Nigeria: Birthday Drivels And National Celebration Of Inanities

 By Alade Rotimi-John

The provocative and obscene celebration of birthdays by public personages is fast becoming a rude national pastime. The general Nigerian audience has bemusedly endured a siege of insults for quite some time now respecting the intolerable mischief of a lewd and soulless parade of stunts. There is a total extinction of all taste even as the celebrants are vulgar, gross and illiberal.

*Mrs. Tinubu, Akpabio and his wife at Akpabio's 61st Birthday Bash

Aside from the moral contamination incident on the celebrations, their lessons are morbidly and intellectually degrading as they generally present a distorted or superficial view of the sordid Nigerian condition. Many of the ceremonies have laid bare the social insensitivity of the celebrants who are reputedly of high estate. Even as their object is to covet general praise and admiration, they have ironically received in large measure a backlash in contempt and in a free-flowing gnashing imprecations from their fellow men and women.

Presidential Jets: Buhari On Jonathan's Part Of Wastage

By Ikhide Erasmus

By November 29, precisely six months after assuming office, President Muhammadu Buhari and his handlers would have be hard put to explain why images of corruption, inherited from former President Goodluck Jonathan's administration still cloud the nation's and airspace.

It comes to the news once again that the Federal Government would have been spending about N5.8bn on the 10-aircraft Presidential Air Fleet it inherited from the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. The PAF is the third largest fleet in the country, coming after Arik Air and Aerocontractors Airlines which have 23 and 12 aircraft in their fleets respectively.Other domestic airlines including FirstNation, MedView Airlines, Dana Air, Air Peace and Overland Airways have less than 10 aircraft each in their fleets.

According to calculations done from estimated data obtained from aviation parastatals and domestic airline operators in the country, President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration will have spent about $58.58m (N11.598bn) on running and maintaining the 10-aicraft presidential fleet by May 29 next year when it turns one year in office. This means that the half of this amount, $29.29m (N5.799bn), is expected to have been spent in principle on the large fleet when administration turns six months in office by November 29.

A few weeks after his inauguration, President Buhari had reportedly ordered the immediate disposal of some of the planes in the PAF. However, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, later denied knowledge of such directive: “The story of the order for the sale of aircraft in the Presidential Fleet, about which so much interest is being expressed, is not known to us,” Shehu quipped. 

Analysing the scenario then I wrote in the first paragraph in a piece entitled: "President Buhari, PAF and Images of Corruption" thus: "As the dawn broke over the nation in 2013, the plush lifestyle of former President Goodluck Jonathan and his propensity for frivolities and mellifluous came to the open. Bounded to the fantasy of presidential prestige and power, his obsession clings to its vanity. He swiftly abandoned his earlier pledge to “demonstrate leadership, statesmanship, vision, capacity and sacrifice, to transform our nation” in his May 29, 2011 inaugural address. But he never did."

The Semantics Of 'First Ladyship' In Nigeria

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

When I saw the headline in a national newspaper last weekend indicating that the federal government had “abolished the office of First Lady,” I hastened to read the report thinking that President Muhammadu Buhari has finally gratified the wishes of many Nigerians by terminating the overly wasteful, distractive and illegal position usually assumed by the spouses of our rulers.  

*Aisha Buhari 

Anyone familiar with my writings would easily recall that I have remained unrepentantly opposed to that illegal “office” behind which many spouses of Nigerian presidents, governors and even council chairmen hide to squander public resources, wield obscene influence and almost run a parallel administration. You could, therefore, imagine my excitement on seeing a headline that seemed to suggest that an end has finally been put to the whole revolting glamorization of illegality and frivolity.  

But I was brutally disappointed. What Buhari did was merely to “abolish” Six and replace it with Half-Dozen. His wife will now assume the “Office of the Wife of the President” instead of that of the “First Lady.” It is, however, doubtful if a mere name-change would introduce the slightest hint of departure from the notorious preoccupations that have over the years distinguished the contraption referred to as “First Ladyship” in Nigeria.  Perhaps, we were all expected to applaud this new chapter in the book of “Change,” but if you ask me, I think that somebody is merely trying to imply that we are a country of numbskulls, quite incapable of realizing when we have been fooled.