There was that high – profile fellowship at Oxford University. Then there was some stint at Stanford or was it Berkeley? Then there was the address to the US Congress. Then there was a UN special assignment in Afghanistan. Then there were high – profile presentations at the European Union. Then an emissary called and told me that Nuhu Ribadu was in New York and wanted to talk to me? Permission to give him my number?
Ehn, Ribadu ke? Give him my number kiakia o. I had in fact been planning to tell him something via mutual friends.
Three times he phoned and ‘met my absence’ and left a message and a New York call back number. Three times I called back and met his absence. As we say here, we were playing phone tag.
Next I heard, he was junketting in Africa on yet another high – level international assignment. So I sent the emissary he had sent to me back to him.
Tell him that I see an international public celebrity and technocrat profile shaping up. If the UN and the European Union and the African Union are sending you on errands after a Fellowship at Oxford; if the US Congress is inviting you; if world leaders are inviting you, do you need an alfa to tell you that that is an Emeka Anyaoku path gradually shaping up for you? Maybe you should remain in those international circuits as one of Nigeria’s best exports? That was my message.
He returned home
Erased everything he ever said that was good about anti – corruption
Said he was osaka when talking to osakas.
Said he was osoko when talking to osokos.
One day President Jonathan was a failed sinking ship
The next day President Jonathan was a brand new luxury cruise ship.
Osaka osoko all the way to Adamawa .
Now we are left with a man who must now know the meaning of the last line of a famous poem by David Diop:
“I feel lonely, so lonely here.”
My humble advice: dust the Oxford profile, rejig old contacts and see if that truncated international path can be revived. Don’t wait hanging around, thinking that El Rufai will forgive you, wangle a Buhari pardon for you, so you can port back to APC, get Minister of State III for something, and suddenly remember that you had indeed indicted Goodluck and Patience Jonathan and begin to abuse them in public.
See the global icon that your colleague PLO Lumumba has become while you struggled to be the local champion of osaka osoko.
Pick up the pieces on the international terrain.
There’s still a lot in you.