of NigerianSocioPoliticonoNometrics of leadership

Once upon a time, when Baba (Obasanjo) was in office as the president, he got an invitation from the Queen to come for a visit to England . After all the banquets and carriage rides and what not, Baba finally got the quiet moment he has craved all day in order to have a one on one chat with her majesty. After the usual small talk, Baba quickly popped the question (no silly, not that question). He asked her what the secret to her success was. You know Nigerians, we think everything is a secret…the President’s health status is a secret, his whereabouts is a secret, reports of the various panels of enquiry set up by govt to investigate the causes of different crises around the country are kept secret, we even have secret registries in every government agency in d country. Maybe we are a secretive people, we love secrets.` Anyway, back to our story. So Baba asked for the SECRET to d Queens’s success and she told him that she relies on her people a lot and therefore she makes certain that only the intelligent get to positions of authority. She decided to show him exactly what she meant and so she phoned Tony Blair. "Now listen carefully, Mr. Obasanjo, I'm going to ask Mr. Blair a question to determine his intelligence.” Queen: "Hello Mr. Blair, I have a question for you: your mother has a child, and your father has a child. This child is not your brother and is not your sister. Who is he?" Tony Blair replied instantly, "It's ME your majesty!" Queen: "Correct! Thank you and goodbye" "You see Mr. Obasanjo?" said the Queen "Yes”, he replied “and thanks a lot, I'll definitely be using that!" Once back in Nigeria he decided that he has doubts about Mantu’s level of intelligence and he decided to test him. He arranged a meeting with him and asked him: "Mantu I have a question for you; your mother and father have a child. The child is not your brother and is not your sister, who is he?." Mantu thinks...... and thinks………and thinks, and finally says, "Em, Mr. President, you must give me more time to think about it." And Mr. Obasanjo gave him 2 weeks to come up with an answer. That afternoon, Mantu called a meeting of all his aides, advisers and assistants to discuss the question, but NOBODY knew the answer. So he decided to take it to the floor of the senate. After a heated debate the senate President thought it wise to clear out the gallery and go into a closed session as he believed the revelations that may result could be damaging to the family and reputation of the distinguished senator Mantu. After about two hours of deliberations, the house decided to set up an ad hoc committee to look into the matter and report back to it in ten days. The committee was given the followingterms of reference: 1. To come up with a complete family tree of the entire Mantu clan 2. To pay a courtesy call to the traditional ruler of Mantu’s village and the State Governor 3. To interview all living relatives of Senator Mantu 4. To determine if Sen. Mantu’s dad had any extramarital affairs 5. To determine the DNA composition of Sen. Mantu (in Germany of course or Saudi) On completion of its assignment, the committee was to submit its report to the senate which will then pass it on to the Senate committee on special duties. This committee will then review the report of the ad hoc committee and come up with a draft “white paper” (whatever that means). This draft “white paper” will then be brought back to the senate and on approval will be passed on to the President through Senator Mantu. The Ad-hoc committee then submitted its budget which of course was kept SECRET but included funds for; a) The immediate purchase of Land Cruiser jeeps for each of the 12 members of the committee. The jeeps will be used to travel to Mantu’s village bcos as you know, Nigerian roads are bad and Mantu’s village is remote. b) Air tickets (first class of course) and hotel accommodation in Jos for committee members and their numerous aides. They’ll stay at the Hill-station hotel and drive to Mantu’s village in the morning. c) Air tickets (again first class) to Germany and back, and hotel accommodation (five star) for everybody. d) Estacodes and hazard allowances e) Logistics f) Miscellaneous Even though the budget was kept secret, you can easily come up with the figure by taking the actual estimate of the above list and multiply by ten. You’ll only run into problems when u get to the final two items (logistics & miscellaneous) , as these are usually added to cover for all the people that need to be “settled” in order to ensure that everything goes smoothly. Therefore the figures have the tendency of varying widely and so it can’t really be predicted. Anyway, the money was released and the committee started its assignment in earnest. They finished within the time frame that was stipulated in their terms of reference and they prepared a voluminous report which was to be presented at the senate at plenary. But on the d-day when the chairman of the committee was about to make the presentation, a distinguished senator from the Southern part of the country raised a “point of order”. He argued that the committee was illegal because its composition was lopsided in favor of a certain region in the country. He pointed out that of the 12 members; seven were from the North and only five from the South. Not to be outdone, another Senator this time from the North raised a “point of order” on the “point of order” that was raised by the Senator from the South. He argued that since the committee’s assignment was primarily to investigate the lineage of Senator Mantu (who is from the North), they needed senators who knew the terrain, who understood the culture of the people and their language. More points of order followed and after a while the Senate President decided to put a stop to it by subjecting it to a voice vote. And thus he announced, “All those in favor of the committee being considered legal and thus go ahead to present its report say “AYE””. And the house responded accordingly. And then he asked again, “All those not in favor of the committee being considered legal and thus should not go ahead to present its report say “NAY””. And the house responded accordingly. Unfortunately for Mantu, the “NAYs had it” and thus the report was never presented. Now Mantu has a really big problem, because the president is waiting for an answer and he has run out of time. So in one last effort, he decided to phone his very good friend Jerry Rawlings who had always sounded intelligent to Mantu and thus may have the answer to this really difficult question. "Jerry, your mother and father have a child. The child is not your brother and is not your sister, who is he?." Jerry answers immediately. "Hey, Mantu, It's me of course, you dumb Nigerian!" Mantu couldn’t believe his luck and so he rushed to Aso Rock villa, his motorcade of five cars moving at top speed with sirens blaring. Ordinary Nigerians going about their normal businesses scampered out of the way. When they finally arrived their destination, Mantu literarily ran all the way to the President's office. "Mr. President, Mr. President”, he called out, breathing heavily. “I know who he is” Obasanjo: “Good, so tell me” Mantu: “ it’s Jerry Rawlings Sir! In fact when he revealed the SECRET to me, I started to see the resemblance between us" Obasanjo: "Jerry Rawlings ko, Jerry Gana ni. You are such a stupid senator. Olodo rakpata! I'll make sure you don’t return to office after this term. Stupid man, the correct answer is TONY BLAIR!" And that’s how Mantu never returned to the Senate even though he supported the President’s third term agenda. NB: This piece is satirical. The characters in it are fictional. Any similarities with real characters, events or places are mere coincidences -------(Original author Unknown) Charles Abiahu

