I AM SURPRISED THAT WE ARE SURPRISED

President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Femi Fani-Kayode Minister of Culture and Tourism on June 22, 2006. Barely four months after, he was relieved of the position. He was made Minister of Aviation on November 7, 2006. This time, he served for about seven months.

Femi Fani-Kayode must be one of the shortest serving ministers in the history of Nigeria. He has however not missed any opportunity to remind everyone as loudly as he can that he has served as Minister twice.

Femi Fani-Kayode is one of those Nigerians not shy to tell everyone that they are men of substantial means. But where exactly does Mr. Fani-Kayode's big money come from – his flourishing law practice, his thriving factories or his great commercial enterprise distributing world renowned brands?

Femi Fani-Kayode is an expert on everything.  He loudly expresses his opinion on all matters whether he is invited or not. Fani-Kayode has an answer to every problem that confronts Nigeria. He expresses his opinions noisily without any care about modesty, humility, tact or basic decency.  The guy behaves like he has a right to disturb everyone.

By now, every person in Nigeria ought to know Femi Fani-Kayode which is why I am surprised by the massive dismay and outrage that appear to have gripped the country following Fani-Kayode's verbal onslaught on Eyo Charles, the Daily Trust reporter in Calabar on August 20. The journalist's "crime" was having the effrontery to ask Fani-Kayode who was "bank rolling" his 'Good Governance Tour' of different states of the country.

The follow-up questions ought to have been: who appointed Femi Fani Kayode "Minister of Good Governance"? Why are the governors spending tax-payers money and valuable time hosting this guy who at the end of the day brings no value to the table and just thrives on controversy?

A lot of people say that the Igbos have no king. Maybe not in the same sense that other people believe that a certain child of God was born and destined to rule over them. We believe in hard work and merit. We are certain that if there is fairness and a level playing field, every Igbo man will thrive. With the Igbos, you have to earn your kingship. In my part of the country, you are not born a king. You earn it.

The late Zik of Africa and Owelle of Onitsha, the great Nnamdi Azikiwe earned his kingship.  If you have gone around much of Igboland in recent years, almost everyone seriously seeking political office would not just put out any poster but one carrying the candidate's photograph together with that of the late Ikemba Nnewi, Eze Igbo, Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu. Ojukwu was an Igbo King. He earned it.

You may therefore understand my horror when it was announced about six years ago that one Femi Fani-Kayode had been appointed the campaign spokesman of our immediate past President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as he fought with Mohammed Buhari for the keys to Aso Rock Villa. Goodluck Jonathan was seen as the closest thing to an Igbo man getting to live in Aso Rock.

I am usually a very tolerant guy but I instantly felt like vomiting. Femi Fani-Kayode?! Is that not the same guy that gleefully went before the world to claim that he had slept with Her Excellency, Bianca Ojukwu, Nigeria's former ambassador to Spain and wife of the revered Igbo King, Eze Gburugburu, Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu?

I was shocked. I asked myself who advised Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan to take such a decision. How come he did not understand that what this Femi guy had done was to slap the face of every self-respecting Igbo man? It was sacrilege. I found it incredulous that in the whole of Nigeria, GEJ could not find a better person than this man who goes about boasting about how he slept with another man's wife? I then publicly asked if GEJ was going to send his man to Igboland to speak on his behalf? My reactions were "Tufiakwa!", "Mbah!"

One of the biggest problems that Nigeria must confront going forward is our frightful loss of memory and the way people with complete lack of integrity and character manipulate us, posing to be that which they are not. We must look beyond the Potemkin Village erected by these men.

When President Jonathan announced Femi Fani-Kayode as his campaign spokesman, I honestly could not believe it. I was alarmed and wrote about it. The Fani-Kayode appointment represented to me poor judgment. I had asked if Femi Fani-Kayode was not the same guy who had publicly taken Goodluck Jonathan to the cleaners, trashing him with the worst possible words anyone can invent? Not long before taking Jonathan's job, Fani-Kayode, had in a speech titled "A Date with Destiny," declared that the administration of President Jonathan had "plunged the country into financial recklessness, bloodbath  and total misrule never before experienced in the country".

Which discerning Nigerian would believe anything good that Fani-Kayode would have to say about Jonathan afterwards? How was he going to sell a product he had so badly trashed? My conclusion was that Fani-Kayode just saw an opportunity to chop and grabbed it with both arms.

