Of phone guns, Coca-Cola and Nigeria 

By Reuben Abati

"Look can you point that your handset away from my face?", "What 's the matter with you?", "Who knows whether you are an assassin on the payroll of an enemy? Have you not heard that there are phone guns in Nigeria now? The Police Commissioner in Cross River State has had to issue a special alert advising members of the public to be very careful. The man in front of you who is making a phone call and chatting heartily may be an assassin waiting to put a bullet through your heart."

"Wonderful. This is what my Pastor calls the sign of end-times."

"Look, I am discussing something serious. Can we leave your Pastor out of this? "

"You'd soon discover that what this country needs is actually prayers and deliverance. It keeps stumbling from one problem to the other. Kidnapping, armed robbery, Niger Delta crisis, collapse of the financial sector, and now phone guns..."

"Okay, when we manage to hold a National Conference and we all agree that the country needs deliverance, we'd ask you to send for your Pastor. In the meantime, I am worried about the increasing crisis of personal safety in this country. With killer-phones in people's hands, nobody is safe anymore. Don't you know what that means? In fact, the police say the phone is available in the Nigerian market. It is imported from Italy and Yugoslavia. It is a .22 calibre weapon. It can fire four shots in quick succession and the way to pull the trigger is to pretend to be dialing numbers 5 to 8 on the handset."

"Jesus is Lord"

"What is the matter with you?"

"I said Jesus is Lord"

"What does that mean?"

" I am agreeing with what you said. If the Nigerian Police already know that the killer-phone is in Nigeria, what it looks like, how it is operated, so what are theydoing about it? What is the point in lamenting publicly? It is their job to work with the Customs, the SSS, and other security agencies to fish out the importers of the deadly phone and then arrest those behind it."

"Which Police? The Nigerian Police? Which Customs? The same Customs that says it cannot arrest the wives of prominent Nigerians who bring contraband into the country? Which security agencies? The same ones who did not know that Nuhu Ribadu came into Nigeria until they read about it in the newspapers the following day? "

"But one thing government can do is to ban the importation of the phones into the country and to insist that whoever has it must obtain a licence."

"Tell me one banned item that is not available in the Nigerian market. The best way to promote a product in Nigeria is to ban it. The same people who issue the ban order will grant import waivers to their friends and you would be surprised that the product will flood the market."

"Okay, there should be massive public enlightenment. They should tell us what the gun looks like."

"It is slightly bigger than the normal phone, and heavier."

"You mean it looks like Turaya phone. So if I see anyone carrying a Turaya phone, I should duck like George Bush. "

"I think we will all be better off wearing bullet proof vests. Imagine if the phone gun comes with a silencer."

"But let the security agencies do their work."

"They say the gun has serious destructive power"

"What are you saying? Every gun has destructive power."

"Everything is going wrong with this country. Yar'Adua should do something. Let the man do something"

"He is doing something. After all, the Minister of State for Power says the current electricity generation and distribution level is 2, 450 Mwts. "

"What I don't like is when government officials tell lies. Where did he get that from? They just lie with statistics. 6, 000 mega watts, 2, 450 Mwts. Why 2, 450, why not 2, 500? I live in this country and I know that most Nigerians are used to having no electricity supply. A friend took her children on holiday abroad. The children didn't want to return. They said didn't want to go back to the country where there is no light. "

"Don't mind that Minister of State. Where was he when the National Assembly was thrown into darkness for almost a whole day due to power outage? And even the Presidential Villa in Abuja?"

"Looks like that National Assembly is jinxed. Last week, a lawmaker slapped a security man there. This week, the electricity supply system packed up."

"Send your Pastor to them. They may need his services."

"You know because of this electricity thing, Coca-Cola is shutting down its concentrate plant in Nigeria"

"It has done so already. It is not just this electricity thing. The cost of doing business in Nigeria is too high. Okay Coca Cola used to have its concentrate plants in two places in Africa: Nigeria and Swaziland. Before closing down the one in Ota, Ogun state, they must have looked at the figures and arrived at the conclusion that it is wasteful producing in Nigeria. The country is facing massive de-industrialisation simply because we can't get the equation right. Michelin is gone. Dunlop has relocated. We now import all brands of tyres. All the warehouses of old have been turned into prayer houses by your pastor and his friends. Now to drink a bottle of Coke, we have to depend on concentrate from Swaziland. And can you blame Coca Cola? Look at Ota. The place is even inaccessible. To get to Ota sometimes, you have to spend up to eight hours in the traffic."

