By Dele Sobowale
“This world is a comedy to those who think; a tragedy to those who feel”. Horace Walpole, 1676-1745. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 286).

Horace Walpole was the first and foremost authority on the great English lexicographer, Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784. And Walpole penned those words, now carved in stone, for eternity. Undoubtedly, he never knew that a country called Nigeria would come on the global scene; neither did it ever occur to him that in the year 2012, with over forty per cent of the youth unemployed, creating a hatchery for criminals and pyromaniacs, in addition to about seventy per cent living in poverty, that the most engaging topic for public discussion would be a mere church, which should actually be a cathedral. Not only that, it should be renamed St Jonathan’s Cathedral of Otuoke.

The reason is simple. If the former church is too degrading for  Presidential worship, then, an ordinary church, even if designed and built by a world class architect and construction company is unfit for My President. So, we should not do anything by halves. Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.

So, the church must immediately be renamed St Jonathan Cathedral because it has taken someone worthy of being selected for sainthood to recognize that what Bayelsa State, with the nation’s highest percentage of unemployed, needs most urgently is a cathedral – not jobs.

Personally, I blame President Jonathan for all the noise about the structure. Next time he plans a stunt like that, he should consult us at UniJankara to provide the perfect alibi before the crime, sorry, the arrangement. He would have saved himself and our “mutual friend” Dr Reuben Abati, the necessity of calling another futile press conference to offer explanations which only make things worse.

Why? For years, area boys have beaten the rap at Magistrate Courts when caught at a bus stop with someone else’s wallet in their hands. The defence has always been, “Your Lordship, the wallet flew out of the man’s pocket and got glued to my hand”.

Abati might be good with grammar, as a Fellow of the Institute of Letters, but none of their members has ever had to plead his way out of a charge of receiving stolen goods; that’s our specialty. That Alhaji Lai Mohammed and most columnists, especially those belonging to the opposition’s newspaper, spent so much brainpower, time and ink on this trifle was the main comedy.

Once Lai Mohammed spoke, we were aware, at UniJankara, that group think would seize the minds of the columnists in a particular newspaper. Every columnist in that stable would feel obligated to chip in his own contribution according to the gospel by Mohammed. And so it was.

We were amused at UniJankara that so many erudite individuals could waste so much time on a “crime” which is committed routinely by individuals and corporate bodies every day. If building a church is a bribe, and it might be, what does anyone say about full page colour adverts , taken in several newspapers by contractors to a state government, to wish the governor a Happy Birthday; naturally followed by a “gift” in an envelope or a bullet proof Jeep? Or underwriting the cost of the birthday bash of the party leader? Or the “Committee of Friends”, all seeking a favour, hosting a celebrant after receiving a dubious award? Or, the “Old Boys Association” organizing a cocktail party (I call it ass sniffing) only to request for a generous donation towards the N1 billion fund raising? Before the too self-righteous think they have had the last say, let them re-consider if they are not a bunch of hypocrites sitting in glass houses throwing rocks. For once, I am ready to help President Jonathan to haul boulders back at his detractors.

Yes, what Jonathan did was reprehensible. But, the man is obviously so naïve, he made the confession himself. That, at least tells me that it was pure human error of judgment and should be accepted as that; so we can move on to other more important things as quickly as the idle gossipers will allow us. A President, conscious of committing a blunder or crime and wishing to conceal it would not have announced it to the whole world as Goodluck did.

Anyone who would commit an offence and report himself to the whole world deserves to be made a saint. Abati, instead of all the big grammar, should have issued a public apology on behalf of the President. One word, Sorry, would have achieved more than a thousand infuriating words. Sometimes, being too erudite can constitute a hindrance to good communication. This is one clear example.

As it is, the church is already there; built with our money – even if from profits made on contracts awarded in the past. We can’t ask for it to be demolished; unless we collectively deserve to be put in the psycho wards. All Gito has to do now is to erect a mosque befitting a Vice-President in Sambo’s village; in order to complete the religious balance and the north-south zonal arrangement. The VP has not asked for it, Area Boys make the request on his behalf. Fair is fair!!

That we have been held spell-bound by this nonsense for so long is the real tragedy.