President Buhari and his Potty Trained Minister - By Reno Omokri

Read his article below...

Psychologists say that when you spend time with a person who has a strong and dominant personality, you must consciously watch out against the possibility of being overwhelmed by that personality to the extent where you find yourself taking on some of their traits. Being a pastor, I have seen this up close and personal. 

In larger churches, many pastors often adopt, not the personality of Yehoshua (wrongly called Jesus) the Son of God, but that of the senior man in their ministry. If the senior pastor wears a Jheri curl, they wear one too. If he has certain peculiar mannerisms, they cultivate it within themselves. If he dresses a particular way, they ape him. If he has a real or effected accent, they acquire it. In short, they begin to act less like themselves and more like their pastor.

It is human nature. Boys want to marry women like their mothers and girls subliminally drift towards men who treat them like their fathers. This Oedipus complex-esque behavior is right now playing itself in Nigeria. The dictatorial nature of President Muhammadu Buhari, which has manifested itself in several ways, chief of which are his pronouncements on cases which are still in court, appear to be having a contagious effect amongst members of his cabinet.

Those around the President seem to think that Nigeria is one big barrack where all Nigerians live as unquestioning robots ready to do their bidding 'with immediate effect and automatic alacrity'. How else could one describe the recent threat by the minister of labour, Mr. Chris Ngige, who 'directed' commercial banks not to down size their staff strength and made a thinly veiled threat to revoke their license should they fail to obey his directives? Hear the minister:

"I hereby direct the suspension of the on- going retrenchment pending the outcome of the conciliatory meetings in the industry." As if that was not enough, the minister further said: “We will go a step further if they continue. We know what to do. After all, the banks have the licences given by the government. We know what to do. They need to comply." I mean, government directing banks not to sack? Threatening to revoke licenses? Are we not supposed to be a democratic country? The banks are downsizing because the economy is tanking. The way I see it, the only way the Federal Government can 'direct' private firms not to downsize is by fixing the economy!

Those of us who have long memories will remember Mr. Ngige as a mild mannered once upon a time political godson of Chris Uba, once a political titan in Anambra state. Mr. Ngige is famously remembered for sheepishly going to Okija shrine with his Bible at the behest of Uba to declare allegiance to his godfather.

We remember him as the anodyne governor of Anambra who (per his own admission) was locked up in a toilet because he was considered a naughty boy by his benefactor and would have remained there were it not for the intervention of Nigeria's then Vice President who ordered the then Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun, to rescue the kidnapped governor from his forced potty training! Now, a man who allowed himself to be consigned to a toilet is now brave enough to threaten others because his new godfather does the same.

At this juncture, permit me to give a crash course in history for those who do not know the genesis of the current crisis in the banking sector. The previous administration, led by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, had come up with the idea of a Treasury Single Account (AKA TSA).

The idea was to have a single account for the government (with a few exceptions) as a way of minimizing the possibilities for fraud and to have a real time view of how much the government has in its kitty. Because of the delicate nature of the banking sector (any banking sector, not just the Nigerian banking sector), it was planned that the policy would be implemented in phases so that the sector does not experience a shock.

But while it was still implementin