Men are smart; Women are Smarter????

 THE OBIDIENT WIFE

 

The Obedient Wife' There was a man, who had worked all his life, had saved all of his money,  And was a real miser when it came to his money. Just before he died, he said to his wife...'When I die, I want you to take all my money and put it in the casket with me.  I want to take my money to the afterlife with me.' And so he got his wife to promise him, with all of her heart, that when he died, she would put all of the money into the casket with him.  Well, he died. L He was stretched out in the casket, his wife was sitting there - dressed in black, and her friend was sitting next to her. When they finished the ceremony, and just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said, 'Wait just a moment!'  She had a small metal box with her; she came over with the box and put it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket down and they rolled it away. So her friend said, 'Girl, I know you were not foolish enough to put all that money in there with your husband.' The loyal wife replied, 'Listen, I'm a Christian; I cannot go back on my word. I promised him that I was going to put that money into the casket with him.'  You mean to tell me you put that money in the casket with him!?!?!?'  'I sure did,' said the wife..  'I got it all together, put it into my account, and wrote him a cheque....  If he can cash it, then he can spend it.'  Send this to every clever female you know, and to every man who thinks they are smarter than women!!!                                                   reproduced for your infortainment  . (Original Source UNKNOWN... Thanks Chris Emedom) Dated this August 6th, 2010 Charles Abiahu.

The Lessons of the 3rd Annual MbaiseUSA Convention!!!

The case for community building

"Mbaise nwere madu". Like locusts on a fresh field of corn, sons and daughters of Mbaise descended on Atlanta, Georgia. No, not "Georgia on my mind", but they were all poised to portray that not only was Mbaise on each mind, we wanted to do something about it. Love was in the air. We talked about it, we bemoaned the security unrest in the homeland; we clapped to the stories of "lee k'osi d'nma... bu mgbako umunne. But there was more, Atlanta gave us everything. The women were from the 6th heaven, gleaming with pride. One woman born in Ngwa declared that she would still be married in Mbaise up to her tenth incarnation to this world. But there is not enough space to talk about the majesty of our children. In unimpeachable American accent, they sang to the glory of Mbaise... in vernacular... "Chuku gozie ndi mbaise.... It was beautiful.I'm still humming to it.

