by Alexander O. Onukwue

After Mallam Garba Shehu made the comment that rats had made the physical office of the president unfit for habitation, he basically went on and said he didn’t give a rat’s ass about the fuss over where the president worked.

In Mallam Shehu’s words, “What is important is that the job gets done. Whether he does it from his bedroom, or his sitting room, or his ante room, it does not matter”

The analysis and outrage have been relentless and it will probably not end anytime soon. Foreign diplomats will be giggling about it, and Fareed Zakaria may do a new quiz on presidential domestic animals this Sunday.

All because the president’s spokesman did not carefully weigh the implication of the words he was going to say before he did. Just as it did not matter where the president led from – which is untrue – it would not matter how he shove that idea in the faces of Nigerians and to the world.

It was a continued loop from the address of the President a day before in which he also did not give an RA about any groups’ arguments over the unity of Nigeria; do not dare he said, even if your agitations may be valid. The argument is settled, we just have to get through anyhow.

Whenever anyone tells you they will get something done and don’t tell you how when you demand, there should be good cause to doubt a good result will come out. Indeed nothing good comes from being plan less, and this attitude of ‘anyhowness’ looks already far patterned into the Nigeria way that any suggestion of talking about a plan is perceived with an ambition to tear down.

A country of 180 million people will not become united in purpose by fiat or by not giving a rat’s ass about how differently any of them is feeling. When that is done, rats will spring up and will rattle and ruin.

Editor