by Pius Adesanmi

I just heard with one ear, via Sahara Reporters, that former President Goodluck Jonathan was shocked when his ex-Minister of Aviation, Senator Stella Oduah, met him and claimed she had lost his number.

If President Jonathan continues with his charming, lively, and lovely naiveté, he just might charm his way back to the Villa o. For I cannot put it beyond him to have been genuinely surprised and to have greeted Oduah’s statement with the sort of lost countenance he perfected for Christiane Amanpour’s difficult questions.

A human being in sinful flesh would still have your number more than a year after you lost the power to sustain her flow of yams and fly her on the Presidential jet to Israel for prayers? Do you think that Nigerians invented the phrase – “abeg, dem dey take your name or phone number collect money for bank?” – for nothing? That phase speaks to human nature in general and to the darker parts of the Nigerian psychology in particular.

Oduah had your number because dem dey take am collect money for bank literally at the time sir. Oga Jonathan, did you not listen to your boy, Reuben Abati? He said his phone no longer rang and you are here whining that your former Minister lost your own phone number? Abeg, park well sir.

I even praise Stella Oduah. Stella even tried o. You mean she actually bumped into you, recognized you, greeted you and apologized for losing your number? What a brave woman! It was risky for her to have even acknowledged you in these days of degoatification.

Oga Jonathan, I hate to be the breaker of bad news but I must tell you this: 99.9% of those who praised you to perdition and doom would frown and troway face if they met you today. They’d claim not to recognize you.

But not all of your followers are like your political followers sir and that is some good news. All the political almajiris that Reno Omokri helped you to breed and brainwash in the Facebook and Twitter madrassas he created for that purpose are still loyal and faithful to you to this day. For many of them, you have even replaced the Bible and the Qur’an in their lives. They are still campaign for the 2015 election on your behalf sir. Time stopped for many of them the day you quit the Villa.

Not even the economic difficulties supervised by your successor, President Buhari, which has extended the warranty on the poverty you imposed on them has deterred them from going into debt to buy air time for your sake. If the technical recession of your successor impoverishes them and they cannot buy food, they will go to the village to sell their fathers’ farm lands and use the proceeds to buy MTN airtime just to be able to sustain their daily loyalty to you in Facebook and Twitter updates.

Oga Jonathan, forget Stella Oduah and the political ilk you turned into billionaires. They have now forgotten you and are hoping to enter into the good graces of a Daura cabal that has nothing but contempt for them. Only your social media constituency has remained faithful to you.

Quit Nigeria like you did briefly the other time. But, this time, please don’t move to Abidjan. Relocate to Facebook and Twitter. None of your followers there will forget your number. They love and adore you. They love and adore you. They are the definition of loyalty. Their loyalty was tested. It has survived just for you.

As for your politician followers and loyalists, Abba Kyari’s lamba is now more important than your number. Abba Kyari’s lamba is now the koko. That is the number they are all lobbying to secure access to.

That’s just the way it is sir!

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