Tinubu’s travels and PDP blues, By Reuben Abati

“Bros, how are you preparing for the weekend?”

“Which weekend? Today is Tuesday, you are asking me about weekend. Have you taken something today? Weekend? How?”

“Just that in my own thinking, the way the country is today, someone has to always plan ahead. As I am now, I plan ahead. I calculate everything.”

“Stop over-calculating. The sun will go down. It will rise tomorrow morning. And all of us will still be here.” 

“Speak for yourself sir.”

“What do you mean speak for yourself? You have something against the sun rising and falling, the day going to bed and rising at dawn? Are you alright?” 

“You have to speak for yourself, because what is uppermost in my mind right now is how to make the most of President Tinubu’s biggest gain from his trip to Japan to attend the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Yokohama known as TICAD 9.”

“So? He has left Japan. He went to the United States. Los Angeles. He has now been sighted in Brazil, where he is said to be on a state visit. We all read that. So?” 

“No. You did not read everything. He left something behind in Japan. The Japanese have now said that as part of the Japanese trip, there is now a Nigerian city in Japan to which Nigerians can relocate, and live and work. It is called the city of Kisarazu, one hour away from Tokyo, where everything is available as in a modern world.”  

“What does that mean?”

“It is called cultural diplomacy. And don’t forget that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba made the point that Japan is having population problems and that in the nearest future, Japan’s population may be halved. And now the same Minister gives us a whole city to which Nigerians can relocate. I have been having dreams. What exactly am I doing here? I can go and start afresh in Japan. I believe that nobody will miss me if I leave this country. Who is even aware that I am here? At least in Japan, I will be a celebrity. My colour will advertise me. Who knows? One Japanese girl may get so curious and decide to get close, and we can start addressing Japan’s population problem together.” 

“Please why are Nigerians so dumb? What is wrong with you people?” 

“Nothing is wrong with anybody. Nigerians are very adventurous people. This was how one country advertised the other year and said anybody that can come there and marry their girls will receive monetary benefits. I was determined to go. You discouraged me. Why do you always like to kill my dreams?”

“There is a difference between dreams and delusion. You are delusional. Those countries, including Japan, are interested in highly skilled workers, productive human beings who can contribute to their economy, not liabilities who are looking for women to marry.”

“You always like to talk textbook principles. As far as Japan is concerned right now, the highest skill in the world that can help the Japanese economy is any man who can help reflate the economy by producing children. Look at me. Every part of my body is loaded with children. I am a highly skilled worker, a population expert.”

“You are a highly skilled, unserious Nigerian.”

“Bros, with due respect…”

“Go ahead and insult me. When a Nigerian tells you with due respect, he actually wants to disrespect you, so don’t worry, speak…”

“What I am trying to say now is that someone like you now, you cannot fit into the Japan of the future, you will not survive in Kisarazu, you have been married twice, you have been divorced twice. Japan is looking for skillful Nigerians who will hold down their women and produce equally skilful Nigeria-Japanese children. I want to volunteer as an ambassador. I want to represent Nigeria…”

“I never heard the Japanese talking about all these things you are saying.”

“I heard them. Sometimes, silences are better than spoken words. In fact, members of President Tinubu’s delegation reportedly visited Kisarazu to stake out the territory. If any one of them is missing when the president finally returns, we know where the search party should go.” 

“You people just think everything is a joke in this country. No Nigerian needs a home town in Japan. That is the truth. You can’t even speak the language.”

“Love does not speak a particular language. Romance has no specific identity. It simply flows.” 

“If the Japanese want to develop bilateral relations with Nigeria, let them come and invest in the Nigerian economy. They are contractors in this economy. Refineries, steel factories, NLNG, but they don’t have a proper factory here. I don’t even know of any Nigerian doing business in Japan. They are trying to cheat us again. What Nigeria needs is investment, jobs, not Japanese babies that will help Japan and put generations of Nigerian men in trouble. If you go to Japan now, what will happen to the young, poor girl who has been with you for the past five years, hoping that some good will come out of her effort.”

“It is all for the national good. I am acting in the national interest.”

“In other words, your understanding of President Tinubu’s attendance at TICAD 9 in Japan is that Nigerian men can now go and marry Japanese women in Kisarazu.”

“Nigerian women can go too. But I think our women are too much for Japanese men. They cannot cope. For where? An elephant is not something a child plays with.” 

“Your government went to Japan and could not even run a booth at the Trade Expo”

“I thought Mr Bayo Onanuga already made it clear that we were not there for a Trade Expo. Nigeria went there to strike serious deals, hold serious conversations. Other countries went there to advertise Kente, Nigeria ended up with the citizenship of a whole city! You see the logic?”

