GOING NAKED TO AMERICA

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Oga, that boy don cause wahala for airport!

Which kind wahala be that?

They talk am say na for naked we go go America now.

Who said?

Everybody. Or is Oga not aware of the commotion in town?

What?! Tell me, what the hell is going on?

They say because that Murtalla boy wan throw bomb for America na soso naked we go go comot house for airport.

I still can't understand you. Maybe you have to come out clearly in straight English to explain what you mean?

No problem. Aviation authorities have ordered that everybody travelling to America must pass through X-ray rooms to check their private parts for bombs, drugs and guns.

You mean some people will peep inside your pants searching for what is not missing? It's a lie! That’s operation “pat down”, isn’t it?

That’s very true but they say it's man that will check the inner recesses of man while woman will do the same for woman.

There they go again! Did they not say sometime ago that ours is not a gay community and homosexuals are not allowed? So why are they saying it is men that will look at naked men and women to look at naked women? Is that not homosexualism? Is that not lesbianism at work? They should be consistent. Since homosexualism and lesbianism are not allowed in our country then it is men that should check the "particulars" of women while women should use their peeping, Amebo eyes to ransack the “valleys of the shadows of men”.

No! That will be too explicit. Imagine putting our beautiful Nollywood actresses under the scan for a 24-year-old man to examine or a 96-year-old Emir being body checked by a 22-year-old female immigration officer! By the way more people who like voyeurism will like to join the immigration department soon to enjoy the Murtalla bonanza. But come to think of it, if that Murtalla boy were to pass tghrough the machine we would have nothing to declare in his lower torso. I learnt the bomb had cleared his “gun” and “bullets”. Only God knows what he would have een used to “work” on the seven virgins inn heaven if he had succeeded in his suicide mission.

You have not said anything. Have you ever thought of the wahala (trouble) he has caused innocent people?

Who are those?

Wait! You will hear wen! Can you imagine Reverend Sisters, Reverend Fathers, pastors, bishops, archbishops, deacons and deaconesses going under the X-ray for "unbelievers" to scrutinise their holy of holies? Can you imagine imams, alfas, sheiks and ayatollahs being screened by female ‘infidels’? Ah! Gongo a so!! The unexpected will happen.

That's double jeopardy! A woman looking at the secret anatomies of Islamic clerics? That's invitation for another Gulf war!

Thank God, you too know the implication of what that ajantala boy (enfant terrible) has done. Governors and their First Ladies, original and fake, will now be subjected to the ignomy of doing “pants down” at local and international airports abroad. Pastors' wives are also in trouble of exposure.

Who is not? Is it not everybody?

There you are. In Niagara, if you don’t kow, all travellers are equal but some are more equal than the others.

What do you mean?

You think a military officer will allow a "bloody civilian" ransack his underbelly and take a hard look at his "artillery gun" and have a feel of his epididymises"?

No way!

You think a pastor Chris will allow an unbeliever to ruffle his nest and touch his eggs?

Abomination!

You think a senate president will allow a female immigration officer to hold his gavel in the public and bang it on the x-ray machine for all man to see?

Ooops!!! That will be painful!

What a shame!!

ENDS

Farook, My Son, Yaya De?

Pix credit: TELL Photo

What you did, Farook, has contributed to the state
of coma in which the country has slumped
in Saudi. But why did you do it?

Hello, Farook! Farook, hello! Can you hear me? It’s me, your baba. Yaya de? They say I can have this telephone conversation with you. Don’t worry, this is something good about the Americans. They don’t mean any harm. What! No, Farook. Nobody is bugging you... Lai lah, hilalahu... I swear, yaro na. Bakomi. Don’t worry yourself, just tell me why you did it...No o! I say don’t worry. Nobody is bugging or eavesdropping on our conversation. Feel free. Theirs is a free world. So, if you like you can speak in English throughout because I know you have lost your mother tongue in garin turai (white man's land). What? You mean you can still converse in Hausa and Fulfude? Good! It means you are not totally lost. Yaya de? Lafia ko? Sorry o, you mean you are not feeling fine inside American Kuje? No, Farook, don’t curse anybody for what you have caused yourself. By the way, tell me what they are offering you in their prison...Yes, yes, hmmm...You mean they serve you chicken and lamb? What? Abomination! You mean they gave you pork to eat? Sege, danboro. … Sorry, I think I should mind my language. Okay, you sleep on a good bed? Fine. You even watch TV? Akoi NTA, AIT and CHANNELS? Oh, no! It’s only American TV channels? By the way, did I hear you say they are interesting? Kai, yaro na, they want to spoil you sam sam. Haba! What a life of luxury...Say that again...Ehn en, ehn en...Ah! Wayo, Allah! You mean they asked you all sorts of questions during your initial interrogations? Allahu Akbar! You mean they asked you questions about all the Caliphs that have ruled the caliphate? These bature people! What did they want to know about Usuman dan Fodiyo? You said they even asked you about the local ayatollahs, the sheikhs, the imams and the almajiris... Wayo, Allah! Hmm... Hmm... Next time they ask you, tell them we have maitatsine, boko haram and kalakato. You can tell them that kalakato originated from Kalakuta to reflect our federal character structure. Ka ji ko? What! You don’t mean it? Are you saying they also asked you about the sultans, the sardaunas, the Zakky Zakkys and the Maitatsines? Allahu Akbar! You mean they even asked you about Boko Haram and Kalakato? Please, don’t worry unduly...

