Poor Nnamdi Kanu! He goofed when he triggered the kerfuffle about President Muhammadu Buhari having a double in a Sudanese who goes by the name Jubril who now runs Nigeria, a nation of one hundred and ninety-eight million people. So, there was no other Nigerian, sharing resemblance with Aisha’s husband who could have passed for him. Yes, Kanu the okpetu monger goofed big time and next time Nigerians would pay no attention to whatever comes from him. Kanu will now have the charge of fake news hanging on his neck in addition to charges he accumulated earlier. I don’t envy him. But I blame him for being too hasty, because if he had tarried, he would have found out before the rest of us that Buhari’s double was actually an Urhobo from Uduere. Yes, hear the sound “Uduere and Daura”. They would make a perfect rhyme in poetry. And my friends in Linguistics, Anthropology and History have made considerable progress in tracing the people of Daura to their Uduere roots, a place they left thousands of years ago to become the first Hausa polity. Igwhorigwho!
When Kanu came up with his fib he threw a section of the country into frenzy. Many gullible Nigerians, educated and uneducated, bought the hooey. Even the federal government wasted public time and resources to talk about the Sudanese in Aso Rock. Lai Muhammed just recovering from crying over Atiku and the American visa yarn found time to pipe about Jubril being non-existent. President Buhari, in faraway Poland, also talked about it. Or could it be Jubril disowning Jubril in Poland? I had thought that the federal government would dispatch some officials to Chattam House to deliver a grand lecture dispelling Kanu and Jubril. Bishop Oyedepo joined the fray on reading witty Olatunji Dare’s intervention.
The hoopla that attended the Jubril story was yet to abate when I received a video of President Muhammadu Buhari speaking fluent and undiluted Urhobo. The voice was unmistakably his, husky, calm, but stern. The cadence was unhurried and calculated and the lip movement matched the words. Hear Buhari’s Urhobo; emueje ke yovwi (everything will be good), emona ichi panti emete Abraka na (those stealing female underwear in Abraka), avwai ka muai uwevwi odi (we shall arrest and detain them), ve emona iriakpo obe osuere idudi kurioke kurioke naye emo iyahoo (including those ones enjoying in the town drinking every morning because they are yahoo boys), wa kpairoro vraye avware ke mai vwie uwevwi odi (ignore them because we shall jail them). This is quintessential Buhari whose message in times of crises often leaves the listener assured and soothed.
Buhari’s message in Urhobo, mind you not Hausa or English, addresses itself to the scourge of Yahoo plus which is right now ravaging parts of Southern Nigeria. In fact the scourge has overtaken the menace of kidnapping and has become to the South what Boko Haram is to the North. That Buhari has chosen to address this problem is a mark of his statesmanship and desire to stir Nigeria back to the path of rectitude and social amity. Who says Buhari is not working? Echoed in his speech is his usual pastime of jailing offenders. Buhari is such a powerful ruler who accuses, arraigns and jails offenders. Yahoo boys are in trouble. Buhari will jail them the day he would jail those accused of corruption including Maina, Babachir Lawal and his other close associates accused of dipping their itchy fingers in the public till. He will deal with the Yahoo boys the way he has dealt with Boko Haram insurgents that inspired them to rebound.
Aisha must be damned wrong in passing a vote of no confidence on President Buhari. Yes, her outburst last week that Buhari’s government is being run and derailed by two anonymous fellows was a vote of no confidence. But I must quickly defend the president that Aisha’s accusation cannot be true of an Urhobo man. The Urhobo man is always in charge. So Aisha doesn’t know what she was saying. I am sure she wants her uncle the Turakin Adamawa to trounce our Urhobo brother. Aisha and Turaki are from Adamawa. These Adamawa people are already plotting the exit of an Urhobo man who has not spent up to four years in the presidency. We no go gree.
Lai Mohammed does not need to crane his neck and strain his voice to counter Buhari’s Urhoboism. Buhari should also not bother to do so in Poland or Chattam House. Urhobo, unlike Sudan, is a part of Nigeria. And the producer of that video deserves a creativity award. As I write, I had asked my colleague AA how he got the video. He pointed at MD who in turn pointed at another person. That video has become anonymous; its ownership diminishes as it leaves one hand for another. The digital sphere has become the village square. Orality interfacing with technology. Yes, Buhari is Urhobo, but that trait that prevented him from signing the electoral bill into law is very unurhoboic. That trait must be Daura’s.
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