By Dr. Ugoji Egbujo

Recently, when a certain presidential candidate was asked about climate change, he confessed his ignorance. Ignorance may not be bliss, but the truth set him free that day. He hadn’t studied it. But The great Jagaban had read it. So once the Arewa Wisemen confronted him with Climate Change, he chuckled.

But rather than go straight to the point and strike his nail on its head, he decided to wow his audience with an analogy. The city wasn’t showboating. But analogies are like beautiful women. If you offer to give them a ride, make sure you get them to their destination. If you suffer a breakdown, you will earn your ridicule. Tinnubu left his analogy stranded. And ever since, bishops and lawyers have been trying to rescue him.

Tinubu chose the church rat and the holy communion. Though a Muslim, he has the requisite license to meddle with sacraments. He is the husband of a pastor. And since the bible says the husband and wife are one, and the husband is the head of his wife, then Tinubu carries vicarious anointing and authority.  

But had Tinubu left his holy communion uncontaminated, Tinubu would have basked in glory like the exuberant Jagaban, who beat his opponents silly at the presidential primaries. If an Asiwaju doesn’t eat words with the oil of proverbs and wisecracks, who should? The wise use of metaphors, idioms, and analogies does not just show mastery of the language; it exhibits insight.

But insightful Tinubu poisoned his analogy with a poisoned holy communion. A poisoned holy communion is an oxymoron. A little fox that spoilt the vine. Any Christian deeper than a mere churchgoer would know that by faith, holy communion is an antidote to poisons.  But let’s leave semantics, theology and spiritual chemistry aside and focus on driving Tinubu’s beautiful grammatical lady home.

A Jagaban must be accorded maximum respect. So his analogy must be made coherent. Jagaban must be Nigeria is the church rat. And nothing describes the current state of affairs that has gone from rotten to bad, better than a clueless rat that chose a church for a home while other rats live in the kitchens of ageing politicians.

Let’s leave the poisons out. The Holy Communion must be green energy conventions. The protocols to save the planet and allow it Passover imminent damnation. The humans that control the rat-infested church, for whom the holy communion is sacred, must be the rich western nations for whom the green protocols are practicable moral imperatives.  

Nigeria, Jagaban’s church rat, understands that climate change is essential and that the green protocols, like the holy communion, must be protected with jealousy. But Nigeria has no funds to develop alternative green energy sources. Since Nigeria, chronically dispossessed and starving like a church, is helpless and must survive, then she must fell trees and use firewood, for instance.

To stop Nigeria from desecrating green conventions, the holy communion, the West must act with some generosity. If the well-fed, resource-rich West, for whom the holy communion, green convention, is sacred, won’t help Nigeria, then Nigeria will help herself, anyhow. All hungry Nigeria, the church rat, wants is some thoughtfulness on the part of those who have the luxury to venerate the holy communion, to drop crumbs of grants, from time to time, in church.

Or at least show the church rat the way to their garbage facility, where it can scavenge for loans in peace. But if the West hardens its heart like ‘ndi deeper’ and fails to provide an alternative, the church rat will continue to feed on the only food available in the church to survive, without bothering about sacredness. That was Tinubu’s point. Or that should be his point.  

Some folks sympathetic to Tinubu claimed the man had poisoned chalice in mind. But poisoned chalice isn’t for rats; it’s for humans. A poisoned chalice is an honour that will ultimately bring shame, disgrace or harm to the beneficiary. If that substitution is made, Tinubu’s analogy will become incoherent.

A poisoned chalice is a different thing. It won’t render the explanation the sagacious Jagaban had intended. Some other workaholic surrogates of the political juggernaut carefully stuck with ‘poisoned holy communion’ and tried   ‘panel-beating’ it to make sense. But they laboured in vain. Rats are not needed in churches. And often, poisoned foods are left as traps to kill even church rats.

So who cares if a rat eats Holy Communion that is unfit for human consumption? If a prodigal African country chooses to swallow all the toxic wastes in Europe, the West won’t mind. If a rat eats a poisoned holy communion, then the rat dies in peace, and the church is pest free. If the rat eats the Tinubu’s poisoned holy communion, assuming the sacred communion is so spiritually ineffective that it is impotent against poisons, then humans are spared agony.

So why would the world bother about Nigeria if she chooses to feast on poison and dies alone? The elements of a good analogy cant include the preposterous. Climate damage mitigation intends to save the planet rather than kill developing nations. The panel beaters of Tinubu’s analogy should be mindful of that.  

For a man who had announced up front that he was asked to stay tight to his script, Tinubu should be forgiven. The hallmark of a truly vibrant leader is spontaneity and adventurousness. Only weak leaders allow themselves to be shackled by their handlers. But a good leader must endeavour to communicate in simple, everyday language. So that his opponents do not begin to create the impression that he is a makeshift Martin Luther King mouthing soundbites and idioms that need wheel balancing and alignment. Loose-hanging analogies and paraplegic idioms raise eyebrows.

The national interest generated by Tinubu’s ‘church rat and poisoned holy communion’ is heartwarming. Christians and Muslims bantered freely around the quasi-religious subject freely. Nobody showed up with any life-threatening allergies. Religious tolerance is a noble idea. But more encouraging, perhaps, is the level of political vigilantism. Folks are perpetually fact-checking, picture-probing and exhuming. If the tempo is sustained soon, political offices could become poisoned chalices until honesty and selflessness overthrow charlatanism, opportunism and prebendalism in our society.