Letter To Africa: Dear Lagos

(This piece is a bit old. But so is Buhari)

Dear Lagos,

Let me begin by introducing myself. I am Bazanye of Kampala. Big fan.

I have always been a great admirer of your work (in the form of citizenry) Lagosians are some of the best Africans there are.

By the way, do you say Lagosians? Lagosites? I would think a person from Lagos would be a lego, but that brings its own basket of bewilderment.

If you indulge me I will just lapse into my vernacular and say Banaragosi. I’m sure you don’t mind. I am a muganda from Uganda. We do whatever we want with l and r.

How is everyone there? How is Elnathan? His last blog post was hilarious. The sewerage department of our local city council is lobbying to have him banned or severely restricted because so many of us shat ourselves laughing that they consider him a public health risk.

And how is Tiwa doing? I would find out myself but can’t because after “the incident” she blocked me. Not just on Twitter and Facebook but on the whole of Google.

I think I am the only one in the world who gets “sorry no results” when I search for Tiwa Savage.

Meanwhile, I caught the recent episode of Keeping up With The Buharis on the BBC. I am so so sorry.

How embarrassing this must be for you, not just because your president is a chauvinist, because, frankly, whose president isn’t? But because of the poor quality of the burn.

I understand that when Mrs. Buhari, the president’s wife, publicly criticized the way he chooses people to join his government his reply was, “She belongs in the kitchen.”

Oh dear.

You are the same nation that gave the world Basketmouth, Saro Wiwa, Chimmy, Don’t Jelos me, Nollywood, the Trailer Jam Show. We kind of look up to you for creativity in all areas of expression, even in your sexism. We did not expect a quip so weak from your president. A ten-year-old in a school playground wouldn’t waste his prepubescent breath on a retort so lame if confronted by the mean girls and yet here we have seventy-year-old man bleating it out to the whole world?

How embarrassing can this be?

“She belongs in a kitchen?” That doesn’t even make sense. Surely the family of the president of the federal republic of Nigeria has a maid to take care of chores.

Plus, it’s not as if he didn’t have anything to use for a comeback to her comments. She is a woman’s rights activist who speaks against child marriage yet her husband is three decades older than her and is so boldly and thickly sexist that he will say a woman’s place is in the kitchen while talking to Angela freaking Merkel. I think that could provide grounds to question her capacity to wisely choose personnel.

In other words, for the sake of Twitter, what does she know about choosing the right people; she married Buhari.

But I know I don’t need to be here trying to tell you or your president how to fight with his wife. I would have just said, “Oh really?” and made her sleep on the couch for the rest of the week, but I’m not a head of state and I don’t have wives. Plus my couch is really comfy and my special lady friends often pick fights with me just because they prefer it to my bed which tends to host a significant amount of nighttime flatulence if I have been drinking beer.

There is a young man named Sulaiman here in Kampala who is unemployed but is willing to learn how to make jollof rice for a decent wage. So if the State House kitchen is understaffed, he would not mind becoming an expatriate chef. After all, if what Buhari wanted is a silent, uncritical, serf to make food and never voice their own thoughts, then the correct thing to do is hire a cook, not marry a spouse.

Now it is time for me to sign off and go to bed. I shall keep in touch and continue to check on you. Give my love to everyone. Until we speak again, I remain yours

Bazanye Sempebwa, Son of Bazanye, Muzukulu of Sempebwa,

Born of Nagawa, Also known as Elinesiti