Ambassador Campbell’s nonsense

IT is becoming a tradition for all US Ambassadors to Nigeria, including those who would spend hours locating the country on the map of Africa before berthing on our soil, to become overnight experts on Nigerian matters, regardless the brevity of their terms. I blame dem? Since any gibbering from any US public official, including those of councillorship equivalent in Nigeria, always becomes our Deed of Truth, why won’t any idiot claim to know us more than us?

Goodluck Jonathan, to his eternal deficit, ran one of the most spineless administrations in the history of this nation and little wonder that the Campbells of this world still think him of the dunghill to empty midnight soil. Reno Omokri can keep searching all known encyclopedias to respond to John Campbell’s recent unprovoked and clearly mercantilist attack on Jonathan, his wife Patience and the government he led, but he should also remember to advise his boss to stop behaving like a slave while on throne as king.

It is for Campbell to write the history of Jonathan’s era and the main actors of the government the way it catches his fancy or justifying whatever consultancy contracts. It is also for Reno to rub clay into his dour face for poking his long nose into someone else’s marital home. Would American embassy here in Nigeria not be spewing theories of unacceptable profiling if what Campbell said about Patience Jonathan came from a Nigerian Ambassador to the US, either former or serving, about any American First Lady, including the ones whose husbands were national disaster in governance?

But it is no problem for such distasteful characterisation to come from an ordinary American Ambassador to a Nigerian First Lady. If that is the value we have resolved to place on our worth, no qualms, as the streets would wish away concerns. The qualms would come when the Americans or any other race feeling superiority funky over us, including the Indians who whimsically lock up Nigerian workers in construction yards in an enlightened environment like Ogun and Lagos states, decide to further devalue our current penny-worth. If you think that day would never be, check yesterday. Did America under the megalomania Barack Obama not practically take over the management of our political process in 2015 and with bull-eye accuracy achieving their predetermined target of regime-change?

Events and disclosures after the election undressed all the shenanigans of oyinbos, including the eventual winning party engaging David Axelrod, Obama and Clintons’ side-kick as the main “change” consultant and the infirm Secretary of State, John Kerry, hobbling around hitherto scared corners in our electoral space, fixing stuff, because they knew the man in Aso Rock then, practically moved around with scared balls. It took an editorial rebuke from Punch newspaper before the nation found its hoarse voice against Kerry desecrating the national collation centre in Abuja with his gutting presence, trying to direct INEC’s affairs! Haba! Are we ever going to rise above this complex?

How many foreigners, regardless of global influence, are allowed a harmless distance to an ordinary County’s collation point during any election in America, no matter how inconsequential the poll is? Has the entire federation not been in mourning mood over a mere suspicion that its nightmare, Russian Vladimir Putin, might be gaining an upper hand in the cyber-war between the two countries, in relation to the conduct of the 2016 presidential election? America even has laws barring outside influence from their electoral process, but they want to influence elections elsewhere. What smug over-rate of self-importance!

Olusegun Obasanjo isn’t my definition of leadership. But when it is time to wear a scowl or scorn off irritant, he doesn’t discriminate. To my knowledge, he once told off an American Secretary of State, who ran after him pleading, “I’m sorry chief, I’m sorry sir” after he was totally consumed by Ibogun gods and stormed out of a meeting with the lady. Smith Wigglesworth once said the only way to handle the devil is stomping and yelling. That is also how to mostly handle nosy America.

I really have no grouse with Campbell delivering his political message or errand in his own fashion. He must have seen the way Jonathan as president used to fling open the red carpets to receive ordinary policemen from FIB and share sensitive national information with them in the name of pleasing America on anti-corruption war, to arrogantly say “I stand by my characterisation of the First Lady (Patience).” Somehow, I believe Mama Peace will soon take the war to the so-called Nigeria Expert.

At individual level, both sides could fry their dodo the way they want, but Campbell must be told that his take on the alleged Christianisation of Jonathan’s government is pure hogwash. His logic is as crumbling as his uninspiring visage. What was his mission with the unfounded claim if not trying to retire some payment? Where are the factual premises that got him to that conclusion? He was so mischievously bereft in his haste to hit a pre-determined end, that he claimed that Sambo Dasuki was the most prominent of the sprinkle of Muslim faithful who served in the administration.

Obviously, his orchestrated claim was to mitigate global opprobrium against his friend’s (President Muhammadu Buhari) style of appointment. Even Aisha berated his husband for over-manifesting his nepotistic DNA. The obvious PR job was as poor as Campbell’s jaded suits. Why would a supposed friend of Nigeria be fanning an ember of religious disharmony with cooked-up facts, at a time like this, when genuine foreign friends are wishing Nigeria a more harmonious future? If there are altars that men of faith must plead passionately with God to pull down, Campbell is one of them. President Buhari should be wary of friends like him who make more enemies for him. If the president will be running in 2019, he will be judged strictly on his scorecard and not this Campbell nonsense.