Ten more Nigerian bestsellers
VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA
VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA
When I wrote on this page last week on the twelve must-read books that top Nigeria’s Bestseller Lists, many readers wrote to protest that I left out many other useful books. So this week, we must add ten more bestsellers to complete the list.
A very important Nigerian bestseller is How to Write Letters, by Olusegun Obasanjo. This book helps Nigerian kids to update their letter writing skills, which have not changed since colonial times when they studied it in Students’ Companion. Don’t waste time writing letters to girlfriends; write instead to current Presidents, to draw attention to their ills which are always many; pretend to be a saint because Nigerians like saintly people; rely on the short memory of Nigerians because they easily forget what happened years ago; cause confusion in the Presidency because they wouldn’t know how to reply you; help the Post Office to stay afloat by buying stamps to post letters; don’t waste your time posting on social media because the most powerful people in Nigeria are off the social media.
Selling like hot cakes at the moment is the book How to Maintain Campus Peace, by ASUU. The book says the first rule of campus peace is to make the academic calendar unknown; no one knows which campus is doing first semester, second semester or is on break; to ensure that students stay at home in order to save parents from sending pocket money; to close lecture halls so that lecturers can concentrate on research and community service; to sign so many agreements with government that it loses count; to assist parents with a reason to send children to study abroad despite steep naira depreciation; after every meeting with government, to issue statements laden with such big grammar that few Nigerians can comprehend what really took place.
Another bestselling book is How to Protect School Compounds, by Dogo Gide. National Security Adviser’s office, security agencies and news media all erroneously describe him as a bandit, but Dogo Gide is actually a knowledgeable security consultant. His book is a must read for education authorities, especially in North Western and Niger states. He wrote that classrooms should be left without doors or windows to enable pupils to escape in a hurry; that school compounds should not have fences, lest criminals think they have hidden treasures; that teachers and principals should not come to school with their motorcycles and cars so as not to give the wrong impression of prosperity; and that just like Tompolo’s men guard oil pipelines, his men should be hired to guard schools because the best way to guard a chicken coop is to appoint a fox as guard.
How to Uphold National Assembly’s Independence, by Godswill Akpabio tops many charts right now. The first rule in defending the independence of the National Assembly is to force the Presidency to budget six trillion naira for constituency projects; Assembly independence is best maintained when every MP has enough money to dash to his constituents; hold as many Executive Sessions as possible to prevent open debate on major issues; suspend any Senator who makes allegations against the Presidency or Senate President; speedily pass into law without public hearing any bill sent by the President including to change National Anthem; turn a blind eye on a 15 trillion naira Presidency road project that is not in the budget; and make as many jokes as possible from the Chair in order to divert attention from sensitive issues.
Selling like hot cakes is How to Evade EFCC Arrest, by Yahaya Bello. Every current top official needs a copy for future reference. This book discusses the tendency of EFCC to come after every governor who hands over power, and how to evade its goons. The book condemned the style of Ayo Fayose, who packed his bag and appeared at EFCC headquarters the day after he handed over in Ekiti. Instead, it recommended that one should live in an unknown house; surround himself with armed security guards; install your cousin as your successor so that he will take you into his vehicle, which has immunity from stop and search, and drive out of the compound while EFCC agents are watching; deploy several dozen SANs to bring up every ploy in the books in order to delay your trial; file a suit in a friendly court in your state capital to counter the order EFCC got from a hostile Abuja High Court; receive delegation upon delegation of well-wishers and drummers in order to intimidate the courts by showing that you are very popular; preach in your sitting room to squatting state MPs on the need to pass every bill sent to them by your successor; wear a long white Jallabiya cloth so that you can be mistaken for a cleric.