Recall the immortal words President Obasanjo once uttered about Femi-Fani-Kayode: "if you want him to sing for you, just hand him food"!

Are the South-South Governors looking for a singer? They must remember what happened to the South-South former President of Nigeria whom Fani-Kayode sang for. I have little doubt that Femi Fani-Kayode was one of the key reasons Jonathan lost the election. Rather than sell his principal, he was busy quarreling with everyone and creating controversy everywhere.

That is why I am surprised that Nigerians are surprised about Fani-Kayode's recent public outburst. Why is everyone outraged on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.? Why?

See you next week.

HOW IN HELL DID I START WRITING SATURDAY BREAKFAST?

I once wrote a small column for the Punch. An irrepressible guy called Azuka Jebose Molokwu talked me into it. I was a lot younger with a lot of fire in the belly. Despite the mad tussle with deadlines at a time when there was no email and you had to physically take your stuff in hard copy to the newspaper, it was fun. I had to struggle with the once in a while writers' block but it still was fun.

I had very strong opinions and could not wait for people to hear them. Of course, when you are young, you think that you are the only one who has an opinion. As you get older however, you begin to realize how stupid you have been. Everybody has an opinion and everybody thinks that his opinion counts.

A young American called Mark Elliot Zuckerberg found out how much everybody wants to express his opinion. As a result, Zuckerberg has become a billionaire several times over and everywhere he goes, he is treated like the President of the world. On Zuckerberg's Facebook, everybody is expressing his opinion to everybody whether they want to hear or not. Dirty linens are being washed with the whole world watching and the stinking water splashed around with complete abandon. Girls are stalking guys on Facebook and guys are enjoying being stalked. You can't be on Facebook and not say something. It is like a huge Oyingbo market. So, everybody is talking, everybody is lying and everybody is posing. In the new world of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp, everybody is a publisher, everybody is an editor and everybody is a columnist and fake news is everywhere and bad grammar too.

Several times in the last couple of years, I have been asked to write a column for a newspaper. Several times I said no. Why? As I have grown older, I have taken more to heart the Igbo saying that a palm wine tapper does not reveal everything he sees from the top of the palm wine tree. Just imagine what would happen in the hamlet if the local palm wine tapper had to describe the luscious naked women who thought they were bathing safely away from prying eyes or the illicit love affairs where the lovers thought they were in a world of their own and that apart from the skies, their secrets were all theirs or the big tubers of yam thought to be secure from all and sundry in the rich man's ban. Like the local palm wine tapper, I have seen quite a lot and I thought it better for me to stay away from the babble.

The other matter is: Is anyone really interested in what I have to say? Will what I write make any difference? Is anyone going to read what I write when all the kids are busy pinging and chatting away on their smartphones or playing computer games and their fathers and mothers are busy plotting how to steal all the money that belongs to their country? How do I write a column when every jerk that has attached 'PMAN President' to his name is busy telling everybody that I am a fraud and the people at the Copyright Commission which I laboured to set up can't wait to put me in jail for any reason they can fabricate? How exactly to I concentrate and write a column when from morning to night, from Kano to Calabar, Nigerian artistes with all kinds of names are calling me for royalties earned and unearned?

Pray, how do I write a column when Bernice Eriemeghe and her staff at COSON warn me constantly that I need a break but let me not show up for one or two days, they will be calling my phone off the hook? How do I write a column with the endless meetings with lawyers, back-to-back court sessions with countless adjournments and the impossible Nigerian music copyright user who manufactures every excuse under the sun to avoid paying small royalties for the music that sustains his operation?

As if I have not stressed my marriage enough - how do I tell madam that with my eyes open, I have added to the wahala she has to tolerate – night after cold nights when at 2 am, 3 am and 4 am, the whole world is sleeping 'coole' and she tiptoes into the study to find me hunched over, hammering at the keyboard of my long suffering lap top? 

I still do not understand how I was trapped into writing Saturday Breakfast and how I have done it every week for many-many years.

