Presidential Jankara in Ankara

PENULTIMATE week’s Turkiye stumble of President Bola Tinubu, seen around the world, was the second time divine intervention would be preventing what could have been a freak public death for the Nigerian leader. Considering how he contorted out, ghastly contoured, tumbled and crumbled with nil grip and zilch control, he could have hit his head and be gone right there in Ankara. Same way he could have easily fatally fractured his briefly twisted neck while being flipped and sprawling in the presidential parade vehicle during the 2024 Democracy Day celebration in Abuja. Many, even younger than him, had gone that way.

But when it’s not your time, it is not your time. In 2007, despite his unhidden fatherly affection for him, Obasanjo as president reportedly sidestepped then Kaduna governor, Ahmed Makarfi as potential successor due to health concerns. Nineteen years after both left their executive positions, thankfully, both are still alive but the one Obasanjo passed Makarfi up for is sadly no more, taken by the same ill health as Nigeria’s president.

Yoruba have a foreboding saying about unpleasantness completing a tricycle. Ekinikebe, ekejikebe, eketa a je je tan (first and second occurrences are warnings, the third likely irreversible). I reject it for the president.

But it is not enough to just wish a potential third away. Daniel desperately wished the divine message in the dream of Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, would be for the enemies of his majesty.

“Then Daniel (also called Belteshazzar) was greatly perplexed for a time and his thoughts terrified him. So the king said, Belteshazzar, do not let the dream or its meaning alarm you. Belteshazzar answered, My lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your adversaries” (Daniel 4:19). But wishes are never horses; that is why beggars are rarely seen on adorned horses except in the cinematic make-believe.

Because the king would not heed Daniel’s advice in Verse 27 to effect a real change, by Verse 28 of the same Chapter 4, what Daniel wished would not be upon the king had begun manifesting. But there is something striking in Verse 29: the Bible recorded that it took a whole year (twelve months) for the warning/prophetic dream to be fulfilled. Verse 30, however, showed that the king continued in his haughty ways, demonstrating stomach-churning hubris with, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”

The rest of the story is known to practically every breathing soul, irrespective of religious choices. The king’s story, long after he died, has remained as didactic as ever. But it is still a story that ends well. Nebuchadnezzar recovered his lost paradise. He retraced his steps and recommitted himself to his Creator.

Am I insinuating the president has been toeing the Nebuchadnezzar path? Not exactly. Am I asking the president to check things around him, possibly for a real change? Likely. Am I suggesting the public fall of the president is a warning from his Creator? Could be. Do old people or human beings generally fall? Absolutely yes. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill here? Could be assumed. But am I truly worried for the president? Yes. Do I believe a third public fall is possible? Like Daniel, I say, may that be for his enemies.

Beyond the president’s mishap in front of the entire ruling class of Turkiye and the rest of humanity, a lot also went wrong with the trip, exposing the entire country to global opprobrium. Even the Nigerian delegation that went with the president was out of sorts, demonstrating poor diplomatic understanding on the part of those representing us in Ankara. In one of the viral videos in circulation, a barely recognisable Nigerian official, initially mistaken for presidential spokesperson, BayoOnanuga (who was actually away to Benue on presidential media visit to the state governor), was seen gruffly grabbing the Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Bianca Ojukwu, practically shoving her like a primary school pupil to the head of the queue waiting for handshake with the Turkish leader, leaving the usually elegant famous widow rattled for the period the embarrassing shuffling lasted. Were that to happen in America, especially to a coloured woman, particularly if Black, the rage of women dignity advocates would have been implacable.

Other ministers on the queue, clearly clueless about the shoulder-jacking and dragging episode, looked thoroughly flushed and flustered. Obviously no one had practised with the president’s delegation how the hand-bumping arrangement should be conducted during a state visit. For a country as blessed as Nigeria, it is shameful to have funny fellows all over the Nigerian embassy in Ankara who couldn’t communicate simple diplomatic etiquette and norms, which ordinarily dictate that the foreign minister would be at the head of the delegation to be introduced by President Tinubu to his “bad” host (will come to that shortly), Erdogan, during the state visit and had to be making last-minute public adjustment in a very demeaning way.

Please don’t tell me about Nigeria not having an ambassador in Turkiye, though one was almost smuggled in days before the problematic state visit. At least there are senior diplomatic officials in the Nigerian embassy over there. I had to snoop around from those on the trip. Learnt that nearly all Nigerians in the embassy are of a particular faith and from a particular tribe. The “mission packing” reportedly took place under the Buhari administration. While I’m not bothered by religious affiliation of state actors, their competence matters, especially those embodying Nigeria in foreign land. Tinubu’s administration, no doubt, has done badly in managing Nigeria’s image abroad by leaving the embassies practically unfunded and without functional ambassadors for almost three years, yet pumping funds into the hands of incompetent quota diplomats would make no difference. And having some of the ambassadorial nominees cleared by the Senate would worsen the already terrible situation. I’m pleading with Mr President to see his “fall” in Ankara as an opportunity to end the jankara (street lingo for anyhowness which includes fraudulent deeds) in his presidency.

