My peaceful day was turned on its head recently by a news headline which said that one Pinocchio, Nigeria’s Fulani-Herdsman-in-Chief, the international kidnapper of Umaru Dikko, a serial coup plotter, the dictator who ordered the execution of three young Nigerians with a retroactive law he created in violation of all laws known to man, and whose 250 heads of cattle have failed to reproduce since 1983, claimed that he is “feeding” on rent collected from his house in Kaduna since leaving office in May 2023!
The non-Fulani herdsman Pinocchio’s nose would have reached Mars had he told such a tall tale!
What on earth possessed za Fulani herdsman to disgrace himself and his children like this? Could it possibly be the need for publicity after his ignoble descent to public ignominy and oblivion since he left office?
Imagine if you were a girl and this was your father.
First of all, you are suffering because your father is a Fulani herdsman who is so incompetent that even his cattle have not made any progress in over 40 years. Very sad.
Then, every time you see anybody, especially Germans or foreigners, they will ask you why you are not in “za kitchen, za Living Room and za azer Room!” After all, these are the places designated for women by za Katsina herdsman, who spewed these words with an asinine guffaw as he stood next to Angela Merkel, then Chancellor of Germany and arguably the world’s most powerful woman at the time.
If they don’t embarrass you by openly mocking you, they will be laughing behind your back. Worse, in your husband’s home, your in-laws will call you to order anytime you dare try to operate outside the confines of these three rooms. And how can you complain? That is your father’s edict, spoken to the entire global press with all the assurance of a cow-herder-in-charge.
After eight years of hearing your father describe Nigeria’s youth – your generation (you included) – as lazy, you may have accepted that you are a waste. After all, with all the advantages of being born into za No. 1 Fulani herdsman’s family, with near relatives in Niger Republic to run home to, what work can you possibly aspire to do other than look for a richer herdsman to tend to you. What a life!
If a child were to be the cause of so much global embarrassment for their parents, no-one would blink if the parents took koboko to them in the village square. The other villagers might even help the parents knock some common sense into the heads of such errant children.
But when you are a child of such an embarrassment, what options do you have? Who can help you, especially if the embarrassment himself is given to infantile fits of pique and telling tall tales to get attention, and has soldiers to help him put you in za guard room should you object to being embarrassed?
Nigerians need to come to the aide of these children. The National Assembly members for Katsina need to come together to draft a new law against parents (especially a particular powerful herdsman) causing severe embarrassment and trauma to their children and countrymen. It should also have retroactive punishment, just like za herdsman likes it. It should have severe sanctions, possibly involving a blanket order banning all news outlets from reporting on him. That would be really helpful for maintaining our collective sanity.
Most importantly he must have a school teacher to make him write out the following sentences two hundred times each day – “I shall not tell tall tales. I am a former Military Head of State, a former military Governor, a former Minister of Petroleum Resources (thrice) and a former civilian President. I collect a pension from each of these positions. I am guarded by soldiers at Government expense. I get new vehicles every three years with drivers at Government expense. I get full medical treatment in London with all expenses paid by the Government. I get full estacode for me and my aides, as well as a palatial home inside the Ambassador’s residential compound and all diplomatic courtesies extended to me during my stay. I have other unexplained income at my disposal and I paid for my children’s school fees in the UK without caring about the exchange rate which crashed from N195 to N510 after I took office. It is because I don’t know the cost of these things and other necessities that I told Nigerians that my rent is feeding me. I am sorry. I will not do it again.”
This teacher must make him write it in longhand two hundred times per day. The Government can afford to pay for paper and pencil and eraser in case he makes mistakes.
The teacher must also escort him to the NEPA office to pay the electricity bill once a month and take him to market once a month to buy staples like garri and sugar to educate him on how little his rent money can actually pay for. Lastly, the teacher should take him to the Military HQ in Abuja to queue for his pension along with his retired colleagues. Just once.
I believe that this law should take effect from January 1, 1984 when the Fulani herdsman engaged in a coup and became an illegal Head of State; ie about 15,000 days to date. Multiply that by 200 times and you will get a mere 3,000,000 penitent statements outstanding. I believe that with this law and strict enforcement of these punishments/rehabilitation measures, Pinocchio za herdsman and all others like him will think twice before embarrassing themselves and their unfortunate children again.
As for fellow Nigerians…what can we do? I don’t know, o.
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Ambassador Lilian Onoh, former Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the Republic of Namibia, wrote in from the US
