APPROPRIATE DRESSING

Because I Care #28

 

It is important to dress appropriately to an event or for an activity. Failure to do this may result in awkwardness or even accidents. Consider a carpenter wearing a flowing agbada to his workshop. Chances are that his saw will get stuck in his apparel or he will drive a nail into his finger by mistake. Also think of a lawyer wearing a bathing suit to court. Yes it may look better than that ridiculous colonial wig and gown that lawyers wear in our heat, but you will agree with me that a swim suit in court will be awkward. That is why I think our president should stop dressing like he is going for a village party all the time. Perhaps that is why our country is a huge disorganized dance floor. 

My thoughts about appropriate dressing would also apply to our National Assembly. If they are going to fight and throw punches like they did this week when Old and New PDP members attacked each other. A man in a cap and traditional dress will look really stupid falling over and throwing punches, like a woman attacking in her big gele and wrapper.  I think that legislators should wear t-shirts and shorts until such a time as they disagree without fighting.

As President I will choose my work clothes carefully. I will not wear a funny cap. It affects thinking. I will wear a body fitting t-shirt and jeans or loose cotton trousers to work daily. I will only wear a proper shirt when attending meetings. 

Americans baffle me. Their love affair with guns leaves me discombobulated. Every month someone goes out and kills someone in the street or in a school or home. Yet they fight so hard to keep the laws that make sure that people of doubtful sanity can buy guns easier just like buying a book on the internet. I will start an NGO when I become president for these Americans. I will call it ‘Hope for Former Gun Loving Americans’ or ‘The Open Society for treatment of American Gun Lust’. Americans will be able to come to Nigeria and spend a few months in a program that will use therapy to restore common sense to victims of Gun Lust. I will fund it from the Stolen Assets account. In case you are wondering I also plan to seize the assets of corrupt politicians, including their trinkets and the trinkets of their wives. The money will then be domiciled in a fund for foreign aid and for the treatment of depression that follows the loss of power among other ailments. 

I hear that some of the Governors opposing my soon-to-be-predecessor have demanded for Ngozi Okonjo Iweala’s resignation. I join them in asking that she leave her post as Minister for Finance. That, or she finds another scarf to wear. Or at least tie the damn thing properly. I get distracted looking at her because it always looks to me like it is about to fall. This can damage investor confidence. No Minister should be the cause of so much distraction. It doesn’t take too much to tie a head tie properly. That is why I like Oby Ezekwesili. She knows what she can and cannot do. She does not pretend to know how to tie a scarf. Mrs. Okonjo Iweala can just find a nice hair cut and lose the scarf. It will help our economy and boost investor confidence. 

Ps. This week in Abuja,  in the wee hours of Friday, men in military uniforms shot and killed Nigerians in the unfinished house of an Army General. Very quickly information released to the BBC showed that security forces engaged in a shootout with Boko Haram members. Conflicting reports however say that the men killed by the uniformed men, were only squatters who didn’t respond to a demand to leave the house of the Army General. Which version of the story is true remains unclear. What is clear though is that we live in a country where it is very easy to shoot a person and call him an armed robber or a Boko Haram member. Journalists have the important task of not just accepting press releases from the Army or the Police but investigating these claims to see if they are true. So far, they seem to be asking the right questions.

Ps 2. So this mobile herbal medicine vendor has taken up space near my house. Every time I go out, the speaker from his car greets me: “No let ya penis disgrace you. For stiff penis, for long penis. If your penis no strong as you like. If your penis no long as you like. I get de merecin. Five five hundred. No let ya penis disgrace you…” I do not know how to feel about this. First I thought he would go away. Then I thought I would get used to it. I was wrong on both counts. *sigh*