President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has finally solved his Chicago problem. It is a dream come true for the president of the most populous African nation on earth: he is NOT coming to the United Nations General Assembly.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Not this year!
I know he didn’t come last year.
I know that he didn’t come the year before.
But the United Nations’ General Assembly gathering came and went all those years without him.
All those pesky leftist reporters gathering in New York,sharpening their pencils and rehearsing questions about what happened many, many years ago in Chicago, can stand down.
No UNGA. No New York. No Chicago questions.
Tinubu is home free.
Sometimes, the best diplomatic strategy is simple: don’t show up.
Nobody missed Tinubu last year! Nobody stood at JFK with a placard wondering, “Where is Nigeria’s president?”
Okay, some of us missed him. Some of us had sewn our own version of his special agbada with the accompanying signature hat.
We missed him.
We missed the opportunity to listen to him inspire us with his oratory. (Apologies, Professor Femi Otubanjo)
We missed an opportunity to eat ewedu and amala in his presence.
What a blessing that would have been.
We missed an opportunity to have him break out into a quick Buga dance, with our kolokolo eye watching, not just what we see in a video.
Those who have been lucky enough to see it live say it is the most wonderful experience in the world.
We missed that, and many other possibilities, for real. Kai!
So far, Vice-President Kashim Shettima will most likely represent Tinubu at NUGA.
He did it for the last two years. It went well. No licking of his fingers to turn the page of his speech in front of the world.
No walking around the UN building like someone about to miss his step and fall.
(The UN people are so mean that they do not provide a minder to hold the hand of a president as he approaches the podium. A step Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Emmanuel Macron know if necessary when hosting Tinubu.)
Shettima may be boring, but he gets the important business of reading the speech done without hiccups. Nigerians do not hold their breath, fearful that he would let out one bulabula in the middle of the speech.
But who wants to party with Shettima? Not me!
He doesn’t smoke Silk Cut. And looking at the way he doesn’t give a hoot about restructuring, I doubt he has a sidechick.
Such men are not fun to hang around with.
If Shettima dances for a minute, Boko Haram members in the buses of Sambisa will give up and surrender. Don’t even talk about flashing a smile. Smiling, my foot!
All you need to know is that Shettima gets the job done. Be it at the African Union, BRICS, or VIP funerals, he has done so without calling anyone — a nice man who should be selling popcorn and ice cream instead of leading.
I am willing to wait for Tinubu’s triumphant return to America. After all, Tinubu has four more years left for him to come and speak at the UN, if he plays his cards well. By playing his cards well, I mean handling the little Chicago matter. To be fair to him, he has done well so far.
In fact, it was going to be a done deal if not for one stupid lobbyist whose name I do not want to mention because he loves to sue people and I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer.
Tinubu really worked hard to be at the UN this time. But the universe did not align. He gave and gave. Anything they asked for, he gave. Send Okezie Ikpeazu to Spain; he signed off. Send Reno Omokri to Mexico; he signed off. Get Peller and Jarvis to marry; he made it happen.
The media even published a report about the memorandum of understanding that Tinubu was going to sign at the sidelines of the UNGA in New York City.
It would have been perfect: Trump and Tinubu on the same stage. All newspapers in the world would have captured the handshake of the two men of timber and calibre for eternity.
That would have made Tinubu’s 2027 re-election win a foregone conclusion.
But there was a little problem. The same silly Chicago problem.
Unconfirmed reports had it that the world media had been prepped, and they were salivating with unflattering headlines of Trump shaking hands with a leader of a “shithole” country, a man with questions to answer about drug money forfeitures. These are things that can make Trump send special forces to a country to pick up such a leader.
Trump did not care, personally. He was okay with announcing the rare earth minerals he had secured from Nigeria and the Zamfara gold to be used in decorating his new White House ballroom. He believed that talking about tonnes of lithium coming from Nigeria soon would dull all criticism around meeting Tinubu.
He was sure his MAGA base would not care about Nigeria’s president’s little “infractions” in Chicago in the 1990s. After all, they do not care about the Epstein files and the pedophiles walking around the US, free.
Trump was only worried about the pesky leftist media. CNN, MS NOW, and Politico. He wished he could ban them so they would stop putting their noses into his affairs. Luckily, some people begged Trump.
His aides told him to wait until after the midterm election so he would not be blamed if American voters choose not to re-elect Republicans. Because Trump doesn’t like to be blamed for anything that goes wrong, he relented.
He can meet Tinubu after the midterm. He may even offer a state visit if Nigeria’s quantities of rare earth minerals, gold, and lithium make the Chinese cry like babies.
So, for those mocking Tinubu, the Jagaban will have the last laugh. His triumphant reentrance into America was only delayed.
Remember that the stone the builder delayed using becomes the one on which the front door eventually rests. (Trump 7, Verse 7)
Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches Post-colonial African History, Diasporic African Literature, and African Folktales at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
COURTESY: theeditorngr.com
