I’m Still Waiting for Baba’s Cushion

 

Last year, I planned to buy a set of chairs.  The simple type my father once bought for N100. But when I was able to gather 99 kobo, the chair’s price was about N100,000. General Obasanjo had just discovered Atiku Abubakar was “disloyal.” So, to show who’s in charge, he raised fuel price, as if Atiku was among the masses. For protesting, Tafa’s police killed a few people. Including my dog, who carried a placard that read: “This dogfight-democracy is giving us a dog’s life.” Anyway, since my dog died, I’ve been sitting on the bare floor like my Hausa neighbour. Mourning my fate in Obasanjo’s Nigeria. That dog was the only security I had. And sometimes, I actually used it as chair.

 

Okay, Obasanjo eventually heard of my suffering, especially drinking garri with folk. So magnanimous, he suddenly realised kerosene was more expensive than his “Ankara.” So, he promised that I would one day inherit his “cushion.”

 

Actually, I had hoped  “one day” meant this year. But I have just learnt it doesn’t even mean “after 2007.” Maybe, when my kids are old enough to  become upholstery makers?

You see, even when there was rumour that Obasanjo was dead, I didn’t jubilate. Because I wasn’t sure the man would leave any “cushion.” Not even the type with bed bugs. Even now, I’m not even sure he would leave…in 2007.  Not when he has confessed that he “has to be a  politician.” Translate that into English: “I have to say one thing and do another.”

 

Really, it shouldn’t surprise me much. If not that I have blocked head.  Grandma warned me, didn’t she? In a tale told after NEPA-induced darkness. No moonlight, so it wasn’t  about the tortoise. 

 

Grandma: Some politicians rode in a jeep one day, to a  rally. Initially, the road was as smooth. So, the driver had no care about bad roads. He sped on. Enjoying the beautiful  scenery and the smooth ride, he didn’t notice when they joined  a neglected part of town in Niger Delta. He sped on. Some  potholes had fishes as big as whales. But they sped on. It was a jeep, remember? Suddenly, the vehicle, crashed. A  village chief, whose South-south hat  was bigger than PDP’s umbrella, witnessed the accident and rushed to the scene to help. What he saw was unnerving.  As a man with a humane heart, he buried all the accident victims – so they could meet dinner yonder. The jeep was left at the scene.

Next day, a police officer drove by and stopped. He was contemplating that spot as  good for an illegal checkpoint, when the chief walked by. Thinking the officer was concerned about the accident, he offered information.

 

Police: Where are the bodies?

 

Chief: I buried them.

 

Police: You mean you buried all of them?

Chief: Sure did. As service to God and humanity. God would be glad to have them back and humanity would be saved from them.

 

Police: Were they all dead?

 

Chief: Well, some said they weren’t. But knowing these politicians, they could have been lying.  

 

I never really gave the story much thought until Obasanjo reminded us that he’s a

politician. That explains why his promised “cushion” of last year became another fuel price hike this year. Look, no matter what Gani Fawehimi says, Obasanjo is our supreme Petroleum minister. And so has all the rights, and lefts, to “caress” the fuel pumps. That goes to prove the man has a heart, even though there may not be milk in it – whether that of cow or of human kindness.  Obasanjo claims he’s not “heartless.” And, in fact, Aso Rock doctors have confirmed that. You see, it’s because he has a heart as solid as Aso Rock that he churns out these ‘aremu-cracy dividends’ – high fuel prices. It is because he has a  heart that he “agonises” to turn Aso Rock to Otta Farm. 

 

Okay, if you doubt me don’t dare doubt  a man who confesses he’s been operating a “battered budget.” Meaning he’s been operating without a budget. Since 1999. One “absolute idiot” said it’s because Baba doesn’t want anybody to monitor how he spends the oil windfalls. Anyway, I agree Baba has a heart. My only concern is that he left the soft part, along with the “cushions,” in Otta Farm – with  his chickens. That’s why he refuses to use even the guinea fowls, though he keeps insisting that “some sacrifices have to be made.”

 

Well, you may not like this, but I agree with Obasanjo that he increases fuel prices for our good. For long, Nigerians have been so lazy they can’t even walk to their bedrooms. From kitchen to the sitting room,  they board buses. Poor as they may claim, some even fly shaking planes to Abuja from Lagos. Why can’t they jog, for Aremu’s sake? Because Nigerians  hate exercises, they panic each time they hear Obasanjo wants to do a “presidential race” in 2007.  Silly people! That’s how one “disloyal” deputy claimed Baba “swore” that he would leave in 2007. Baba says he neither swore nor has any plan to swear. In fact, he neither has  a reason to swear nor a plan to leave. 

 

Obasanjo says all the hardship has been out of consideration. “It is not out of being unconcerned or out of heartlessness but it is out of consideration.” Now, fault that if you dare. Fuel price hike is to reduce poverty, he says. Good start! At least, he has accepted, for once, that there’s poverty. The kind that needs to be “reduced.” Meaning that it is, like Fawehimni says, “suffocating the poor Nigerians.”

 

I don’t know the eye-drop Baba uses, but the thing seems to be working. I’m considering writing to him, but I wonder if he reads. Well, at least he claimed he  read Atiku’s  interview, didn’t he? That seems like hope, abi? At least now he knows there are people who “are absolutely poor.” 

Presidential  eye-drop, I’m told, has the capacity to clear the brain too. Especially when mixed with petrol. That’s why Obasanjo only realises each time he wants to increase fuel prices that Nigerians do not have infrastructure. “The additional revenue we get from oil should be put into these areas – energy, water supply, roads, health facilities, education. And that is when you would actually start  removing poverty from those who are absolutely poor,” he said. “You cannot say you are reducing poverty when people have no educational facilities for their children; you cannot say you are reducing poverty when there are no roads, no nutritional food.” O yeah!? What happened to last year’s promise that proceeds from the increased fuel prices would be used to fund those crucial social amenities? Or does the Aso-Rock “eye-drop” truly  have a side effect called  “loss of memory”? Obasanjo has accused Atiku of “loss of memory.” E-h-n-m-m! Sir, are you sure it’s not  infectious?

 

Well, I heard Arthur Nzeribe has been using Aso eye-drop, too.  So, he can “see he can’t see well even past the Senate building. Nzeribe says fuel price in America “goes up and down.” Side effect of the  eye-drop again. So, he forgot that in Nigeria, everything goes up but never comes down. “We already have the palliative to soften the effect,” he said. But am I going blind?

 

We’re not all opportunistic. Can’t all reach the presidential eye-drop, can we? No wonder Rasheed Gbadamosi, Baba’s axe man in PPPRA  says the media  are blind – “have refused to see reason.”  “All we are doing is trying to work out things in a way that would be  mutually beneficial to all the stakeholders.” I suppose that means those close to power. Gbadamosi says the “media should slam down and get its acts right.” In Latin, that means the media should “shut up.” I think Gbadamosi should jump into  a well in

one of the abandoned refineries.  Into the crude oil. And break his fuel-price fondling fingers. He and his bosses should get  their “axes” right. Politicians should stop masturbating the fuel pump.

 

Obasanjo has  again  promised us "cushion.”  That make two cushions, if he ever “sends” the first one along. Now, should I continue to wait or should I get a mat to save my butts from the cold floor?

• First published in Saturday Sun of  Sept 03, 2005