CAINE'S Memoirs

I can't seem to understand the ways of the rich in our society. I don't think anybody does, except you belong to that class.

 It is quite disturbing that in a country as ours where the average man earns well below a dollar; where poverty is effervescent like the air we breath, and corruption so firmly and deeply rooted that a group of individuals who have "successfully" fattened their accounts and amassed themselves with so much wealth, to the extent that they know not what beneficial to do with it, would decide to organise an expensive "gala" for their "kinsman" Barack Obama, after  warnings from Prominent figures such as the People's Democratic Party grandee Chief Sonny Iroche, and human rights lawyer Femi Falana to cancel the event and give back any money incurred.

True, Obama is a great man, and moreso a perfect politician to rule the USA, but why in God's name would people like "Madam NSE" Prof. Ndi-Okereke Onyiuke, throw a big party (or awareness campaign as she would like to call it) even after she had been convinced not to (I.T.K.).

 Being a professor of the highest calibre, and a woman of in-esteemable success, it is quite disheartening that in the height of corruption that had engulfed the state of Nigeria, she still went ahead to push for what I’d describe as a "futile escapade with less cognition to proper reasoning". 

 Imaging having invitees to a function pay the sum of either N2.5 million, if corporate, or N325,000.00, if individual; or as members of the plebeian (too affluent) group, cough out the sum of N2 million, if corporate, or, if individual, the sum of N275,000.00 apiece, for a plate of food!

 I wouldn't call that outrageous, it's insane! Do you know how that amount could put food on an average Nigerian family table for over one year! It could help one of the many jobless graduates establish a business that could move him to the Stock Exchange floor.

 Come on, it was quite annoying hearing Prof. Ndi-Okereke Onyiuke, the distinguished chairlady of the occasion, and inarguably the strongest promoter of the cause, tell millions of Nigerians that that amount was "not unusual"

"This year a newspaper put on a concert where tables cost 10m naira ($87,000, £43,500) and no-one blinked an eye then, why should they now?"

 Please! If she wants us to feel consoled by saying that, then she must have her professorship stripped of her, because that was obviously the mentality of a pedestrian.

 I thought that that utterance was irritating enough until my tummy rumbled in disgust when i read her story told to the BBC News website that there had been a misunderstanding in the press regarding the event.

"We never said we were going to donate money for the campaign," she said. We paid for the hall and the entertainers and the surplus we said would be spent on advertisements aimed at persuading Nigerians to tell their relatives in America to register to vote.

"There is not one Nigerian who doesn't have a relative or friend in America. Our aim was to encourage those people to tell their family who have the right to vote in America to vote for Obama."

 Wow! first - "Surplus", For advertisement? Adverts that where no different from what we had already seen in the USA thanks to CNN.

 Secondly, "Persuade our relatives"? Is she kidding Americans have been voting years before Nigerians did, you don’t need to persuade them to choose because you said so (empty barrels...).

 Thirdly, the back-breaker, who says every Nigerian has a friend or relative in America? Madam NSE, better get your facts right before speaking to the public.

 I can’t understand all these money bags, do they see Nigeria as Heaven or they plainly want to ignore that the rot in the society is nothing. Why in God's name should we be "raising funds" for such a cause, when roads are like pits; hospitals are more of experiment labs and mortuaries; schools are like cages to hold on to students for a period of time.

 How about Electricity, Portable water, Transportation, Soaring food prices, Starvation, Abject poverty; why can’t she do a fund-raiser for that?

 Now the kicker, Mrs Okereke Onyiuke hit back at critics who have accused her of abusing her position as head of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. She said the press was trying to attack her because they were jealous of her success. "I am a woman of the highest integrity," she said.

 Now, what in heavens was she thinking! Her position was less significant in the matter (Even though that raises another story entirely). Who could be jealous of her success? Its not like she is the first Nigerian or woman to be successful, is she? And so you no Madam NSE, your Integrity has tarnished since she decided to carry on the spending spree.

 And to make all these clear, my pen-brother Chris Akiri would say, "For the avoidance of doubt, the election of Barack Obama is not an African affair; it is an American affair". Let's not be deceived by the class of people that are involved (as probes usually bypasses them) the EFCC had better get to the root of the matter and prosecute all found wanting. And for God's sake, someone tell us what the money realized from the event is actually for!