I understand from his orbit that anytime there are wide-ranging vacancies like ambassadorial or board appointments to be filled, the president will just point out the priority slots to his trusted aides to fill with his own candidates and direct them to fill the rest with nominees expected from front-row members of the administration and other gatekeepers. That is when the jankara monkey business is always reportedly conducted, according to Villa sources. A senior aide of the president allegedly reaped a windfall from desperadoes in the course of putting the ambassadorial list together. A female ambassador-designate allegedly paid the aide hundreds of millions for her name to be included. At a point, threats reportedly came into their dealing when it appeared the “tough” lady would be bypassed. The aide had to deliver, not to be exposed.

When the Dakingari name-smuggling scandal broke amid allegations of illegal substitution of names on the ambassadorial list, a friend in the presidential mix disclosed to me that the problem of illegal substitutions in federal appointments is bigger than reported in the media after we both read a report in The Cable newspaper, detailing embarrassing appointment reversals under this administration.

 We x-rayed the NTA scenario of September last year when top officials were fired, replaced and then recalled. The culprit behind it in Villa was named to me. He once ran a broadcasting organisation which became moribund. One aspect of the discussion I found disturbing was the allegation that he deceived the president when pointedly asked if he had discussed his concerns with the information minister and the names he was pushing to replace the top officials being put on the firing line. When the minister came protesting that he knew nothing about the firing and replacement, the president reportedly confronted the aide about his claim and was shamed at the Villa meeting. It was the anger of being lied to that reportedly drove the president to reinstate the sacked NTA chiefs. Yet this shamed fellow is still a close aide and reportedly has a huge say in public appearances of the president as a domestic aide! Chai, the way of politicians is only known to them.

When Hakeem MuriOkunola, the unquestionably very powerful principal secretary to the president, was being violently dragged on social media following the Ankara fiasco, I worried to someone inside if the wrong target was not being scapegoated. No, was the answer I got, with the source dubbing the former Lagos Head of Service the deputy president. The source told me the one popularly known as HMO is the only aide of the president who can tell anyone “the president said” and it would be a bullseye, and woe betide whoever wants to double-check the message with the president. Unfortunately, despite his expansive influence in the seat of power (he reportedly sits in on almost all the president’s meetings), he is also said to be a “yes man” to the president, who I learned regularly seeks his opinions on matters, especially personal ones.

No doubt, the president left Nigeria sick. But no one could stop him. Maybe if the First Lady had been around him more. He came out of the presidential car bearing him to Turkey’s state house, enervated, bewildered and horrendous in his outfit, especially the oversized winter jacket, reportedly chosen for him by the aide in the botched NTA regime-change coup.

The appearance of the president, especially as he was being babysat around by his host, sadly reminds of now-late Taraba governor, DanbabaSuntai, after his self-piloted aircraft crash of October 25, 2012 and criminal attempts by aides to return him to office from the American hospital where he was being treated, when clearly medically unfit, manifesting incapacitation. He never recovered till his death in Houston, Texas on June 28, 2017.

The president showed up like an expiring villainous trans-border mafia boss in an American movie and no one could tell whoever dressed him up that way he/she was committing treason against the Nigerian people. The pain was searing for me because he was at that moment the symbol of Africa’s most populous country. In the future, maybe Seyi, as much as I see him as intrusive, obstructive and obtrusive, should be with his father if the First Lady wouldn’t be there. At least, there are boundaries Seyi can overstep as a son and not a beloved aide to tell his dad some bitter truth. Would whoever made Mr President look that jaded have his father appear that clownish? Then the uncharitable Erdogan added salt to injury, tossing our president around like an ailing puppy rescued into a new home. The whole parade charade was cringeworthy. But Nebuchadnezzar turned things around. Akanbi can too.

Three names kept coming up in my prying: HMO, the NTA coup plotter and another domestic aide with an alias that sounds like that of a street boy, starting with A.

Can the president do something about them before they kill him in public? Can he also take a second look at the ambassadorial list? Can he also rely more on respectable friends and associates, older than the rapacious guys helping him now and with manifest expertise in areas he would be making future appointments? At least, such people would want to at least be respect-respecting and won’t be all out for cash and carry like those seeking sacks of dollars to fund political aspirations a few years down the line.

Nebuchadnezzar turned a mess into a message. Everything doesn’t have to be politics; especially life that hath no duplicate. Mr President, accept my sincere sympathy, sir.