It would be heartless of me to wish a mortal like myself evil. Far be it that this is an attempt to take advantage of the Senate President’s moment of mortal weakness which could be the lot of anyone; particularly the Senate President and the entire National Assembly who are all stressed beyond limit on the Appropriation assignment due to the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Budget of Renewed Hope and the need to deliver same before the end year 2023. Creating time in the midst of such schedule is overtaking for most of our aged leaders.
Life recently has chosen to speak to us as a nation in proverbial expressions. Like a tale from ancient times, we read and heard of a tale of reality too fairy to believe, yet it was nothing but the truth. A commercial passenger plane scheduled and cleared by the aviation authority to fly from Lagos to Abuja landed in Asaba not on emergency but actually landed in Asaba as Abuja. If Nigeria is a huge aircraft carrying 215 million passengers from destination hopelessness to renewed hope with President Tinubu as Captain, Shettima as the co-pilot and Akpabio as the Head of the cabin crew. We might need to check with the team if we are in alignment with the navigation information from the control tower!
The news that Akpabio collapsed while seeing off President Tinubu from a colloquium held to mark his 61st birthday at the Transcop Hilton Hotel hit our huge aircraft taxing on the tarmac for a take off since the 29th day of May 2023. Subsidy gone was the first threat on the flight warning from the captain. Like a strange cyclone our aircraft has remained off the tarmac waiting for the subsidy induced economic cyclone to clear out so we can take our flight.
In a superstitious country and with people given to superfluity, different meanings will be read to the collapse of the Senate President. There is the religious crowd living in the consciousness of their enemies, who by now must be investigating whether it is household Anang speaking enemies from Akwa Ibom State who have made their tongues the lingual franca at the office of the Senate President that is after their son; knowing this the highest height of an Anang man in a democracy, please, perish the thought.
The likelihood of a ‘Senatehold’ enemies shouldn’t be considered, Yari’s maturity after the senate election is beating many imagination. A man having the list of those who collected his money and refused to vote for him but could still host people who collected his unearned and not hard money in several hundreds of dollars and be all smiles through the session is more of a strategist waiting for his time than a diabolical mind seeking short cut!
If the enemies of Akpabio are not from Anang or the Senate then where are they from?
The enemies of the Senate President are his confidants and advisers who insensitively crafted the idea of a bogus 61st birthday celebration in a nation far better when Akpabio turned 60th and didn’t witness one tenth of what we saw at his 61st, while the masses lick the wound of poverty inflicted on them by the APC led Government of Buhari. Sadly, Akpabio celebration of stupendous wealth in less than a year; courtesy of just few months in office is an insult on the state of our economy and the people left to helplessness put up with our political elite’s show of shame. Tinubu once called off his scheduled Birthday Colloquium in sympathy with the nation.
Culpable also are his managers, men and women drawing his schedules and managing his itineraries. They are all a bunch of novices, incompetent at managing an Executive of his status. If he loves himself he should sack his Anang speaking brethren who are too excited to be reasonable enough to lighten he schedules.
There are a thousand and one way to celebrate his 61st birthday, without raising dust and taking the route of stress that led to him collapsing. A biblical example is Pharaoh’s birthday in Gen.40 and Herod’s birthday in Matthew 14, they both affected the lives of the lesser beings by gifting them. Imagine a 61 Scholarship abroad for young Nigerians spread across all states of the federation and the FCT at a less tasking event with those young people which Mr President could still have attended in his honour to hand the scholarship out to beneficiaries. What a glorious birthday party that would have been for our Senate President but our leaders are not thinking of us, they are still in the celebration mood of their conquest of power.
All the same I will like to wish God’s-will the son of Akpabio (first people) a happy birthday of putting the people first. I am a call away to helping him plan his Thanksgiving to God for the 2nd chance to life. Congratulations, your Excellency.
