Is the joke on America?

If you ask an American, they are the world. Just check everything of theirs, it’s not only humongous, it is designed for immense things – the cars, the homes – even the concrete jungles called cities. On the political scene, no-one does it like America. They are the real democracy – forget the Greeks and their claim to the invention of the concept, or the Indians with the longest practice. These Americans have provoked hatred for other forms of government and incited wars with the exception being Saudi Arabia, the only sacred cows. America needs affordable gas to power those monsters.

When it comes to morality, America is Sodom and Gomorrah. Every idea capable of leading to upheaval comes from America. From benefitting and ending slavery to hip-hop and the acceptance of institutionalised same-sex relations America is the curator of them all.

Until our own Professor Farooq Kperogi weaned us from calling America God’s Own Country, we were forgiven for thinking that God lives in Washington DC. Kperogi is a naturalised citizen, a mind moulder and an avowed critic; so we accept his correction and America is just America; that works for them as it works for us.

Englishman Jeremy Bentham might have been the father of jurisprudence, when it comes to testing the elasticity of law, America wins the tug-of-war game. Until its justices have made a pronouncement on an issue, the remaining silks in the world are merely clearing the field. Yet, the last five years have pushed America to the brink of jurisprudence for better or worse.

 Its supposedly aged and enlightened electorate chose a now certified conman, Donald J. Trump, over Hilary Clinton at a time the world’s under-represented gender was waiting for the prime nation to show that what men do could be done better by their better half.

Just as the Jews of yore chose Barnabas over Jesus the Christ, Americans preferred Trump to browbeat Hilary with all crudeness and misogyny. As president, Trump would play Jacob’s voice with Esau’s hand. He insulted his way to Kim Jung Un’s heart, pumped Vladimir Putin’s hands and even borrowed Putin’s show of force in Washington DC. Trumpism changed the trajectory of American politics and even tried to introduce civilian coup into the mix after manifestly losing his re-election bid.

Trump wants to come back and Joe Biden, the man that roundly defeated him four years back, wants to stop him by every and all means. Some swear that some of those means are not so fair. After a long trial, Trump was last week indicted on all 34 felony counts of falsifying his business records. As usual, Trump ignores the facts and focused on the politics of the trial while professing his innocence. He blames everyone but himself for his own actions.

While we wait for the final verdict Trump becomes the first ex-US president to wear the title of convict to his many titles. According to American law, convicts are forever banned from owning or firing a gun in their gun-loving nation. Trump pulls the majority of his motley crowd from gun-owners and big arms dealers and he is not dropping out of the November election race. Like his democratic counterpart, the Republicans can’t seem to find an injury hour replacement. While he is banned from putting his fingers on the trigger of a firearm, if elected president, Trump would have the combination of the world’s deadliest weapon – America’s nuclear arms.

Anyone that has followed the American maverick might be losing sleep over this denouement. We all know that Trump is that kind of a personality that would say – I have a nuclear weapon and I know how to use it! Unfortunately, or fortunately, or both, there is no law in America that could stop his ambition of returning to the White House.

On the global scene, there is enough gunpowder spread over the universe to test the limits of an unhinged person with the combination lock to human survival. Fear is okay here.

Nigerians might be wont to say that the joke is on America – but is it really? It sounds like the kind of thing that only those without precedent would dare to say. We have had our own big moments where the law becomes the ass that big wigs ride to victory.

Going down memory lane, in 1999 Senator Nuhu Aliyu was shocked to discover that he would be sharing the hallowed chambers of the Senate with some of the crooks he had investigated as a deputy inspector general of police. They would wear the title of distinguished to cover their sordid past. It broke Aliyu’s heart and he voiced out. That revelation outraged his ego-vaunting colleagues who asked him to swallow his fears and get ready to tango. In 2003, Senator Iyiola Ajani Omisore, found himself in a detention cell from where he comfortably won his first Senate seat.

All that paled into insignificance when Esho Jinadu aka Buruji Kashamu won a Senate seat from Ogun State. A fugitive drug baron wanted by the Americans, Jinadu upon assuming his monicker, Kashamu, denied he was ever in America but would fight every attempt to repatriate him there to prove his innocence. He stood on the claim of mistaken identity. He did not stop at being a senator, he contested the governorship of Ogun State.

For that adventure, he recruited Reuben Abati, President Goodluck Jonathan’s chief spokesman and former chairman of the Guardian Editorial Board, as his running mate before COVID terminated his quest. May Allah overlook his bad records and grant him al-Jannah Firdaus, because Allah is all-generous and all-forgiving.

We had to travel this far down memory lane to clear the halitosis of those who might be tempted to laugh at America. Our incumbent president was accused of criminality, but nobody could prove anything against him, not even America that always knows everything according to President Jonathan. So, hold your tongue and let Trump breathe! The joke is on humanity.

The National Anthem

Even if he achieves nothing in the next seven years of his presidency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has won his top priority project – a revert to the colonial anthem. It was rubberstamped through both chambers of the legislature in six days. That speed shows that change could happen whenever the interests of the ruining class is at stake. He could have done it with an executive order on May 29, 2023 without the heavens falling.

Here would have been my tweak on the old anthem.

Nigeria, we hail thee

Our own dear motherland

From east or west; from north or south

In nationhood we stand

Nigeria calls on us to serve

Our sovereign motherland.

This is gender-neutral, devoid of the pejorative term ‘native’. We all know the labour of past heroes are swallowed in corruption. Rising debts, inflation, underdevelopment and policy flip-flops are obvious signs.

With a level of cluelessness that makes Jonathan a wise man, we probably should ask the Commonwealth to ask Britain to retake us and send administrators except that even Britain is looking for a saviour. It goes to the polls in a month’s time. In the eyes of the world, Nigeria is a huge joke.