"Olu diri mu na gi". This was as far as an agreement you will get between the Catholics and the Anglican Communion back in the days. Yes, we have lots and lots of work to do in Mbaise. The question is when shall we arise, pick up our shovels and really do the work. But as a silent observer, I ached in my heart as I took in all this "funfare" and fanfare. What a shame I thought to myself...that with this many articulate people, with this number of successful men & women; with this level of boisterous enthusiasm, our siblings, our parents, our homeland lies as a wasteland. Then I remembered that Mbaise nwere madu all over the world. How is it that we continue to trail behind in development and developmental initiatives, who are the traitors among us that have hampered our unity, our growth and ore resourcefulness as one people. Is it not possible that we can change our community for the better; to be the example for other communities in Nigeria. Time to dig in and produce results.

"Mmadu abughi ewu". They say that a practical definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing expecting a different result. It is long overdue for us to take our faith in our hands. I am looking for commonsense practical solutions, simplistic but pragmatic overhaul of our priorities. Time to realize that when you help another Mbaise man, you help yourself. This has worked for so many jewish, asian and other communities in the United States who have pulled together to assist each other with business financing, guaranteeing, and loan provisions to help others in their community to grow. I again call on other Mbaise citizens to replicate the micro-financing effort championed by Chief Mrs. Akuechiama. This model of short term loans have a proven record of transforming rural communities. When we see this trend working all over Mbaise on personal and individual initiatives will be the right time for MbaiseUSA to intrduce matching funds and sponsor more access to funding. I am a huge fan of schools scholarship programs. I am always uplifted by the success and state in life of people I have helped to achieve their educational pursuits. Education changes the entire outlook for each child. We can also certainly begin work along the lines of recovery for the presently unemployed. Retraining and practical educational ordering into Commercial hands-on training in Mechanics, welding, repairs and constructions are a quick way to teach men to fish for themselves. Lets start talking about portable water and sewage system for our entire hometown; of roads and electricity. Lets make our governments accountable and responsible.

"Onye gbuwe achara; onye gbuwe"... Words are not enough. All the ideas in this world are worth nothing unless you can find a way to implement them. This is why I was so impressed with the Presentation of our Honorable President, Maazi Collins Olorondu. He outlined a practical but sensible option for Mbaise people to finally achieve our goals in Security and medical mission initiatives. One hundred Dollars per Mbaise family. It is a small amount that many families expend or dispense of daily in careless and sometimes unaccounted expediture. But the power is in the numbers... "agbako aka nyuo mmamiri...figure it out for yourself. My enthusiasm is that if this administration succeeds in making Mbaise people proud by the way and manner that we administer the funds raised in this effort, it will be a gold standard. Mbaise will learn to trust again. Mbaise will also learn that a little here and another little from there can become a large pool for solving and financing our common objectives in educational scholarships, developmental and other community building initiatives. I know it is hard for a community of people who have been beaten down, disappointed and sponged before by our leaders and politicians to have faith in a common purpose again. But I also remind us that if we remain where we are we may never move forward. It was a sad story when Tony Uwakwe recounted his mother's ordeal at the hands of kidnappers; but what is worse is if we do nothing and allow this mayhem to continue to pledge our homeland.

As one member of this Executive I can pledge to every Mbaise person that so long as I have a voice and a vote I will protect your trust in paying this $100.00 development levy. I will fight for full transparency and accountability. We will exhaust voluntary and no-cost options before we spend a penny of your money. I will press my colleagues to also pursue governmental, non-governmental and other sources for financing. But this levy is necessary. We must stand ready to help ourselves if no one else will. This is why we resolved to put it to the public vote. This way, we are responsible and accountable to each indiviadual Mbaise citizen whether they voted yes or no to this one time levy. I promise to fight to channel any remaining funds into other common developmental objectives when we have fully funded our security and medical missions options, but we will only do so after obtaining proper authority from Mbaise people.

Echi d'ime... Lets make it a new beginning. We can decide now that we are going to transcend from all the talk to taking our faith in our hands. Standing still is worse tan going backwards. Let's take sensible steps into our future together as one family determined to succeed. We will rise and fall as one people. We saw the pageantry, we also clapped to the philanthropy of our people in donating their personal funds to our general interests. I call on this newly elected executive not to take the trust of our people for granted. We must deliver to them. Because in doing so, we liberate ourselves together from a scourge that have plagued us all.

Long Live MbaiseUSA
Long Live Mbaise citizen.

Dated this 5th August, 2010

Charles Abiahu
(the poster currently serves as National Secretary for MbaiseUSA; the national umbrella administration of Mbaise people in the United States)