Prime Minister Gordon Brown vs Gillian Duffy: Another Version

Wednesday 28^th April, 2010, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was on a campaign train to Rochdale near Manchester. He had a question and answer encounter with a pensioner, a certain 65 year old Gillian Duffy. After what was obviously a very hard and somewhat embarrassing moment for the PM, he left but unknown to him, the microphone attached to his lapel by Sky News was still turned on. Significant out of the things he said in the car was calling the encounter a disaster and Gillian a bigot. This recording was thereafter played to Gillian and her reaction is as good as your guess.

In a massive recoil that is very alien to and baffles an average African observer, PM Gordon Brown almost immediately drove back to her house and apologised; a move deemed more as a desperate attempt to improve his dwindling chances at the polls rather than remorse. The aftermath in the United Kingdom is now history...

I sat back and wondered how that drama would have played out in Nigeria. First, it would certainly be a miracle for a Nigerian president to have a ‘one on one’ with a ‘common pensioner’ in a ‘common village’. Even if he does, it would be interesting to find a pensioner brave enough to tackle the president the way Gillian did Prime Minister Brown, for fear of his life and that of his family. I strongly doubt if there is any media outfit bold enough to invite the pensioner back to hear the playback of what the president said ‘behind her back’. My guess is, they would get in touch with the president quickly to switch ‘the thing off’ or at best, they would keep the recording for their private purposes. I am of the opinion that there is no media house in Nigeria that can expose the president to that kind of ‘ridicule’, especially if the president is a member of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP (which is the equivalent of a merger of Labour Party, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the UK).

The president would likely not admit to saying ‘those things’. He would probably dismiss it as a doctored recording by his opponents and a cheap campaign of calumny against him to tarnish his image. He would prefer to spend millions of taxpayer’s money on publications in newspapers refuting ‘all claims’. That media house almost definitely would be locked down by ‘orders from above’, at best. At worst, unknown gunmen might invade their premises, seize their equipments, ‘mistakenly’ shoot the man in charge and shave everybody else’ head with broken bottles...

The president need not drive back to apologise since the vote of the pensioner would not count in the coming election anyway. It is very rare for an incumbent in Nigeria not to win re-election especially if he is a member of the ruling PDP...

Nigeria has a long way to go. The present President is taking steps by instituting reforms in the electoral process, but the national assembly have to work on the Freedom of Information bill and the rights of the citizenry should be clearly defined and upheld. Freedom of speech and legislations such as the Bill of Rights has its own downsides, but the importance is most appreciated in a country like Nigeria.

God bless Nigeria too...