Blame it on the boogie Dr J

The last time many of us saw Michael Jackson’s natural, God-given face was in a musical concert known as ‘Disco in the snow’. It was an outdoor concert where both singers and dancers were performing on real snow. He sang a song titled ‘Blame it on the Boogie,’ with his brothers as his background dancers. Michael had his original African nose, his huge Afro hair and his slightly dark skin. And so did his brothers.

The next time we saw The Jacksons, as they were then known, they had gone a little ‘off the wall’ and had jerry curls and some of them even had what was then known as a ‘nose job’. Their new song was called ‘Living off the wall.’  And Michael was one of those with the slightly slimmer nose.

A few years later, he decided to thrill the world. He had now gone solo and appeared on his new music album with longer jerry curls, larger eyes, an even slimmer nose and much lighter skin. He had become the King of Pop courtesy of his bestselling album “Thriller”. However, this piece is not about the many faces of Michael Jackson, before he finally returned to his Maker. It is more about the song ‘Blame it on the boogie’ and how it relates to former President Jonathan’s autobiography.

It was my early secondary school days, when Kano state’s CTV 67, made our holidays worthwhile by showing us the latest musical videos of those days. ‘Disco in the snow’ was one them. I remember the lyrics of The Jackson’s song as:

My baby’s always dancing

It wouldn’t be a bad thing

But I don’t get no loving

And that’s no lie

We spent the night in Frisco

At every kind of disco

And from that day

I kissed our love goodbye

Chorus:

Don’t blame it on the sunshine

Don’t blame it on the moonlight

Don’t blame it on the good times

Blame it in the boogie

In other words Michael’s love relationship had to end because his girlfriend loved nothing but to dance. Though they had many great memories: sunshine, moonlight, good times, the only thing responsible for their breaking apart was the ‘boogie’. It’s probably the one thing that she wouldn’t think to blame because she thought she was just having fun, yet it was what led to her heartbreak.

When I heard that our former president Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has blamed former American president Barack Obama for losing the elections in 2015, in his autobiography, I was incredulous. How could this be? I wondered.

All that Obama was reported to have said was that Nigerians should ‘open a new chapter’ in a recorded speech he sent ahead of that election. And the subtle message to us, which allegedly influenced our voting pattern in favour of President Buhari, was probably not heard by even one tenth of the eligible voters of that year.

I, for one never heard that speech, so I wonder how many of my compatriots out there did. And among those who listened to it, I still wonder how many were influenced by it.

But what did happen, before and even in 2015 was a series of sins of commission and omission enough to make us wish to open a new chapter even without Obama’s bidding. How the Jonathan adminstration tackled the insurgency was the biggest sin of all. Bomb blasts were going off in different parts of the country, schools girls were being kidnapped in their hundreds and students were being killed right in their hostels, in operations that took hours to executive, but without our security agencies being able to stop them or catch the culprits.

In one particular case, 49 young men were murdered in their hostel, at their tertiary institute in Yobe state. A day later, while their families were grieving and the boys not yet cold in their graves, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan went to Kano to welcome some big politicians who defected to PDP from other parties. A lot of singing and dancing took place on stage, the type that in my days would be called boogieing. And while all that was going on, Nigerians were making up their minds that they would never tolerate that level of insensitivity and nonchalance from their leaders again.

So at the polls on March 28th 2015, they took their stand.

Therefore don’t blame it on Obama or any other outside influence, Dr Jonathan, blame it on your personal failures as epitomized by your poor leadership and total apathy to the plight of Nigerians. In other words blame it on the boogie you had when the nation should have been on official mourning for 49 youths slain in their prime.