I Know Why Obama Avoids Nigeria! By Gimba Kakanda

No, not because we're the African country with the most American visa
applicants. It also couldn't be becauseof our sophist terrorists. It's
definitelynot over his security here.
Obama has bugs even in President Jonathan's Aso Rock. He listens in to
even our President's whisperings on telephones, and gets duplicates of
every email sent and received by our President. Quote me only when I
reach my man Edward Snowden. Obama couldn't be avoiding Nigeria on
moral grounds as carried by our inferiority complex-stricken media. A
coward who sends unmanned drones to another man's country has no moral
right to label us. A coward whose drones kill innocent kids in his
hunts for terrorists is just as guilty as our soldiers who invaded
Bama. Ethical morality is the last excuse a hacker should offer in
dealings with Africa's corrupt politicians. So, let's hang the
question of morals.
The reactions of Americans to their President's Father-Christmas
junkets to Africa betray the claims that Obamabrings salvation. The
angry Americans,who allege that Obama's trip cost them $100 million,
while lamenting the state of their economic mess, are more deserving
of Obama's planned $7 billion charity to Africa. "How can we be
feeding Africa?" One asks. This breaks my heart! I think Americans
arethe most untravelled people in the world; they live in amusing
illusions of an Africa with half-evolved humans and poverty and
barbarisms and aid-seeking governments. Perhaps Obama needs to
legalise cannabis and cocaine to know the exact statistics of his
subjects taken down by drug-induced mental illness. Obama can never be
the saviour of a government in whose eyes a sum twice his charity was
stolen in just a sector, and in a very short time of President Godluck
Jonathan's administration. Perhaps we need to send reports of General
Babangida's government to Americans. Perhaps we need to send them
estimates of General Abacha's loots. Perhaps we need to show them the
extent of President Obasanjo's financial mismanagements. Of course we
must forward reports of Nuhu Ribadu-led Petroleum Revenue Special Task
Force and, yes, yes, the names and thefts of the 'poor Africans'
involved in the fuel subsidy scam.
You see, even a New Yorker who cannot afford a flight to Philadelphia
is sold a lie of Africa's reality. New Yorker doesn't know that
thousands of Africans actually fly to Dubai to holdordinary birthday
parties. New Yorker doesn't know that the grandest housein his borough
is possibly owned by a Nigerian politician. He doesn't know that our
people own estates which accommodate his middle-class countrymen. He
doesn't know that the same Africans to whom he sees himself as savior
are shareholders of American corporations, where he seeks employment
as labourer. I respect New Yorker nonetheless. And I'm also concerned
about his welfare. I wish Obama understands that New Yorker may commit
suicide if he fails to secure a job by the end of this August. It's a
good thing that Obama agrees that "Africans are responsible for
Africa." We have the resources to build a viable Africa, but the
thieving politicians who invest in Obama's America have forestalled
our developments, and turned us into pitiable wrecks in the lab of
international politics.
Obama avoids Nigeria not because of our misused funds, some friends
vow that he does so for fear of our reactions to his actual
import,same-sex marriage, which may be toochaotic even for the secret
service agents in this most religious of all Black nations. The
Nigerian moralists are, more than the Arab Islamists and Vatican
Christians, the most fearless self-appointed litigators of God, and
thus Obama must be wary of another disrespectful heckler. Our National
Assembly itself is the prime championof homophobia, which may make
Obama's attempts to sell that deviancy undiplomatically adventurous.
America's political strategy is a plainly complex exercise,I tell you.
See, Obama avoids this country simply because of me. You don't have to
wear this look, you know. You don'thave to antagonise my destiny. This
iswhy I have been very political in my resentments towards gay rights.
My marabout has predicted that I'm a potential son-in-law of this son
of a Kenyan, and so it's cruelly immature to ruin that prospect in the
name of social crusade. Don't quote me but I'm afraid that the
ever-nosey secret service agents have already spied my love letters to
Malia, which I hope to post as soon as she crosses into the age of
American foolhardiness; it's only outside Africa that an
18-year-oldrebels parental supervision. So, the moment my Malia
becomes a romantic rebel, I won't hesitate to remind Obama that there
are other deviants seeking rights. If a gay can only do with gays,
addicts too deserve a right to sniff cocaine and smoke cannabis, it's
their health anyway. Until then, my in-law, your visits to Africa is
simply to highlight America's Big Brother mentality, and also to pose
as the messiah, whereas you have produced more widows, widowers and
orphans than any othercountry in this planet. Check the statistics of
your many wars. And it's quite depressing that Africans look out
through the Western window to call out for help, ignoring the
multi-millionaire politicians who abuse our sensibilities. We don't
need any aid; in fact it's criminal to give us aid. What we need are
stricter laws against corruptions, bigger prisons to contain
small-time thieves, and politically informed and adventurous citizens
to monitor the system. May God save us from us!
Gimba Kakanda
Kakanda maintains a Friday column for the Abuja-based Blueprint Newspaper.
@gimbakakanda (On Twitter).