By Nkem Alu
That the PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has scored one point too many in visiting America is not a storm in a tea cup. The 12 year jinx being broken just a month to the current election is in fact, a puncture on the campaign balloon of the incumbent . Suffice it to say that the current campaign, primarily between the APC and the PDP wears a toga of unassuming descriptions, so to ascribe.
THE GIFT OF TALKING MACHINES
The spate of character assassination and lampooning frequencies across board is something incongruously worrisome. In Dino Melaye, Lai Mohammed, Shehu Idris, Adams Oshiomhole, Shehu Sani, Ike Ekweremadu, Femi Adeshina, Festus Keyamo, Ayo Fayose, Nyesom Wike, Rotimi Amechi, Rochas Okorocha, Kola Orogbodiyan, Yemi Osinbajo, Bukola Saraki, et al, both parties are blessed with men of incredible vocal prowess. They are therefore tempted to toe the path of making verbose orations filled with kiddy, messy, inglorious and bone-scanning vituperations. But who falls into the waiting dragnet of calumny and calamitous manhunt? Your guess!
A CLOUD SO CLOUDY
The Atiku-American ban would have made better headlines if Lai Mohammed had not gone on air to Ask America not to grant Atiku visa for reasons he is already supposedly prohibited. Was Lai foreseeing an American rebound on strict security decisions or was the ban story a roughly muffled indictment ab initio? I press the ‘enter’ button at this point. And on Oshiomhole preaching that Nigeria does not deserve a president who does not have access to America, I see another sprout of curiously childish outpour. Imagine how politics has reduced men to gibberish-pullers in the fore of foreseeable tornadoes of man made imbroglio!
THE BILATERAL SIDE OF THE COIN
Now over to the one that made me cackle intermittently. Atiku has finally landed in America, thereby raising another bout of dust. While some detractors were shipping assumptions that he was smuggled into America, that the Nigerian Embassy was not aware of his arrival in America, etc, others held that it was one blow too many on the cheek of APC. But let me ask, must Atiku consult the Nigerian Embassy before going to America, especially knowing that the incumbent would scuffle the trip if given the chances? One thing stands tall, while the APC was calling on America to deny Atiku visa, they successfully advertised Atiku more to the international community. America loves economic ties with countries of very populous and workforce credence like Nigeria. They also know that the incumbent Nigerian government is getting more China-headed, in terms of binational ties, so, won’t they rather support someone who is likely to bring them into the fore of the economy of the most populous black nation on earth? My thoughts.
ANOTHER STONE IN THE AIR
Now that Atiku has gone to America, Lai Mohammed has kick-started another one, saying that Atiku will answer some questions when he returns from America. What questions? That Atiku has a hand in the collapse of bank PHB. To me this is another global advertorial for Atiku. If you tackle a person so much, you end up marketing him to the populace. When Atiku returns, this bank PHB saga will paint the faces of places and people with so many hues, so much that, who knows, another jab may just land on the face of its thrower.
(Nkem Alu writes from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka)
