By
’Tunji Ajibade
You say you’re from France Aujourd’hui. Good, it’s the reason I condescend to grant you this interview. Coming from the country of our former colonial masters makes yours the appropriate media house under the wonderful circumstances in which Central African Republic finds itself. You’ll report us positively, no doubt.
I can assure you the situation can’t be better with the political transformation that our leader, His Excellency, President Faustin Archange Touadera, has brought to bear on this nation. Let me tell you this; clear your doubts, make your heart a tabula rasa. That’s the only way you can appreciate the good things happening to this nation otherwise you will end up like those traducers of ours, those media houses who’re perennially biased against His Excellency. They like to carry rumours, and very wicked rumours at that in any matter that has to do with His Excellency.
First, I’ll break everything down for you to understand before you start asking your questions. This is necessary so that I can clear your doubts if you have any which I’m sure you do. I hope you know that as His Excellency’s Minister for Special Duties I’m the right person to do this. You must know, otherwise you wouldn’t have chosen to interview me. See, I’ve embarked on so many special duties for His Excellency that I can’t recall all at this time. One of them is the programme for political reforms, including the latest referendum that extends his tenure all for the benefit of the nation. Don’t mind what those opposition traducers are saying. Don’t. They see everything His Excellency does for the good of this nation as bad. It’s always bad in the eyes of the opposition. Come to think of it, what is bad in continuity? When a leader has performed excellently well, he should continue with his good work. After all, Nigerians, our good neighbours over there in West Africa, have a saying. They say, “A good 4-year term deserves another.”
His Excellency has performed beyond all expectations and he deserves more time to polish all the glistering programmes he initiated for the good of this nation and its people. That’s what the good people of Central African Republic have just said in the latest referendum that approves a fresh seven-year tenure with no term limits for His Excellency. That’s what they said. His Excellency even scored 95 percent in the ballot. Ninety-five. If not for the opposition that rigged the results of the referendum against him, His Excellency would have– Uhh, what am I saying? I mean to say, if not for the machines used for the process that malfunctioned and erroneously allotted five percent of the vote cast to the vociferous opposition, His Excellency would have scored 100 percent landslide.
O, yes, he would have; that’s how much our people love him. And I should know because I chaired the Special Council that recommended the strategy His Excellency should adopt in order to fulfill his ambition of becoming Central African Republic’s next Emperor with– Uhh, sorry I mean to say next president with the most notable legacies in the history of this nation. Meanwhile, some murmur that His Excellency plans to become emperor like this nation’s Emperor Boukassa of excellent memory. That kind of talk is treason and I shall soon write a memo to His Excellency to have all of those who spread this wicked disinformation rounded up and face trial. No one should disparage the personality of His Excellency and get away with it. This is not France– Hmn? I mean to say this is not em– em– well, forget it.
Come to think of it; don’t you think the suggestion of His Excellency becoming an emperor isn’t a bad one? It can’t be bad since I strongly suspect it’s the opposition itself that suggests it. You see, this opposition talks too much and in the process they shoot themselves in the foot. The idea of an emperor is good because it’s not alien to Africa, let alone Central African Republic. You may join me to hail the incoming emperor if you are so positively disposed.
Even you, think about it. Another seven years with limitless term in office on top of the two five year terms already spent by His Excellency. Most emperors don’t spend more time than that on the throne. So the idea of an emperor is not bad, after all I stand the chance of being knighted by the Emperor. Well, its conferment of chieftaincy title we do here in Africa, not knighting. All the same, if I get the chieftaincy title of Special Consul on Special Duties to the Emperor of Central African Empire, it’s no mean achievement for the son of a peasant farmer. No mean achievement at all. And if you don’t know already, that is one thing His Excellency has done to this nation. He makes everyone equal. You can rise from nothing to become something, and this is what the opposition wants to undo. I won’t permit them, I can assure you. I won’t. As the Emperor’s Special Consul, I’ll work hard to ensure the post is passed on to my children, after all the Emperor will pass his throne to his children. It’s a win-win, and no opposition must undo my bright future that guarantees the future of my family. I know where my family is coming from and I’ve sworn to never return there.
By the way, the opposition is making insinuations about His Excellency’s age. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t. How could they suggest that His Excellency at 66 years of age is too old to have a seven-year term. Let me break it down for you. You see in Africa, a person at 66 is young. You’ve not even started life. Start life? At the village Induma, council of elders, 66 is not an age old enough to grant you the right to sit among the elders, many of whom are in their late nineties and over one hundred. That’s the average age, late nineties. So why should any opposition imagine it can rubbish His Excellency by insinuating that he’s too old? He’s not and they need to watch it, because in Africa making disparaging comment about a person’s age amounts to gross disrespect. We frown at it.
As for those who say the latest referendum is a comedy, that people didn’t go out to vote and the result doesn’t reflect the will of the Central African people, they make a mockery of a serious state business and I’ll notify the police boss to make them pay for it. They have to because what they say is toxic. How can anyone make a comic relief of such a serious national assignment? It’s treasonable, and I shall urge His Excellency to introduce a bill that his boys and girls in parliament will stamp with the tag, Treasonable Felony. If those opposition people think we’re joking here they’ll soon rub their noses on bars at the Maximum Security Prison. It’s under construction as I speak, a top secret project; but I give you that info for free. These are perilous times and the in-coming emperor cannot afford to rub any cobra’s fang against his nose.
Meanwhile, don’t you believe the balderdash being spread that the Constitutional Court once dealt a humiliating blow to His Excellency, scrapping the establishment of a committee tasked with drafting the new constitution. It’s a lie cooked in the heart of the traducers of His Excellency, and we know who they are, enemies of progress. The fact is that the court’s president never liked His Excellency. He never did and if I have enough time I’ll give you instances when he showed his distaste for the leader of the nation as well as the good work our leader has done for all citizens. Some of your fellow journalists reported that the court’s president was a target of violent verbal attacks from citizens who appreciated the good work of His Excellency and whom they rewarded him with a landslide in the latest referendum. On the contrary it is His Excellency and the good citizens of this nation that have been at the mercy of this court. As for the retirement of the court president that is now being criticized, all I can say is that he who hires has the power to fire.
And talking of fire, His Excellency has set fiery fire to the tails of bandits who terrorize innocent citizens. Trust His Excellency, he takes any matter that threatens the joy of the people with all seriousness. Hundreds of those bandits have been wasted, and thousands more are eating half-cooked rice garnished with sand in our prisons across the country. No nonsense. The rest of the bandits have fled in disarray, pushed into rural areas by our able troops. And if you choose to maliciously claim that our troops are not ours but hundreds of Wagner fighters and Rwandan troops as some detractors of his Excellency have been reporting, good luck to you. What I know as an insider is that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces has sent to the frontline soldiers he deems capable of getting the job done.
Now, you have my permission to go ahead and ask your–
END.
