By Fred Chukwuelobe
Do not mock President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for stumbling and falling in Ankara while being received by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Our president is elderly and not as physically strong as some expect. Besides, the Presidency has explained the incident, blaming it on “a poorly laid carpet.” Don’t ask me why his host didn’t stumble and fall too. They are not age mates.
In any case, stumbling and falling did not affect his brain – or did it? He remains the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
A friend of mine said it was no big deal. After all, former U.S. President Joe Biden stumbled and fell multiple times and still remained president – until he was eventually prevailed upon not to seek a second term. I asked my friend if he was advising President Tinubu to do the same. He said yes. I don’t know about that one.
What I do know is this: we don’t even know how old our president is. In fact, we don’t know much about him at all, except that 31 out of 36 state governors and many lawmakers and any government in power politicians and judges have pledged to “stand on his mandate.” By the time he seeks a second term, I doubt there will be any politician aiming for his own re-election who will not also be standing on that same mandate.
Maybe Peter Obi. Maybe Atiku Abubakar. Maybe Nasir el-Rufai – though even he seems missing in action these days. Nobody knows whether he, too, has stumbled and fallen.
Jokes aside, those mocking the president for stumbling and falling are making a grave mistake. It is not President Tinubu who stumbled and fell; it is Nigeria. And Nigeria is all of us. We stumbled. We fell.
Let me return to my reggae music. Jah I by The Jewels:
“I know the wicked they try to captures I and I
They shall stumble and fall (stumble and fall)
They shall stumble and fall yeah yeah (stumble and fall)
They shall stumble and fall (stumble and fall)
Shoo be doo
Anywhere you see JAH Children dem a gooo
Get to leave alone (leave them alone)
You got to leave them alone (leave them alone)
You got to leave them alone
Shoo be doo
Even in the time of old even in JESUS time
They were the Prophets of old
In this dispensation of time
They chanting JAH RASTAFAR I say
Anywhere you see JAH Children dem a gooo
Get to leave dem alone (leave them alone)
You got to leave them alone (leave them alone)
You got to leave them alone (leave them alone)
You got to leave them alone
Shoo be dooo
Let me tell you yeah what JAH man say
JAH I JAH I wow JAH
Have mercy upon I and I JAH I
JAH I JAH I wow JAH I whoo JAH…”
NB: Fred Chukwuelobe, was a Special Assistant to former Governor of Anambra, Chris Ngige, on Media and Publicity.