You know, I used to read Rueben Abati like mad. Outside of Ray Ekpu and my 'paddy', Sonala Olumhense, I thought Rueben Abati at the Guardian was the real deal. He had style. Till today I cannot figure out how Rueben could give up the best job in the world. For what?! Seriously, how much did GEJ pay Rueben to write those drab government press releases? It takes a peculiar kind of talent to be a good government propagandist and I do not think that Rueben has that kind of talent. Seriously, there has to be something in the constitution that makes it a capital offence to take a great guy like Ruben Abati and make him the writer of government press releases and to go ahead and turn him into a Buruji politician!

That was the same way I felt when someone whisked Funke Egbemode to Abuja to go and chop with Patricia Etteh. When Mrs Etteh got removed as Speaker of the House of Representatives, I shouted with joy, not because I had any issue with the woman or that I thought that the person who would replace her would do a better job. I celebrated because I knew that Funke would come back to Lagos and write her columns without which my weekend was incomplete. And come back, she did. Now, they have grabbed my guy, Femi Adesina too!

You see the trouble with writing a column – You can see how I am poking my nose into other people's business as if I do not have enough trouble. Now, you can even go to jail in Nigeria for almost nothing. All it takes is for somebody who wants to snatch your babe to decide that what you have written is 'hate speech'!

See me wahala!

See you next week!

I NEVER ASKED JOHN ASEIN TO STEAL GOVERNMENT MONEY!

Mr. John Asein, Director-General of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) is making news everywhere. His name is on several news sites and internet blogs. Check Sahara Reporters, Economic Confidential, thenigerialawyer.com and many more platforms  

Unfortunately, John Asein is not making news because of any big pirate he has caught and sent to jail or because of any increased income earned by Nigerian musicians, film makers, authors, publishers, software producers, etc. or as a result of any growth in the nation's GDP as a result of his spectacular efforts or as a result of his great performance in office.

No! No! No! Mr. Asein is in the news because of widespread allegations against him of corruption, conflict of interest and abuse of power.

And like a typical Nigerian government official, John Asein is dancing kpangolo with the truth. Instead of confronting the allegations against him headlong, he is docking, dodging and deflecting, hoping that somehow, he can "off the mic" on the scandal around him. Asein is doing the rope-a-dope but he is no Mohammed Ali. He is trying to distract those investigating him by shifting the focus in different directions. The man is a lawyer and used to teach law and his English grammar is not bad at all. He obviously believes that he is very smart and can talk himself out of the corner his alleged misbehaviour has pinned him. Someone should tell him that he is no Mohammed Ali and that even the great Mohammed Ali landed on the canvass several times.

I would not have bothered anymore about John Asein and his myriad of headaches because I verily believe in the immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King, "the arc of the moral universe is long but it tends toward justice" Unfortunately, Asein continues to drop my name everywhere as his traducer as if I was the one who asked him to do the things for which he is being investigated.

No matter how much he tries, I do not see how John Asein can escape answering the questions which the authorities are presently asking him, like: Did he continue to collect salaries from the Federal Government of Nigeria several months into 2016 after retiring from service as staff of the NCC on December 31, 2015? If he did, it is bare faced stealing, a criminal offence for which he ought to go to jail. If he did not, let him say so clearly because there is solid evidence to the contrary. I wish to state emphatically that at no time did I ask John Asein to steal government money or to do any of the things for which he is being investigated. Therefore, I cannot be his excuse or shield for what he has done or may not have done.

Another question is this: After being appointed DG of the NCC, did John Asein continue to act on behalf of REPRONIG, a collective management organization for Nigerian authors and publishers licensed and regulated by the NCC? Has he acted as sole signatory to any of the REPRONIG bank accounts long after assuming office as NCC DG? Has he as NCC DG signed REPRONIG funds in dollars to himself? If he did, it is a bewildering scandal and a terrible example of conflict of interest and fraud with extensive consequences which might lead to jail time. It is my humble opinion that Mr. Asein's recently minted and very weak defence as published by "Economic Confidential" that Asein resigned from  REPRONIG and that the REPRONIG Chairman, Prof Olu Obafemi 'appealed' to him to continue to render 'free service' to REPRONIG,  is hogwash. I have seen copies of the 'oluwole' letters John Asein has suddenly generated as his alibi and I wonder whose counsel he sought to engage in this kind of cheap creativity.   

