Just hearing some news that Buhari has banned foreign exchange for remitting school fees abroad. I won't get excited because I don't know what to believe anymore from what comes out of Nigeria, everything seems so farcical, like that dude they are saying hid $1 million in a soakaway pit. Kai! Na my mate be dat o!
Anyway, if this is true, it would seem that Buhari is still using a playbook drawn from his 80's failed bag of tricks. It reminds me of a true story that happened to me as a graduate student in my early twenties in the US around 1983. OLEMISS. Oxford Mississippi. Well, news came from our parents that Nigeria was restricting foreign exchange and we would have to stay out of school or borrow the money, or beg the school to let us attend school on a deferred payment plan until the money came. A few Nigerians headed to the cities to work in restaurants while waiting for money, some borrowed money, and the rest, like me who would do neither decided to go beg the bursar for temporary relief. The plan was that upon his approval we would attend school knowing that the money would eventually show up.
We went to him; it was a mournful scene, like supplicants at an American embassy in a "Third world nation", every person that came out of his office after the beg-a-thon was denied the plea. When it got to my turn, I just knew he would say no, but hey, I had nothing to lose. I walked into his office already defeated, he looked really mean, this white man, with thick glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. He regarded me like a fisherman regards wretched shrimp and I just knew it was over. I spied a portrait of a young man on his desk, posing in a football uniform, with a ball in his hand as if he was about to throw it. I asked him nervously, "Who is that?" I don't know why I asked, I do silly things like that when I am nervous. I was nervous.
A strange thing happened. The man's countenance changed, his face softened 360 degrees, and he said something like, "Sit down son, let me tell you about my son!" And he told me this wondrous story of his son, a young warrior with a good throwing arm who was doing incredible things on the football field in some college. I listened enthralled, and as I listened I missed my dad, I really did, my dad was so proud of me, and he would always brag about me and exaggerate my abilities. I thought about my dad really upset in Benin City unable to save me from this latest scrape, dude lived for me. I listened and listened as this mean looking man became a beautiful being simply because I let him tell a story, his story. It must have been an eternity, eventually he asked me why I was before him. Before I could finish my plea, he waved me off, saying I could go to class, he was sure I would pay it, blah, blah, blah! I finished graduate school on time. The money came eventually and of course I paid the school. I learned a lesson that day at OLEMISS, everybody has a story, just ask and in the telling you will become one tribe.
And oh, the ruler that made us miserable that semester in 1983/84 was General Muhammadu Buhari.
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spill it!!!