the worst form of government apart from all the other ones.

Winston Churchill
A politician is someone who believes you don't have to fool all the people all the time. Just during elections.

- Stanley Davis
There's only one way to leave power, and that's kicking and screaming.

P.J. Mara
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the people are right more than half the time.

E.B. White
I have this dream that someday my son will become President of the United States. He'll still be messing up my life, but at least he'll be getting paid for it.

- Ryan O'Neal
Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely.

Adlai Stevenson
An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood, a mudbath for every soul concerned in it.

George Bernard Shaw
Every time we find an answer to The Irish Question, the Irish change the question.

Winston Churchill
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'.

I've been married to a communist and a fascist, and neither of them would take out the trash.

Zsa Zsa Gabor
A woman voting for divorce is like a turkey voting for Christmas.

- Alice Glenn
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

George Bernard Shaw