Asein came to see me in my Reiz Continental Abuja hotel room on January 30, 2020 and asked for my help to cover up the scandal that was emerging around him. At no time, did he mention this newly concocted defence. Please, under what law does Prof Obafemi have the authority to request a very senior full time official of the Federal Government of Nigeria, appointed by the President, to continue to be the CEO of a private sector organization and to sign cheques of that private sector organization to himself?

This is like saying that Godwin Emiefele, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who used to be CEO of Zenith Bank received the mandate of Jim Ovia, Chairman of Zenith Bank, to continue to work for Zenith Bank which the Central Bank regulates, upon Mr. Emiefele's appointment as CBN Governor and to sign Zenith Bank cheques to himself! Haba!

Which serious person believes Mr. Asein's new line of defence as published in "Economic Confidential" that "high profile pirates" have resolved to mobilize resources to remove him from office? Typical Nigerian. Very laughable. Was is it the "high profile pirates" that asked Mr. Asein to continue to sign to himself cheques of REPRONIG, a private sector organization which he regulates on behalf of the Nigerian government?  

Mr. Asein still has a lot of questions to answer on the controversial NCC/AFD/PUNUKA/KPMG deal on the so-called Diagnostic Study of Collective Management System in Nigeria which questions have been asked repeatedly with no answer. He still needs to answer questions on his directorship of a company called Books & Gavel Ltd. He still needs to answer questions on whether he has contravened the Code of Conduct for Public Officers.

Let me repeat that I am not responsible for John Asein's travails. I never asked John Asein to steal government money. Somebody who knows Asein should please tell him that he is not above the law and that the questions before him will not go away no matter how much he deflects or twists. As Martin Luther King said, "the arc of the moral universe is long but it tends toward justice". Like every other public officer, Asein must be accountable and answer his questions and he should mark my words that when push comes to shove, his present praise singers and advisers will abandon him. That's the way life goes.

I repeat that I never asked John Asein to steal government money!

See you next week.

WILL AMERICANS DO IT AGAIN?

This time four years ago, very few people gave Donald J. Trump a beggar's chance of getting anywhere near the White House. The pundits said that he was a joke. The media wrote him off. The polls said he was dreaming. No one who worked hard to make his money would have bet a cent in any of Trump's failed casinos across America that Donald Trump would become the 45^th President of the United States of America.

In November 2016, what looked like a joke became reality! Donald J. Trump was announced President-elect of the United States of America, the most powerful office in the world. Surprise! Surprise! The American people, deploying their fairy-tale electoral college system told the world that they had elected as their president the trash talking egomaniac who spews obscenities as much as he openly sprouts divisions and cultural wars. The distinguished former United States First Lady, former New York Senator and former U.S. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton received about three million more votes from the American people but come and see 'America wonder', a guy who was that badly worsted at the polls, a guy who has run his companies four times into bankruptcy and has been married to three different women was announced winner of the election.

Imagine if that had happened in an African country, Donald Trump would have immediately picked up his smart phone and fired off a tweet to deride the country as a 'shit hole country' with no respect for the core tenet of democracy which is one man one vote.

On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump moved into the Whitehouse with his third wife, a Slovenian born ex-model who speaks the English language with a very unamerican accent and whose stack naked photographs have been splashed everywhere on the Internet for everyone to gape at what should be the most private part of her anatomy.

With the problems in Nigeria, you may wonder why this columnist writes so much about America. I have always been fascinated by America. For much of my lifetime, America has been seen as the moral compass of the world promoting democracy, human rights and fighting autocratic regimes, evil, hunger and disease across the world. We all looked up to America to show us the way. America used to be seen as the leader of the free world and much of the world went were America went.

I knew that some Americans can be "one kind" but I never thought there were such many crazy people in America who would see in Trump the leader of the land of the free. The amazing thing is that those who have propelled Donald Trump's journey to the Whitehouse are the bible quoting Christian conservatives. How can this group consider this man whose behaviour is so unchristian to be one of them and accept him as promoting their values… this self-conceited man whose own niece, Mary Trump with a Doctorate in Psychology, refers to as the most dangerous man in the world?  

Donald Trump shows you the power of Reality TV and the smart phone. In the world of Reality TV, there is no bad news. Bad news is good news. Donald Trump, the star of NBC's Reality TV show, "the Apprentice" understands that in the crazy Reality TV world, all you need is to be in the news. And so, the Donald swears, curses, and wagers his fingers at everyone and if you are not discerning, you are captivated. He is in the news all the time and white uneducated Americans clap and cheer. They may think they are watching Reality TV. What they may not understand is that this weird fella has changed the world in such ways that it will be hard reality for their children and grandchildren. Donald Trump has not made America great again. Indeed, America no longer leads the world.

