Tuesday 29 June 2010

A curious case of the 62 Senators and other stories...

The last few weeks have been such an eerily funny one in the life of the average Nigerian. It just goes to show the idiosyncrasies of the political space called Nigeria and the rot caused by corruption one day at a time since the period of the oil windfall in the ‘70s.

I heard in the news about the 62 Nigeria senators who left their duty posts in Abuja to watch the world cup in South-Africa. Quick questions: On who’s bill? So who legislates while they’re away in South-Africa? Do they still get their sitting allowance in absentia? The ones left to man the posts at home have not faired any better either: Did you hear about the “boxing championship” between the “11-strayed reps” and “Honourable” Dimeji Bankole? Chei! I no fit laff! If I'm to make a wild guess on the reason for the chaos, someone did not get their complete loot of the National treasury hence this rebellion. QED!

I’ve been busy… watching the world cup and I am disappointed (as if I should expect more sef) at the dismal record of the “Super Chickens” (according to popular opinions even though come to think of it, they haven't proved anyone wrong for saying so).
Against Argentina, I thought they gave “a good account” of themselves albeit the scoreline at full-time because we didn’t expect much from them anyway. We also discovered Vincent Enyeama all over again (thank God for little mercies). We were generous enough in the second match against Greece to give them two whole football records on our watch: 1st scores and 1st win in the world cup. We also discovered a new word in the Naija vocabulary: “Kaita- A man who single-handedly hindered the hope of his country for reasons best known to him.” LWKMD! South Korea was at least determined not to let a bunch of unprepared players take what they had spent 4years preparing for and I think they deserved that move to the next round.

In the run-off to this tournament, I heard about the hotel accommodation which we paid for but never utilized. I also read in the dailies about the 14committees set up by Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in SA for unwarranted “chores” like protocol, food, sleep, clean yansh, chop money, organize wuruwuru amongst others (anything to dispense FIFA and govt. funds na, ;)). I also know we gave money to a “ghost” friendly-match organizer who “disappeared” into thin air a few days before match kick-off. Even the chartered aircraft paid for by the NFF to fly the team refused to grow wings not to talk of fly them to SA. Ha! Na wa for Naija!!!

I think it is high time public office holders are held accountable for decisions and expenses made on behalf of their constituencies otherwise the ridiculous amount of misappropriated funds will keep increasing until somebody really gets tired and takes the law into their hands. Shikena!

All said, I’m now ready to watch real football matches and at least cheer the better side. I heard a rumour that a “great pastor” predicted that Ghana will make it to the semi-finals. As much as I’m not a fan of all these predictions, I do want Ghana to get there and even farther…. It's been a long time coming and they deserve it.

Let the real games begin!!!

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