Now, there is no order to the arrangement of the names in the above headline, except, probably, that Buhari stands between Saraki and Buratai. Don’t read this to mean that Buhari is the difference between the fate of Saraki on one hand, and Buratai on the other. That would be mischievous.
But, talking about Saraki, there was one prayer I said on Monday morning (as he headed to court), which, for some reason, God refused to answer. I guess it might be because I’m not fasting. In this season of Ramadan, the Almighty must be  too busy, attending to people with more ‘serious’ supplications.
But mine was not any less serious. I prayed that, for some reason, Senate President Bukola Saraki and his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, would refuse to meet the bail conditions that would be imposed by the judge of the Abuja Federal High Court, hearing their forged (sorry, forgery) case, even if bail was set at one hundred naira. I also prayed that the Judge should get angry and impose an ‘impossible’ bail condition, which the nation’s leading lawmakers would genuinely not be able to meet, and, therefore, be remanded in prison.
I wanted to see how the CNN, BBC, Sky, Aljazerah and the local media would report that a certain Abubakar Malami (and not Buhari) has thrown Nigeria’s Senate President and his Deputy into jail.
I was looking forward to in-depth reviews of our current democracy in both local and foreign media. I was anticipating newspaper headlines. I was even casting some in my head.
Apart from the headlines, I was also hoping to see how the Unity Group and the Like Minds would interpret the absence of their two leaders on the floor of the Senate.
For, irrespective of what the constitution and the Senate rules say, we know that things take a totally different hue when they hit floor of the Senate. It is a development better experienced than imagined. Would new leaders emerge? Would there be an impeachment? Would the impeachment extend to others outside the legislature? How safe was Buhari himself? Would the lawmakers finally call the presidency’s bluff? Would the PDP lawmakers seize the opportunity? How about pro-Saraki APC senators?
How come some people have refused to understand that the problem we have at hand right now has gone beyond kicking out Saraki or accepting to live with a PDP Deputy Senate President? Would they learn the hard way, since they have refused silent appeals? I could almost touch the excitement physically.
But Justice Yusuf Halilu, Saraki, Ekweremadu and whoever else was working behind the scene, conspired to deny me of my wish. And the Good Lord allowed them to get away with it.
Bottom-line: No matter how much the Presidency buries its head in the sand over Saraki’s travails, no matter how desperately the president’s men try to make us believe that this dog standing before us today is indeed a monkey, not too many people out there would swear that PMB’s hands are as clean as his people would want us believe.
But those who don’t believe are the doubting Thomases. As for me, I believe the president is innocent. I believe the president does not know, see or ‘hear’ that some people are hiding under his name (and the anti-graft campaign) to witch-hunt his perceived, known and unknown enemies.
In other words, I believe the president is not behind the arraignment of Saraki and Ekweremadu. The person behind it all is the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, who, by the way, reports to himself.
In fact, he is one minister, who does not need to brief the president on what he’s doing – including whoever he decides to sue, on behalf of the Federal Government. I dey laugh o!
Similarly, the president has nothing to do with the freezing of the bank account of Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose. It’s just the EFCC doing its job. Yes, Magu’s men don’t need any presidency, emboldening them to freeze the account of a serving governor, who is supposed to be enjoying immunity. But if you’re waiting for when EFCC would tell us how many billions other governors (especially, the politically correct ones) have in their respective accounts, you’ll grow grey hair while waiting.
And if, like me, you believe all these tales, it means that, like me, you’re over due for a bed space at Yaba Left. We need to have our heads examined.
But we’re not the only ones who seem to have lost it. We have our kindred spirits all over the social media. The only difference is that those ones are mad and mean at the same time.
And if you doubt that there are so many mean people, bestriding Nigeria’s blogosphere, just follow the postings about our hardworking, Boko Haram-conquering Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai.
Few hours after the Army cleared Buratai of alleged corruption in the purchase of two houses in Dubai, the social media became awash with all manner of mischievous creativity.
One blogger friend, who, by the way, could not make a Credit pass in O’Level Mathematics, took his time to calculate Buratai’s salary from 1983, when he got commissioned, till date. He arrived at a figure about N195 million, which, he insisted, could not buy the two houses in question – even if Buratai never spent a dime of his salary all these 33 years. Of course, that level of saving would mean that the Army chief did not fund his wedding(s) or child naming ceremonies, didn’t pay school fees or medical bills, support any relation, or even do any of the things the rest of us did as young men – if you get my drift.
But my friend took the allusion to savings – from which Buratai was supposed to have bought the houses, to mean savings from his salary. But then, several of us in paid employment do one or two PPs (private practice) on the side – and some of these PPs end up paying more than our regular jobs. Savings from these could sure buy us a few houses in Dubai, America, London or even Lekki.
My friend, Chino Obasi, took the joke a little further. He shared a post about a new book that just hit town, titled: ‘Personal Finance for Dummies’, by General Buratai (see cover design above). A blob on the cover reads thus: “Learn how I was able to take care of two wives, children and save enough money to buy two houses in Dubai. If I can do it on a military salary, every salary earner should be able to do it”.
But the one that got me rolling on the floor with laughter was one I picked up from Linda Ikeji’s blog. It wondered why we’re willing to accept that Buratai, who has been in the army all his working life, could legitimately afford to own two houses in Dubai, while we just can’t seem to understand why a certain Diezani Alisson-Madueke, who spent so many years at Shell Petroleum (rising to become an executive director) before going on to occupy two ‘lucrative’ ministerial positions for about eight years, could afford a house in London, without having stolen the funds for its purchase from our national till.
And to rub insult into injury, we readily accepted the corruption clean bill of health given Buratai by his Army constituency, while we refused to listen when NNPC told us that no money was missing (that Diezani stole nothing).
My take on all this is: All animals are equal, but some are more equal.

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