Jonathan’s foreign presidential gaffes

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the President jetting around the world. We are a petrol-rich nation of super poor people. Even though we run a voodoo economy in which government officials work assiduously to earn their generous commissions from those who loot our resources, we do not lack the foreign reserves to pay generous allowances to hordes of acolytes who travel with the President on his jetting diplomacy. Frankly speaking, one should be vilified for even talking about this, because the pilot must get his own cut, so the cabin crew.

Then the President’s first lady and the acolytes; then there are PDP governors who have formed a roster and wait patiently for their share of the federation account to coincide with the time they are asked to go with the first man to show how profligate they can be. These governors do not get to take all their first ladies and their favourite girlfriends on these trips, so to a large extent, the travel agents are also happy. Not only are the revenues boosted which allows them to get their pay at the end of the month, but generous tips if they are close to the protocol and travel department of the Presidential Villa and the state liaison offices.

Those who complain that things are hard should know that things are not hard; it is their ill-luck that makes it look like a rock. For those who cannot make it on Nigeria One, the main plane can come with the valet’s plane or at worst, book their flights with the various foreign airlines since we have grounded, buried and performed the funeral obsequies of Nigerian Airways and its successors and made a few millionaires from such rites.

Campaigning for our president to stay at home also has its own drawbacks. It is bound to send bad signals to foreign countries and their governments. This is so because, whenever the President of Nigeria lands, the shopping complexes in those places must be counting their stars for momentarily getting out of the global recession. Whenever the Nigerian gentry unleash on any shop anywhere outside Wuse Market, the stars of businesses shine. Whoever says our country is broke or can be has not known Nigeria.

But for me, the most appalling of all these is the fact that our President chooses his foreign trips to either lie his head and arse off, or trivialize serious issues. A few would suffice. His first coveted trip to America for those who had the dishonour of seeing him showed how untutored our ruler is in diplomacy. He was said to virtually genuflect to everybody at the corridor of the White House. This is not humility, it is just pure condescension. He also wangled his way into Christian Amanpour’s show and lied his head off about taking part in this year’s elections. On another trip, he described the Boko Haram syndrome as a ‘local problem.’ Again, Mr. President is in Paris on one of his jamborees. And before he could breathe in real fresh air, he has started the grand deception which exacerbates his nuisance value. With the very questionable arrests and the trials going on in Abuja, our president has sent a message to 168 million Nigerians – Boko Haram would soon be history!

The only reason we should be thankful for trips is that, at least, it allows the president to be goaded to think about governance. Since the Boko Haram imbroglio, he has not flown past Borno State or its environs on a fact-finding mission. With the relative comfort granted him in foreign lands, he sends volleys of verbal diarrhoea back to Nigeria and send rational minds thinking how much he has in the head he covers with the fedora. Much more, he highlights the known problem associated with Nigerian degrees – that those who give them out do so, not based on intelligent quotient but aside from pecuniary monetary gains, perhaps to meet up with the federal character principle. I know Mr. President does not read ‘critics’, but if somebody does, could they remind him not to say anything whenever he has nothing to say?