My lifeless Presido! By Akan Emmanuel

Trumpis my kind of stupid White Man- he doesnt mince his words. I like him because he says it the way it is. He said we should be fenced out of his country, and I agreed with him. He called us a shithole, and I agreed with him. Then he called my president “lifeless”, and I am agreeing with him.

Trump is lively, and we get entertained with his liveliness in daily tweets, his unguarded utterances, the constant stream of his faux pas, and the mistakes of his youth, middle age and old age. And I bet he would be an entertaining mess into his dotage. In my first post in support of Trump, I said the world would get to enjoy a global reality show, and he hasn’t disappointed. 

We all know Buhari is “lifeless” and colourless in public, with very little charisma or oratory skills, though close associates paint a different picture of a jovial, friendly man. We knew before we voted for him that he wasn’t another garrulous OBJ, a scurrilous, shell-shocked UMYA, or an insecure GEJ with the idiotic smile permanently pasted on his face, and his clownish bulbous nose and red lips reminding me of Buba the pirate from some old cartoon.

We knew Buhari was no prancing antelope. We knew he was deeply conservative, and not given to frivolities, bouts of insecure chattering, neither is he yearning for the approval and love of strangers. Its his “lifelessness” that has kept the charlatans from whispering their devious plans with him. Like someone said, the man is so lifeless he is the last person you would go to discuss dirty deals with.

Maybe Trump expected to be entertained with an energetic monkey from Africa, the best position to take a voluptous African babe, tales of some arcane, tribal rites, and a willing specimen for the butt of his racist jokes. He has had Omarosa, then Kanye, then Kim. But in Buhari, he met a stiff neck who was just going through the diplomatic motions, just like he was, and not interested in being a good sport.

We saw the liveliness of Macron and Trudeau and how it all ended in tarriffs and silly spats. But a dour Theresa May is doing good. Merkel keeps to herself to avoid the splatter of a roadkill. Trump sort a market for his farmers to help absorb the impact of his trade war with the Chinese, and Buhari refused to bite, him kwa has his own agenda for our farmers and the need to curb imports. If the Trump had something to offer us apart from dwindling aid and overpriced military hardware, we would have heard about it.

Maybe Buhari should tell us what he thinks of Trump, though that would be diplomatically unwise- we are still a very junior partner in this relationship, and no need trying to punch above our weight with a bully. But we have unnamed sources too. Though engaging in a verbal spat with Trump isnt a priority.

What is a priority is the ongoing revival of our infrastructure that my “lifeless” president has engineered at home. What is a priority is the continued resurgence of the agricultural sector and making a stab at self-sustenance. What is a priority is seeking to diversify the economy and giving it the foundation it needs to weather global and localized shocks.

I see the changes around me, and I come alive with the hope that we can make it if we even do a half of what we are supposed. With that hope, most of us are voting for that lifelessness until 2023.

We have allowed these guys to distract us for too long with their liveliness. OBJ made silly, funny jokes when confronted with his lapses, GEJ danced Azonto to show that all was well in Paradise, while Buhari’s trek brought out the bile we harboured. We allow them to manipulate us with tribal and religious sentiments, and conspiracy theories, while they fritter our future away. We dont need lively, we need a working country.

We elected a president, not Bugs Bunny. If Trumps wants a frenetic fool to share ribald jokes with, then Duterte remains his best bet. Too bad Zuma is no more. They say Trump is looking for chemistry that would energize him to do something for Africa, but chemistry is not what Nigeria needs. What we need is to get our shit together, and the world will come. The Chinese and other Asian countries had what investors all over the world wanted, and they went. When we have, nobody will care for rigor mortis, they will show.

*Akan Ebenezer posted this on his Facebook wall.