Akpabio, Nigeria’s number one parrot – and more, in today’s news roundup with Cheta Nwanze

by Cheta Nwanze

Godswill-Akpabio

On live TV  and in the presence of Nigeria’s number one parrot, Don Akpabio apparently admitted to putting the fix on an election result, thus cementing his place in the stratosphere alongside such luminaries as Lucky Luciano. 

If you are new to this morning tonic, you can view previous pieces here.

The Akwa Ibom head honcho has been receiving some bad press lately. What from dashing N1 millions to 36/37 geezers who had no need of such funds, to giving an SUV to the wife of an already wealthy crooner, simply because “she made us proud by getting married to Tuface”. That particular statement leads me to ask what kind of morals Don Akpabio is trying to pass on to the next generation of Akwa Ibom chics. But never mind, his most recent gaffe is even more hair raising. On live TV  and in the presence of Nigeria’s number one parrot, Don Akpabio apparently admitted to putting the fix on an election result, thus cementing his place in the stratosphere alongside such luminaries as Lucky Luciano.In yet another tribute to Don Akpabio’s endless generosity, Papa Eagles, fresh from their geriatric showing against the fired up Harambee of Kenya, got a shower of naira from the Don. “Now that God has given you a coach, you have to respect him and be disciplined. Without discipline, you cannot be successful,” said the Don as he proceeded to hand out N37.5 millions in un-budgeted state funds to the already rich ball-boys. The lesson from this, the rich will get richer, and the poor, will, well, you know the rest.

Given that one of our big problems is a stunning lack of will to enforce existing laws, Don Akpabio will not have to look over his shoulders even if the Bill sitting before the gavels becomes law. As of this morning, the Femi Gbajabiamila sponsored Bill has passed the second reading on the floor of the House. It seeks to spell out a year of breaking rocks for employers who fail to pay their employees. Sadly, it doesn’t take into account that State Dons who chose not to pay footballers in their employ for 16 months, but rather shower rains of naira on geriatric birds are immune from prosecution by law. Which means that all of those footballers will just have to continue training, and playing, in the kind of place(s) that we left the Kenyans in. No wonder they played our geriatric birds with such grim determination.

Since it is a given that we lack the will to enforce anything, it is no surprise that the exhibits at the Lagos Zoo have returned to their cages. In this special report, The Guardian tells us that the Zoo is back to its old glory with the exhibits screaming, “Dollar”, “Pounds”, “Euro”, at the top of their voices, and well, nary a flicker of light in the Zoo’s car park. Now that particular one, I can identify with. I had a fright experience last week on my return to Lagos. The plane landed in near pitch blackness with the only visible flicker of light being that from the wings of the aircraft. Oh well, like every good Nigerian, I’ll simply open my Bible and/or Koran. E go better.

Quote of the day

“I believe that Prof. Achebe’s frank, truthful and fearless interventions in national affairs will be greatly missed at home in Nigeria.” The Prez opens to page 20 of the Presidential Phrase Book and promptly forgets that Prof’s frankness was interpreted as a lack of patriotism by narry a few government officials.

Quote of the day 2

“The contract to build the East-West road was initially awarded  without a  design and funding  plan.” Niger-Delta etibo, Godsday Orubebe attempts to justify collecting N27.1 billionsfrom SURE-P to add to the N61 billions that his ministry has as its capital allocation in the 2013 budget.

Bits and bobs

Tired of being disrespected despite their rank, eight ranking PDP men are going to change uniform and take their spots in the Armoured Personnel Carrier.

Even being an Army General no longer scares bad boys as Peter Unode discovered. The retired Major General was whisked away by some of the idle minds in his area. Possibly scared of what the boys-in-khaki would do, the men-in-black rescued him in double quick time. Phew! Another Odi averted.

Celebrity stories generally bore me to be honest, but I can’t resist thinking why two Christians and their menagerie would bugger off to a Muslim country to perform a Christian wedding ceremony.

Vinnie Enyeama is still suffering from a South Africa 2013 induced hangover. As a result, he didn’t see the free kick that the Kenyans made hay with, almost embarrassing Papa Eagles in the process. Meanwhile, we are still waiting to see the winnie he promised to bare if Nigeria won the Nations Cup…

Right of reply

Olalere Odusote (before the match) wrote,

You need to get out of the match prediction business as you’re clearly very poor at it.  Everytime you predicted Nigerai wold lose during the nations cup, we went ahead to win. Now, you’re predicting Kenya will lose and you have me worried.

Chxta responds,

You are right. I predicted a win for the geriatric birds, and they promptly almost lost. I’ll sack my dibia.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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