“I do not see it. I ask for some seriousness in economic diplomacy. And this whole idea of African leaders rushing to France, Russia, China, Japan and the Middle East for this and that conference whenever they are summoned makes absolutely no sense to me. We do not attend these meetings on African terms. Our leaders lack the mental and technical capability to read the fine, small prints. The Asians, Americans and the Europeans understand this too well. So, their attitude is always patronising, colonial and condescending. They donate some money and that is it. Japan is coming here to do mining. I am sure as contractors again, and you want to go there and help them build their population. Ha!”

“President Tinubu made it clear when he spoke that Africa needs partnership and co-operation, not aid.”

“Japan still offered $5.5 billion as aid. No African leader was bold enough to stand up and say “No, Thank you.” Are we on the same page?”

“Baba has even left Japan and their katikati. So, we don’t have to worry. He is now in Brazil.”

“After stopping over in Los Angeles. What exactly he went to pick up in Los Angeles, nobody knows.”

“I guess he just needed to rest a little.”

“He left Nigeria for a two-nation trip: Japan and Brazil. To get to Japan, he spent time stopping over in Dubai. He leaves Japan, he goes to the United States for another stop-over. Then he heads towards Brazil. I won’t be surprised if on his way back, he stops over in London and Paris before getting to Nigeria.”

“He is the president. I think we have to learn to stop treating him like the donkey. He means well. He is in Brazil, for example to sign MOUs, and to continue Nigeria-Brazil relations from where Obasanjo started 21 years ago.”

“Memoranda of Understanding. MOUs. I suspect there is no more space for MOUs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We go about signing these things and when we get back, we just keep them in a wardrobe in the Ministry without anybody looking at them. We certainly need more seriousness in our conduct of foreign affairs. And please, Tinubu’s supporters should keep President Obasanjo’s name out of their mouths. Continue what. Have you not read the story in LEADERSHIP newspaper, where it was reported that Obasanjo is due to release a book titled, Nigeria: Past and Future, where he says Buhari is the most incompetent leader to ever rule Nigeria, and that Tinubu is following closely behind?” 

“OBJ said that?”

“Yes. The book promises to be a blockbuster and a bombshell combined.”    

“And who says OBJ is the only one that knows how to abuse Nigerian leaders. He cannot try that letter-writing trick with Jagaban oh. I know you consider him a hero. Please go and advise him. Asiwaju is not a man he can insult. He will write so long a letter and return-to-sender in multiple folds.”

“I think you and I are here. Let us wait for the drama. It is just about to unfold.”

“Asiwaju has enough capacity to stop the book from ever coming out.”

“That is tyranny. Obasanjo has every right under the Constitution to think as he wishes and express himself freely.”

“This is how President Tinubu will mind his own business, and people will just go and start disturbing him. When he fights back now, people will say he wants to be the only one.”

“The last time I checked this is meant to be a democracy.”

“I know. Democracy. Look at where the same democracy has taken the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a party that ruled this country for 16 years but is now in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU).” 

“That is very stale information. Have you not heard? PDP just left the ICU, and may well be on its way to full recovery. The party held a successful National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja yesterday where NEC approved the Report of the National Convention Zoning Committee, which recommends that the party’s present zoning formula should be retained, and that the presidential candidate of the party for the 2027 General election should be zoned to the South. Meanwhile, Ambassador Umar Damagum has been confirmed as the substantive National Chairman of the Party.”

“Then, that is the triumph of Wike! Wike has been vindicated. He has always insisted that the Presidency must be zoned to the South and now the PDP has bowed to his will.”

“In your dreams! This is not in any way a triumph for Wike. He has just been outsmarted by Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and Governor Bala Muhammed of Bauchi State. Wike does not want the party’s November Convention. But there is nothing he can do, now that Damagum is a substantive Chairman, and by that fact, he can preside over a Convention of the Party. It is meant to be an elective Convention. Once it ends, Damagum loses his position. The Samuel Anyanwu problem is also resolved. Wike’s hand is removed from the party. And the road is clear for the party to have a strong candidate.” 

“So, where will the next Chairman of the party come from?”

“North West, and certainly not anybody close to Wike.” 

“I wonder why it is so difficult to run a political party in Nigeria.”

“The same way it is difficult to run anything that involves Nigerians. The Nigerian town in Japan you want to go to, I can bet that it won’t take long before you people take the Nigeria in you to Japan and the Japanese will want you out of their country.”

“Look at our AfroBasket Team, D’Tigers. They crashed out of the FIBA AfroBasketball last Wednesday in the quarter-finals having lost to Senegal, but they had to stay in Luanda till yesterday before they could leave. The players wanted their tickets changed so they could leave, but the Federation officials insisted everyone should stay till the end of the tournament. Two of the players had to buy their own tickets and return to the United States.”

“Estacode. Estacode. But are they back now?”

“I understand the rest of the team returned yesterday. Nicodemously, though.” 

“Good for them. At least they saved Nigeria the trouble of having to give them $100,000, a three-bedroom apartment and a national honour each if they had won.” 

“You are not nice at all.”

“The truth is always bitter, my brother.”

Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesperson, writes from Lagos.