Another bestseller is How to Complete Our 60 Years’ Rule, by PDP. This book, adopted at PDP’s recent National Executive Committee meeting and signed by all its members, is a revised edition of the earlier one it adopted in 2008 when it first bragged that it will rule Nigeria for sixty years. It outlines measures that it will now take to complete the remaining 44 years, since it covered only 16 years of its divine mandate. PDP’s new strategy is to pretend that it is controlled by a senior cabinet minister; pretend that some of its governors are defecting to APC; send its trusted members to take over many briefcase political parties; apply to INEC to register several more parties; form alliances and coalitions with other parties in order to confuse APC; zone its presidential ticket to the South in order to scatter APC’s hoped-for “united Southern Front;” encourage APC to continue to alienate Northern voters.
The day after PDP unveiled its book, APC also rushed to hit the Nigerian Bestseller List with a book collectively ratified by its NEC, Board of Trustees, Presidency and National Assembly. It is titled How to Rule for 100 years. The original author’s name, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, was hurriedly cancelled with a red biro and replaced with Nentawe Yilwatda; the printers had to rush to Jos where he was receiving condolences to obtain his signature. The book says while PDP is forming coalitions and alliances with other parties, trade unions, civil society organisations and social media, APC’s strategic goal is to merge with the Federation Account, National Assembly, INEC, Judiciary, foreign road contractors and security agencies in order to form a German-style “Berlin Wall” around Aso Rock. No one can dislodge such a coalition in this century or the next one.
A very popular book is How to Build a Political Cult, by Peter Obi and Rabi’u Kwankwaso. The authors offer a rich perspective into the building of a personal political cult unseen in Nigeria since the Second Republic. The first author, Obi, writes about how to form a regional political cult; defect from a large party into a small one at the last minute; win 90% of the vote in all five states in a zone; mobilise elements of the Diaspora to donate money and dominate the social media; draft an indefatigable Free Chibok Girls activist to make a lot of noise; draft the proprietor of a successful private university as running mate; appeal to Yes Daddy to mobilise Christian voters, then visit mosques and get Imams to mobilise Muslim voters. The second author, Kwankwaso, did not advocate a last-minute dash into cult building but a slower, less audacious route; to corner not a whole region but one state, albeit a large and vote-rich one; adopt a red cap as the cult’s call sign; seize control of a small political party and install all its officials; keep both ruling and opposition parties guessing as to your next move.
Another bestseller book is How to Be a Good Neighbor, by Abdourahamane Tchiani. Nigeria has had many troubles with its neighbours, including the spread of Chadian rebels into the North East, Bakassi border dispute with Cameroon and the Hamani Tijani cross-border vehicle robbery saga with Benin Republic. This book by Tchiani is therefore highly welcome. It advocates the diversification of governance models by replacing democracy with military rule; detaining an overthrown president without trial as a lesson to African rulers; capitalizing on cross-border ethnic relations to mobilise support from Northern Nigerians; wrecking a 50 year old regional economic bloc and setting up a rival Alliance of Sahelian States; stopping the flow of Sallah rams so that Nigeria can conserve its foreign exchange; by sending social media posts to reveal a French takeover of Nigeria; and by allowing Lakurawa fighters free movement across the border.
A rather strange appearance of Nigeria’s Bestseller List is How to Keep States United, by Donald Trump. It is exactly 160 years since the American Civil War ended with the defeat of the Confederate States, so this book by Donald Trump is very timely. The strategy includes federalizing the DC police; sending federal marshals to take over Chicago and all Democratic-controlled cities; retrenching a million federal workers; kicking out the billionaire who did the retrenchment; deporting undocumented migrants to Uganda; imposing punitive tariffs on friends and foes alike; absorbing Canada into the USA; seizing Greenland from Denmark; renaming Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America; punishing any wire service that still calls it Gulf of Mexico; wreck the NATO alliance; cozy up to Vladimir Putin; pretend to try to end the Ukraine war; start a trade war with China and India; pretend to broker peace between Israel and Iran and suddenly bomb Iran; send a naval flotilla to overthrow the President of Venezuela; then encourage Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza.
