"President" Yar'adua as predicted, watching Icarus Girl and Suya Express

So after all the wahala, here's welcoming President Yar'adua and Vice President Goodluck. As "predicted" by the PDP Secretary a good two weeks ago, they won by a landslide of 70 per cent. Never mind the minor problems of missing ballot papers, ballot boxes, violence and the many places where elections did not hold at all, not to talk of the little fact that even the president had his vote cancelled in the governorship elections. Interesting to see that the Niger Delta as usual is where a lot of the creative formulation of election results has again taken place. It was ever thus. I remember meeting a former NPN stalwart from the Shagari days who was from Rivers State and his boast that from the sixties to the present day- this was in 1999- elections had never taken place in his creek home village. Instead he and a few other "village leaders of thought" had always allocated the votes to the various parties and because of the treacherous nature of the terrain, it was often difficult for any observers to penetrate the area. Perhaps he was exaggerating but again perhaps not....Meanwhile the US excoriates a deeply flawed electoral process but fails to call for a rerun, leaving that decision to Nigerians and the Nigerian legal system. Did someone just say Florida? At least our Supreme Court has in the last few weeks performed better than another Supreme Court did in 2000.... I suppose at this point we can only wait and see what a Yaradua presidency will hold. If he's sworn in, with his late lamented brother Shehu (former no 2 to Obasanjo in his first coming), he'll make history as the first siblings to hold the No 1 and No2 offices in Nigeria. Did I hear someone say the words dynasty? Plus he'll make history as the first university educated Nigerian head of government

To the Arcola Theatre this weekend to watch the stage adaptation of Helen Oyeyemi's The Icarus Girl, as publicized by London Chameleon. It was an interesting play although the star of the show for me was Natalie Best the actress who played Tilly-Tilly, the mystical friend that befriends Jessamy Harrison on her visit to Nigeria. I felt a shiver of dread run through me as she flounced on stage the first time and she was utterly believable as half spirit, half human of indeterminate age, even if her accent veered strangely from South African to Ghanaian by way of Nigeria. The rest of the cast did well, but her performance stood out....

After the play, I took the opportunity of being in the neighbourhood to visit Obalende Suya now rebranded as Suya Express http://www.suyaexpress.com/ . The dining section seemed rather empty but the takeaway section seemed to be doing brisk business. Having been served a Star beer I waited and waited and waited for my order of jollof rice and lamb suya and had to bite my tongue when the waitress returned to ask, "You wanted something else in addition to the Star, didn't you?" In a corner of the restaurant a tree bedecked in what looked like Christmas decorations sat forlornly in a corner. Elsewhere, two London Big Boys argued about whether Babangida had betrayed his friend Abiola in 1993 or not. The decor was clean and bright, as was the bathroom but for a Friday night it seemed strangely empty. The jollof rice was very dry but the succulent lamb suya more than made up for it, as did the circles of golden dodo....

I rang my aunt on Saturday morning- "Ah ah" I said, " You're still at home? You didn't go to vote?" She drily retorted- "The one wey we vote last week, how far ?" Last week, she had queued in the sun, her seven decades notwithstanding to vote only to hear that virtually all the votes cast at her polling station had been cast for a particularly unpopular candidate...

We'll wait and see what happens next- I hope the Supreme Court judges are gearing up to hear lots of appeals (including some from the PDP)- apparently they are particularly aggrieved at losing Lagos and Kano States....

Ah Naija!