Dear Beautiful Bride,
I am sure you have not recovered from the shock that hit you last Sunday, when two of your children suffered damaging defeats minutes apart. I am also sure that the level of sorrow in your heart went deeper on Thursday night after your senior daughter lost gain.
So, I need not ask ‘how are you,’ because I know all is not well with you. Sadly, Sunday’s double defeat only spelt a continuation of many woes that have hit you in recent months, while Thursday’s blow gave the final confirmation of the litany of woes hitting you of recent.
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I’m sure that the pain in your heart escalated after seeing a beloved daughter and a son slump on the same day; then Thursday’s continuum of the chain of defeats multiplied the raging traumatic somersault that has been nibbling at your heart since November, when your senior son lost a similar ‘second chance’ in the same North African country.
However, quite ironically, while many of your compatriots and neighbours lament over the multitude of defeats hitting you, your employer in Abuja appears to be nonplussed. It was the same mentality he had when your firstborn son suffered the heavy loss in November that prevented him from being part of a recent expanded party in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
One would have thought that your employer would take full responsibility for that setback and resign as his colleague in Italy did after missing that global party for the third straight edition.
Sadly, they say it’s normal in this country for people in public office and positions of authority to keep clinging onto posts when they fail to deliver dividends and can’t keep election promises.
In fact, they keep on stating that it’s ‘UnNigerian’ for officials to bow out honourably when things go awry under their watch. On the other hand, what we’ve unwittingly come to regard as ‘Nigerian Factor’ makes our top shots always stay put when the ovation is no longer there for them.
Not only do they stay put when condemnation is loudest, but they even seek an extension of tenure – so that they can continue milking the fat cow and go on cuddling the goose that lays golden eggs. That’s the big reason, Dear Beautiful Bride, why your boss won’t throw in the towel!
That’s why he’s battling hard to hold on, in spite of repeated woes that keep bedevilling your children one after the other under his watch. That’s why he’s seeking four more years on the comfy seat rather than bow out honourably.
Incidentally, while we mourn last Sunday’s defeats for your first daughter and fourth son, we must not forget that your first son, as well as the second and third ones, have also fallen from grace to grass in recent months.
Most pathetic is that your fifth son, who is still aged below 17, has failed in the last six years to attend a global party in which he used to be the main attraction who everybody wanted to see and he actually got crowned there five times in the past.
Astonishingly, while all your sons are in comatose, your boss in Abuja wants to stay in office for another four years! He’s even busy telling us that he has not failed all together – since two of your young daughters are still excelling. He is holding onto the jet age refrain that the girl child outweighs the boy child in many ways.
So, while five male children with various names of the same bird in different cadres (senior, local, under-23, under-20 and under-17) keep on wobbling and fumbling, your boss will flaunt two girls aged under-20 and under-17 to brush aside calls for him to quit, based on a damning scorecard against his name.
The joke, though, is on you, Beautiful Bride, because many people in the country are now looking in the direction of another damsel to tout as our beloved daughter on the global terrain. Don’t forget that many other ladies like you twinkled brilliantly recently in Glasgow, Scotland, and others went to Eugene, USA, to make us proud.
In the same vein, just a month after your first daughter won her tenth African crown, one of your sisters also made us proud, and the president gave them equal rewards. This goes to show that your siblings are waxing strong while you are waning!
It’s true that two of the other sibling’s children also lost last Sunday on the international scene, but they don’t belong to you, our highly-acclaimed and globally-renonwed Beautiful Bride. So, rather than take solace or counter-attack from the defeats suffered by the cousins of your children (offspring of your sister), your boss should face the stark fact that he has failed to elevate your status.
He should just take full responsibility for the slump you have suffered during his time in office and quit. Yes, it’s time for him to step aside and allow a fresh, innovative, more vibrant brain give you the boisterous revival you so much deserve at this point in time.
Someone said we should wait until next month for the electoral delegates to decide in Abuja, but I always fear the hands of Jacob when it’s time to vote in this country. In the same vein, a catchy definition of democracy for me is ‘oppression of the minority by the majority.’
That’s what happens when the majority carries the vote, even when the minority has better ideas to offer. Which simply means, oh Beautiful Bride, your woes may continue unabated for another four years if your current boss remains in office after next month’s election. What can you do to prevent it from happening? Go to God in prayers!
That’s where I drop my golden pen. Hoping that providence will take over and help you, Dear Beautiful Bride, so that we can see another reflection of what you enjoyed at that point when two of your children were ranked among the golden generation (1994 and 1996).
Stay blessed.
Yours truly,
Sam O’Femi Fasetire