Yaro na, hello...hello...hello, are you there? Listen carefully. Your mother is cross with you. Your brother, Yusuf, is mad with you. Your friend, Suleiman, is angry with you. Your primary school teacher, Usman, is sweating cold sweat because of you… naughty boy…! Even government officials are raving and fuming. Dorah is frowning. Ojoh is fumbling. OndoAccra is fouling the air, shouting Kaase! Nobody knows whether that is a curse or not. He will just seize the microphone from government media advisers and shout Kaase! Only God knows whether that’s an obscenity or not. In fact, what you did has contributed to the state of coma in which the country has slumped in Saudi. But Farook, da na, why did you do it? I did not send you abroad to learn how to kill. Islam is a religion of peace. I sent you abroad so you can come back and become a permanent secretary within five months, or join the army and become a general within 10 months. Farook, you have disappointed me. I wanted you to be one of the northern elite destined to rule this country, but you bungled it.…

What are you saying? O my God! You mean one unkempt idiot somewhere said you would die a matyr and marry seven virgins! Matyr my foot! Even if you die a matyr and you go to heaven and you are offered seven virgins what instruments are you going to use to work on all of them at the same time? Or don’t you know that aljanah virgins are very jealous and very demanding? My son, you are a fool to believe that you can still function properly after blowing off your “gaba”. Now that you failed in your mission, what are you going to use if, per chance, you are paroled? Larei, Laraba, Hajiya, Mero and Sawaba can no longer wait for you. Their fathers are worrying them to look for new suitors. Farook, see your life! Even Bryson, the man who loves anything virgin, would have rejected that Greek offer from your so-called al-Qaeda friends!

My son, it’s not only the family you have shamed. You have shamed the North, the South, the West, the East and the Middle Belt. Nobody can travel freely abroad again...Shut up! I say shrrrup! Let me talk. Do you know what your mother and I went through to travel to New York the other day? They practically undressed us in search of remnants of your bomb. They ransacked my gaba and “touched” everywhere under my babaringa. Your mother broke down and wept openly, something she had never done before. Yaro na, this is a shame. If I may ask you, what are you going to tell FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies as the reason for carrying that bomb on board and why? What? Say that again...Hello, hello, yaro na, menene? Yaya de? Ah, ah, Farrruuuku, are you crying? You say no? Kai, wayo, Allah! But I heard you sobbing just now. Okay, son, don’t cry even if you say you are not crying. Weep no more. The deed has been done. We are now in the league of terrorists because when our neighbours were eating crickets and cockroaches as dinner in Zamfara and Gombe, we did not warn them. Now their nocturnal coughs will not allow us to sleep. My son, you have joined them to murder the sleep of the Americans. And now, we shall all sleep no more. Ka ji ko?

Our President Who Art in BBC…

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This is BBC HarshTalk. I’m Sebastian Gregory and with me in the studio today is the controversial Niagaran minister of injustice and the anthony general of the federation, Mr Mitchell OndoAccra. Honourable minister, you are welcome to the programme.

Thank you very much for having me in your studio and I hope by the time I take my leave some myths about me would have been broken and jettisoned.

Perhaps we should take off on this note. Within the Niagaran community here in Britain, there are those who believe that your name, OndoAccra, is a strange combination of the names of two cities in Niagara and Ghana, which symbolises the seemingly perennial political confusion in Niagara and also what your presence in government has caused in the realm of legal interpretations from your ministry. By the way, for the purpose of educating the viewers, you may want to give the meaning of your name and how you came about it. Is OndoAccra native to the Niger-Benue people?

Kaase! You can’t stand the story of my people. We are a warlike species, the kind you see in Burma, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, plus or minus the Talibans ... But, anyway, that’s not the story for today. What I just want to say is that those who say my name is a strange combination of Niagaran and Ghanaian town names are the ignorant, uninformed, maladjusted Niagarans in the Diaspora. These are the people who have lost contacts with their roots. They had better listen to Lucky Dube’s “Roots” and retrace their steps back home instead of focussing undue attention on some backstreet towns in West Africa.

