by Stanley Azuakola

The president vs. the acting governor

There is a possibility that you have never heard the name: Umar Garba. Just a month ago, Garba was unknown in most parts of Nigeria except Taraba, but today he is on a collision course with Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan over the rights to the name ‘Goodluck’. Garba was picked by Taraba governor, Dambaba Suntai, as replacement for the impeached deputy governor, Sani Abubakar, last month. Shortly afterwards, Gov. Suntai’s private plane was involved in a crash which led to the governor’s hospitalisation. Now, Garba has been sworn in as acting governor of the state, making his leap from unknown to deputy governor, to acting governor, the fastest in the nation’s history.  However, Garba’s attempt to change his name to Goodluck Umar Garba received strong criticism from President Jonathan who knows the power of the name ‘Goodluck’ in elevating a man over his bosses. Presidential adviser, Doyin Okupe dispatched a strong letter to Garba asking him to “stay clear of the name.” He claimed that the president has a copyright on the name, and promised that the issue would be addressed by President Jonathan in a media chat today.

Why lecturers avoid PhD

A recent Needs Assessment Report by a committee set up by the Federal Ministry of Education discovered that a whopping 57% of university academic staff do not have PhD’s. A Pinch… spoke to some of the lecturers to find out why they have chosen not to obtain PhD’s as expected. Unsurprisingly, two main reasons were given. The lecturers claimed that if Dangote was now hiring PhD holders as truck drivers, it makes no sense for posh elite scholars like them to struggle with truck drivers. As if that excuse was not rude enough, most of the lecturers further said: “please, if the president of Nigeria is a PhD holder as he claims, we would rather die PhD-less.”

Another record for Nigeria

Nigeria has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records again in the strangest of ways. At the zonal senate hearing on constitution amendment in Enugu, traditional rulers in the state clamoured for the creation of Adada state. They vowed that they would not bury the late former chairman of the state council of traditional rulers, Igwe Charles Abangwu until their demand is met. Knowing that the Adada state dream is a pipe dream unlikely to come to pass, officials from the Guinness Book of World Records in a bold move have already included late Igwe Abangwu as “the oldest unburied monarch corpse in the world.” Observers say that “it would be easier for the late monarch to grow “dada hair” than for Adada state to be created.”

CROWNED CLOWN (CeeCee) OF THE WEEK

Loathe them or love them, the fact is that as odoriferous as this country has become, things might have been much worse without our journalists. That’s why you begin to wonder and worry about the kind of man who kicks out a journalist from a press conference simply because he wrote something unflattering. Umar Manko, the Lagos state commissioner of police walked out a Punch reporter from a press conference because the reporter wrote (correctly) that policemen shot a security guard after arriving the scene of a robbery when the robbers had already left.

Before sending the reporter away, Manko asked him: “So you’re the one who wrote this rubbish? Were you there when policemen shot the guard?” Dear Mr. Man-ko, were you there when your men did not shoot the guard? Eyewitnesses confirmed that it was policemen who shot the guard, the Lagos state police spokesperson also confirmed it (she now denies it obviously due to Manko’s wacko pressure), and even the guard himself, Musa, who was thought dead, is thankfully alive, and has also confirmed that it was policemen who shot him. But Manko is an arrogant police chief living in denial. Whereas robbers and criminal gangs are kicking the butts of his men all over Lagos, he shows his smallness by kicking out pressmen. A Pinch… would take him more seriously when he shows more resolve against gun-wielding robbers and not pen-wielding journalists. He is the crowned clown (CeeCee) for this week.

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