Big men say the darndest things - Season 1

It's Season 1 of "Big Men Say the Darndest Things". But here I am, frustrated, unable to find the brains to say anything that will ‘out-stupid' Ogbonnaya Onovo's recent statement doubting the brief presence of Nuhu Ribadu in the country. The Inspector-General said he needed video evidence to believe that Nuhu was in town.

Blessed, Sir "Thomas" Onovo, are those who do not see, yet believe because they find the time to read, digest and understand the newspapers. I didn't say that, a wise man did.

I was surprised that Officer Doubting-Thomas-In-Blue-Uniform did not insist on seeing a video of the kidnap of the Kaduna SSG before believing.

In line with their boss' outlandish pattern of thinking, the Lagos State police command has announced that it was armed robbers that killed Bayo Ohu, assistant news editor with The Guardian.

Armed robbers who shoot a man to death in his living room, take his mobile phone and laptop, hang around to wash blood off their bodies and then abandon their getaway car not far away must be a special breed of armed robbers; perhaps they came in a UFO?
But how can one argue with the Almighty Nigeria Police (by) Force?

Meanwhile another policeman has been busy talking. Sorry, make that "ex-Policeman."

"I will eradicate Poverty from Oyo State; So Help Me God." I hear the streets of Ibadan are full of billboards in which Governor Alao Akala's ruddy faces are to be seen declaring that noble intention. If wishes were Private Jets, a sage once said, beggars would possess diplomatic passports.

Meanwhile poverty sandwiches Akala's billboards and scoffs at it. Want clears its throat and unleashes a well aimed blob of phlegm at the declaration.

Another person who's been busy talking has been our Honorary Ambassador to England, Mike Aondoakaa. I like the passion and the energy he brings to his work. The man is always having meetings with important people in London, important meetings with important oyibos over important files, but what I don't understand is why those white men are always trying to collect those files from him by force? It's kind of confusing.

Why can't they leave Mike alone?

And then the Master of them all. Timipre Sylva, 21st Century Nebuchadnezzar; Conqueror of Militants and Constructer-General of Magnificent Manors. You might know him as Governor of Bayelsa State, but that is an outdated title.

For those of you who watch CNN (whether at home or in Mr. Biggs), you must have seen him don the uniform of a tour guide and take CNN's Christian Purefoy around his latest dividend of democracy, Gloryland Castle.

"We believe that if you stand in the middle of this Star of David, and make any wish, and walk around it seven times, your wish will come true," Sylva announced on CNN. "Have you done it?" Purefoy asked. "I've done it and it always comes true!" a triumphant Sylva retorted. So why the bloody hell hasn't he wished for militancy and poverty to disappear in his state? Or why hasn't he requested for the world's best psychiatrist to clear out his diary and set up base in Gloryland?

Once upon a time it was my good friend and elderstatesman Ojo Maduekwe who topped the league table of politicians with the most interesting deployment of ‘language'.

Maduekwe was the one who announced a while ago that there were no homosexuals in Nigeria. His evidence: he had asked them to identify themselves and no one had come forward. It was also him who saw through the propaganda suffused souls of Akwa Ibom's "Child Witches" and revealed to a relieved world (at a UN conference) that the children were paid to lie that they had been abused. The way he spoke of them I imagined that he caught them taking classes from Goebbels.

But these days Ojo appears to be too busy explaining to foreign governments why his boss prefers to go to Saudi Arabia to assist in commissioning a University than to visit New York for the United Nations Summit. Ojo is therefore too busy to share with us more from his bag of wise sayings.

Leaving us Akala, Onovo, Aondoakaa et al to keep us occupied.

Me I have a little something to bring to the attention of the two men, if they can manage to get their feet out of their mouths for a second. Rumours making the rounds have it that restaurants in the city of Lagos have started altering their menus.

Those same rumours have it that from the first of October 2009 "SNAIL" in all menus will be replaced by "YAR'ADUA". So that we will see people ordering for "3 ponmo and 3 Yar'Adua" to accompany an ewedu-lubricated mountain of eba.

My opinion is that this is a most cruel and hurtful and insensitive thing to do. If I were Onovo, I would call for members of the public to send me video recordings of all such restaurants and arrest their proprietors with alacrity.

And if I were Aondoakaa I would send a letter to those stupid British courts and convince them that they'll have more fun trying slanderous restaurateurs than alleged money-laundering ex-governors...