President Jones and the God of Elijah

When creek dwellers move into opulent upland rocks, it is not out of place to see them lose the Simon Templar effect in the waters in deference to their trendy Gucci shoes.People who grew up without a shoe tend to cherish the ones they have now better than those who have always had ones made from condemned tyres. Bear in mind that an untrained feet grows into an oversized one, meaning you have to fly out more to get your correct size. It is also sad that whenever the President jets off to destinations where he is likely to buy another pair, jealous people write editorials condemning his frequent global junkets as if the oil he burns comes from their backyards. Apology to the publishers of Daily Trust!

This explains why I failed to succumb to the intense pressure mounted on me to castigate the President for his junkets while his country is inundated. Like Abati, I am on the side of the president on this apart from the old rivalry between the sons of Benue and the children of Kogi over who first gets a presidential assessment visit.

Before I go any further, anyone planning to push the President into murky floodwaters should know, that no matter how long a fish stays inside an aquarium, itsnatural home is a river. Now that the waters have receded to the level that the President could visit without any fear or favour; affection or ill will, he has made the visit and especially at a time when there are no rats to end up in the presidential soup and cause another food poisoning.

This is why I did not smell a rat when I read that Mr. President has promised to stop further flooding of this country for the next 30 to 50 years.Who but we citizens of the two main rivers could benefit from this Godly assurance coming from the man who promised us fresh air but had it poisoned by Boko Haram? I did not doubt Mr. President’s capacity to deliver on this promise since I have read the Biblical account of Prophet Elijah’s encounter with Ahab and his wife Jezebel. Yes, since the time of Elijah, nobody has stopped rain that MajekFashek cannot bring down. But Majek has long lost the magic and an antithetical replacement in President Jones is no misnomer.

In case there are doubting Thomases, my president has promised to remove, delete and empty the wood ‘flood’ from our dictionary of disasters by channeling the Benue River. Boy, am I green with envy? For ten years now, the promise of dredging the River Niger has consumed the government in Lugard House. No Transformation Agenda has been implemented in Kogi State since the Wizard of Ota promised to turn Sintaku into a thriving port for pirogues and dugout boats. Before he found a lucrative job as the detainer of LASTMA buses this wizard sang about it then passed the chorus toYardywho incorporated it into the 7-Pointless Agenda. Mr. Fresh Air has not distanced himself from this mirage but see what has happened this year; if it had not been for the foresight of Lugard in placing an outpost in Mount Pati, Lugard House would have been swept into the confluence of the Niger and Benue.

Let us fix our gaze on the next announcement from the Federal Executhief Council where millions is kobo and trillions carry the weight of our Naira.  Believe me, this is good news for Baba maiMangorowho went beyond mischief to drive home his party chairman onSallah retreat after losing the battle to captureEkiti without dropping his letter of apology. If floods stop in Naija as promised, this country would have scored another first as the first to produce both a rainmaker and a flood stopper. What more Mai Mangoro can realize his dream of feeding the world from his farm since he can’t get it done as governor of his state.

The shame would go to Paul Biya who gained from a court induced balkanization of Naija and in addition opened his country’s dams thereby turning deserts into flooded plains.Biya thought that by doing this, he would be getting a third feather to his scandal-infested cap as the man who has never lost election in over three decades in power and who hopes to rule his country even after he has died. If the question is asked, whether President Jones has the capacity to deliver on his promise to stop floods, I would quote a familiar refrain from our rich Pentecostal pastors – the God of Elijah can do it again.