On November 3, Americans will go the polls again. I hope that the coronavirus conundrum in which America finds itself has revealed the limitations of Donald J. Trump's "America First" swagger and shown that it is all talk and bluster. His soft under belly and lack of a long-term strategy have become clear. With over 160,000 American lives lost, this cannot be a reality show.

Before now, the USA would have led the world in finding a way to wipe out COVID 19. America has the brain power and resources. To the amazement of most people, a confused America has remained the epicenter of the virus with no end in sight. The disunity in the population created by Mr. Trump's hyper culture wars and take-no-prisoner partisan divisions have robbed America of the aggregation of enduring energy and trust required by any nation to do historic things and so COVID 19 continues to ravage the USA. At a time that Americans should be fighting the coronavirus, Americans are fighting themselves.

In less than three months, the American people will go to the polls again. Most of the pundits appear to think that former Vice President, Joe Biden will win and the world will no longer have to endure Donald Trump on our TV screens every day. The polls, especially in the battleground states, appear to support that view. But in 2016, almost all the polls said that Hilary Clinton would succeed Barack Obama.

Is this year different? Have Americans learnt any lesson? Have the Democrats learnt how to take on this man who has no sense of shame and can say anything and do anything to win? Can the world handle four more years of the trash talking egomaniac tendencies, the hyper culture wars and take-no-prisoner partisan divisions that Donald Trump spreads everywhere which is hurting America and hurting the world? Will Americans shock the world again?

See you next week.  

TODAY, MY BABY SAYS, “I DO” WITHOUT ME!

See how this Coronavirus or Covid 19 has just messed up a year we ushered in with a lot of hope and promise!

I still do not believe that it is actually happening but see what the world has become. When the 1^st of August 2020 was fixed for the wedding of my youngest daughter, Stephanie Chinenye Okoroji to her sweetheart, Samuel Egiafameh in Glenn Dale, a suburb of Maryland, USA, it was meant to be a day like no other. I was practically counting the days, the hours and the minutes.

Madam, the fashionista that she is, raided Balogun market in Lagos to get the best fabrics on show to create for me some eye splitting agbada for the occasion. Ordinarily, I am not an agbada person but the 1^st of August 2020 was scheduled to be a day like no other, a day to dress to finish and I was ready.

As the coronavirus reared its ugly head earlier in the year, we all thought that after a few weeks or at the worst a couple of months, the madness would go away. After all, did Ebola not go away? Did SARS not go away?

Who would have thought that instead of the virus going away, the year 2020 would be washed away? For many months, the Premiership, the NBA, the NFL, the MLS disappeared. Even the Olympic Games, the world's greatest spectacle with billions of dollars invested, was scrapped. Yes, they have recently tried to concoct what looks like the EPL and the NFL to come back. The truth is that I have not been watching. What kind of Premiership is it with no yelling fans in the stadium? It is like tea without sugar, tasteless!

I was so sure that before the 1^st of August, I would find a way to get to America and walk my baby down the aisle in my flowing agbada and do that which every father is proud to do. Those familiar with this column may recall that when Stephanie graduated from the University of Maryland, two years ago, I flew round the world to arrive at her graduation event as it was taking place. She had no idea that I was in the auditorium watching the proceedings until the event ended. When she saw me, it was with disbelief that she screamed, "Daddy!" Oh my God, I was happy.

Who would have thought that the ever busy Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos could be shut down month after month and all the airplanes that fly people from country to country, morning, afternoon and night, would be parked? Who would have believed that those with American passports, the most respected passport in the world, would be banned from entering Europe? How come none of the big prophets and seers that harass all of us on TV saw that the world would be turned upside down in 2020?

I have struggled to make sense out of what is happening. I am stuck in Lagos while my baby girl is taking one of the biggest steps in her life today. I may be lucky to see the event streamed on some video monitor. I have asked my brother Iyke, who lives in Baltimore, to stand in for me.

I guess this is one of those times when you just take whatever life serves you. Please join me in whishing Stephanie and Sam happy wedlock today in Maryland.

See you next week.