By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.
On June 12, 2024, or the day we call the Democracy Day on these shores, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) did what appeared to be a ‘Dobale’, the Yoruba word for (roughly translated)‘respectful greeting’. So it appeared for watchers from a far. Mr. President later joked about it saying that he “did his dobale this morning as a Yoruba man for Democracy Day”.
But it was not. It was a misstep by Mr. President, and he fell in his flowing white gown, his trademark cap and all the Presidential grace, in his haste to enter the open-bodied vehicle to inspect the parade at the Eagle Square.
I know dobale even though I am not a Yoruba man nor do I speak the language. I know a N3 million dobale, courtesy of my former principal. This happened when three people from my constituency visited to sell their products to him. They were all Yorubas. When they finished their sales pitch, which lasted nearly one hour, they bowed and took their leave.
As I made to see them off to their car my principal called me, and I told the guests to wait for me at the waiting room. He asked me how much money they should be given ‘for their trip’, to which I replied that he could give them any amount he so wished. He told me to go and collect N3 million for them. Even I myself was dumbfounded when he mentioned the amount, and I went to the waiting room and told them what my ‘oga at the top’ said they were to receive as gift. As if choreographed, the three men did a dobale to him, to express their gratitude for the money.
And the media, both conventional and the online variety in the country, had a field day with the reports of Mr. President tripping, as if it was something unusual in the world. It was not, and the leading opposition Presidential candidates said so in various statements to express their empathy with the President.
In his message, former Vice President and Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar Atiku said on his X handle that he sympathised with “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu @officislBAT for this unfortunate incident as he was set to review the parade on Democracy Day. I do hope that all is well with him”.-AA.
His opposite number at the Labour Party (LP), and former Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi had this to say, “I am saddened to learn about President Tinubu’s unfortunate fall”, adding that such accidents can happen to anyone.
To start at home Nigeria, apart from President tripping, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar himself suffered a fate similar when he was about to launch his 2007 Presidential campaign at the Yar’adua Centre. He tripped and fell down.
Outside these shores, there were notable Presidential tripping and they did not elicit much gloating from their compatriots as did President Tinubu’s from his fellow countrymen and women.
The current President of the US, Joe Biden tripped and fell on many occasions while trying to board the Presidential plane known as Airforce One, sparking his health concerns. This has happened to him in a number of countries, including the US, of course.
The Russian strong man, Vladimir Putin has had many tripping in public while performing official functions, and the media in that country did not make a mountain out of the mole hill of the incidents.
In China, the leader, Xi Jinping once tripped and fell down, and commentators dubbed it as ‘the great fall of China’, but the country’s media did not gloat over it.
The great war time Prime Minister of the UK, Sir Winston Churchill once staggered in the parliament and a female colleague told him that he was drunk. Ever so witty, drunk or sober, he answered her in the affirmative, but added that he would be ‘sober the following day’, but she would remain her ‘ugly self’.
These incidents and more like them only show the frailty of the human being, and that it could happen to anyone, regardless of their age or gender, in the glare of the ‘world’. There is therefore no need to gloat over Mr. President’s misstep.
Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.
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