Beg your pardon? Will you say Ondo and Accra, the capital of Ghana, are backstreet towns?

As far as I’m concerned, these towns are not mentioned in the Niagaran constitution and are, therefore, null and void, and of no consequence.

I’m sure the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, does not exist either, going by your legal intervention, but, if I may ask, why did your parliament resolve the constitutional crisis based on a foreign radio transmission? Was that not unconstitutional since the BBC is not projected in the constitution as the vehicle through which the president can convey or transmit requests to the parliament?
There is nothing unconstitutional about that. Those who are saying so are just being mischievious. Modern technology has made it possible for presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens and even ayatollahs to transmit power and largesse via text messages, e-mails and MMS. The president, if he likes, can upload on YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter details about the country’s troops and cash movements from one war zone to the other, especially on election days.

Right. But why didn’t the president’s men use these facilities to show his visage even if it is Gorgon Medusa’s on FaceBook when he was said to have signed the budget, at least, to allay the fears of Niagarans?

You seem not to know our people. They are the worst specimens of cynics and pessimists ever created after the biblical Job. They can make any Thomas grin with envy with their predilection towards doubting any government move. I won’t be surprised if they lack Patience and refuse to allow Turaih to continue as acting First Lady to the acting president.

Sure? Well, that brings me to the question that has been agitating the minds of many observers of the Niagaran political scene. Why is a first lady so powerful in Niagara, yet she has only seven ribs none of which is recognised by the constitution?
If I may throw the question back at you, too, why is Her Imperial Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, so powerful yet you, the British, have no (written) constitution?
Simple. We run a monarchy and, by convention, she is the ceremonial head of government.

You see, we are practically saying the same thing. In England, the queen is the ceremonial head of government while in Niagara, the king is the de jure head. QED! So Sebastian, remember, those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
If that’s the way you see it, fine. But for the benefit of the listeners, perhaps you may want to give us an insight into how the government of Niagara was being run in far away Saudi Taraba.

That’s pretty obvious. While the de jure president was in Koma, the de facto ‘president’ was making hay in Oloibiri lest the oilwells ran dry.

Beg your pardon? I didn’t get that.

Sebastian, in Niagara, the more you look, the less you see. Let’s leave it at that. I’m a lawyer, I can’t be saying the whole truth. No lawyer does that.

So, did you see the president at all while he was in Koma? I learnt most of you could not gain access to his hospital bed and that some of you even camped in Yola waiting for an opportunity to catch a glimpse of him to no avail but came back to say they saw him hale and hearty, jogging in the mountains with the Super Eagles who were en route Angola. Your foreign affairs minister, Ojoh Madukaykay, was in that seat recently and when I put the question to him, it sounded more like Greek to him than his native Igbo language. What’s really going on? Why was it difficult for you, cabinet ministers, to consult with the president while in Koma?

Who told you he was in Koma? Anyway, there is nowhere it is written in the constitution that we should have face-to-face chat with the boss. If you care to know, our president is a damn good blogger like Obama. He blogs like no man’s business. He is savvy with the Internet. He is always carrying a blackberry in his left hand and a rosary in the right one. We contact him quite often by listening to BBC and through text messages, telephone calls, MMS and, you will be surprised, we even see him by telepathy on FaceBook! What else?

Nothing more except that some of your people are of the opinion that there’s too much deceit and deception in the system, so much that a colleague of yours in the cabinet wrote a memo to protest this grotesque, if not insulting, assault on the intellect of the generality of Niagarans...

If I follow the trend of your argument very well, I guess you were referring to Roda’s memo. Don’t mind her. She is just a rambler, a rabble-rousing professor who wants to play heroic in the corridor of power and not in the lecture theatre where she belongs as a professor of drugs.

You must be kidding! With due apology, Mr Minister, I think you got it wrong. Dissent is an essential ingredient of democracy. A real leader is one who stands up for the truth even at the risk of his or her life. I’m sure the rest of the world will not agree that she is a rambler.

She is. I repeat, she is. By the way, what’s her locus standi? We only invited her to come and eat and she wants to grow wings! That’s never done. Government is a dinner party. You eat and eat and eat until you are eased out from the dinner table. You don’t come to government and start looking at people’s yansh.

Last question, please. What happens if the president has another stream of consciousness and grants another one-minute interview to VOA or BBC or Reuters or AP saying he is ready to play golf with Tiger Woods?

That’s a ‘woody’ question. Only the Senate can answer that.

Opilogue is back. Thanks to those who kept the line of communication open despite the “indefinite” break.