"The only thing I know about Swaziland is its annual Reed Dance and the fact that the king can take any virgin of his choice as wife, and he does that every year. You need to see those girls during the Reed Dance when they bare it all for His Majesty Mswati III's sole pleasure."

"I believe what is relevant to this discussion is that Swaziland offers a better business environment, while Nigeria is no longer attractive. We need to do something about the economy."

"Come on. We are doing something."

"What?"

"The CBN and the President are planning to launch new polymer notes in the N5, N10 and N50 denominations. That is something."

"And how does that address the problem of Nigeria's failing economy?"

"The new CBN governor will get to put his own signature on Naira notes. And you know, the polymer note is very rugged. I have seen market women washing the N20 note that is made with polymer with detergent soap. You can even iron it."

"It is obvious that you don't know anything about economics. Just save your breath."

"Go and sit down. Everybody is an economist in Nigeria."

"Like who?"

"Like ASUU, SSANU and NASU. There is an economic logic to their fight with the government."

"How?"

"Demand and supply"

"Look can you just leave this matter of economics. But I think it is a shame that President Yar'Adua has not deemed it necessary to declare an emergency in the education sector and take on the crisis as a Presidential affair. In the end, he is the man to be blamed for keeping Nigerian undergraduates in the state school system at home for about three months."

"A whole semester."

"Looks like we will end up with a whole session."

"Oh yes."

"Nigeria's education sector has been taken over by Boko Haram fundamentalists. You know I said the other time, that the people we really need to worry about are the Boko Haram activists in policy-making positions. "

"I was talking about the economy"

"And I thought I advised you to keep your opinion to yourself on that subject."

"No, you think about this."

"What? "

"In Owerri, Imo state visually impaired college graduates invaded the Government House with their walking sticks to protest what they called the insensitivity of the state government to their plight."

"Insensitivity?"

"Yes, they say they don't have jobs. And that their colleagues who are still in school are not being paid their bursary allowances by the state government."

"I read that the physically challenged adopted a similar measure recently in Jalingo, Taraba sate. They too staged a protest over the non-payment of allowances."

"Something like the revolt of beggars."

"It is more about the failure of government to cater for its citizens. When you have the physically challenged taking on government and the able-bodied also protesting, then it is possible to measure the extent of social alienation in the country. And I dare say the matter is serious."

"The physically challenged are not having it easy. Do you know that in some states now, state officials go out onto the streets and they physically deport such persons to their states of origin."

"What happened to citizenship?"

"Which citizenship? Some states have a beggars unwanted policy."

"They don't want beggars and yet government cannot create jobs, and even the companies that are supposed to create jobs are closing shop and relocating to other African countries. Nothing quite makes sense anymore."

"Well, Gani was a great man. That makes sense to me. May his soul rest in peace. "

"But what was that thing I read about burying him in a 14-carat gold casket, the same type that was used to bury Michael Jackson."

"Do you have a problem with that? A man has the right to choose how he wants to go to heaven. In Ghana, some people insist on being buried in a casket made like an aeroplane."

"Yeah, but gold? "

"Gani was an aristocrat, you must know. His grandfather Lisa Alujonu was a legend in Ondo. His own father helped to propagate the Islamic religion in the town And he was himself a legend of our time. You better go and do something with your own life, so you can leave this world the way you want."

"The good thing is that he used his wealth, material and intellectual, to help the poor."

"Now you are talking."

"But I hope his children will not quarrel over his Will and that they will not turn his legacy into a matter for litigation like some other families."

"Look. You are on your own now..."

Robot  # 1 | 18.09.2009 08:24

...Read the full article.

Dapxin  # 2 | 19.09.2009 04:33

Nothing quite makes sense anymore.