#lunchwithGEJ

"Now I have realised that talking with Goodluck Jonathan in public and private amounts to sacrilege before young Nigerians on Twitter" ---Mercy Abang

"Twitter is the Internet gone mad" ---Chippla Vandu in 2008 (and probably Ryan Giggs as we speak).

Some time last week, I received an email inviting me to have lunch with the President of Nigeria. The invitation clearly stated that it was meant to be a youth event. Being someone who spends a lot of time on a radio and television show criticising the President, and even more time writing critical articles about his Administration, I was pleasantly surprised that the invitation was not by the security services. I accepted the invitation, which by the way, happens not to be the first time that this Administration is reaching out to me for ideas and dialogue.

On the day of the event, I donned a suit, made sure I looked my best, and I proceeded to the venue, which was the Eko Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos. The first thing I noticed was that the road leading to the venue, Olosa Street, had been resurfaced. Now, Olosa, a road that I ply very regularly, is normally full of potholes, so my immediate thought was, "how the hell will the President ever know that something is wrong if we repair things each time he comes around?" However, I took a look in my rear-view mirror, and kept my opinions to myself. In my own little way, I am also guilty of putting on my Sunday best. How often do I wear a suit? I can totally understand the road maintainers concerns that the Presidential behind does not get bruised on our gullies.

The event itself was poorly organised. Some of the 'youth' present were men about as old as my 62 year old father. Some of these men jostled me out of the way as we were trying to get accreditation to enter the venue, and I found myself wondering why, if there was a master-list of invitees, did we have to get accredited. Once inside the foyer, we had to fill a questionnaire in which we ranked the issues that we would like the President to address most urgently. My issues are Power-Education-Security-Jobs-Corruption and others in that order.

On getting in, finding my table was hard enough, but I got a pleasant surprise, I was seated close to the centre table. Good opportunity for a one-on-one with the President, or so I thought, I was wrong. The table inserted between mine and the President's was filled with members of his emerging kitchen cabinet and a few people who are trying to get into that inner circle such as the failed Lagos governor-to-be. The event was not exactly the kind of interactive session that I had hoped for, and of the seven plus one pre-selected speakers, only Red Communication's Chude Jideonwo gave a speech which was really critical of the government.

Jonathan's speech itself revealed what I already know about him. He is learning. Learning how not to speak out of turn, something I have heavily criticised him for in the past. He is also clearly growing in confidence. I only wonder if he can successfully navigate his way through the piranha infested waters that is the government of Nigeria, but that is something we can only find out with time.

After the President's speech, there was some music, and for me, the minor irritation of some dimwit praise singers, singing that GEJ is their 'rock of ages'. As an aside, can someone please ask TY Bello to stick with her promise not to do live performances?

When the event was about to end, there was an announcement that the participants at the lunch should wait behind. At that point, I jokingly updated my Facebook status to ask the question whether we were being asked to wait for the President's security which is unarguably very important, or whether we were being asked to wait for GMGs (Ghana Must Go bags). In any event, some of us who are resident on the Lagos Mainland left. The reasoning was that we had come for lunch and we had to get back to our day jobs, or home, before the security induced traffic would begin. In my case, I factored in the fact that on most Tuesdays, Lagos traffic is really bad, due to Aswani market. Again, the last time the President was in Lagos on a Tuesday, I was sat on a closed-off Third Mainland Bridge for five hours!

An hour later, I was home and that was when the madness began. The first allegation of gratification collected by attendees at the lunch was started by Kayode Ogundamisi via a blackberry broadcast. I replied him immediately to tell him that that did not happen, and thought nothing more of the matter. I went back to work, then to bed, then woke up to head to Victoria Island for Smooth 98.1's Freshly Pressed and there it was again, allegations of 50k received by Lagos based participants at the lunch, and 150k received by up country. By day's end, and on a day which I had to gone to Abuja for a meeting, my twitter timeline was full.

For the sake of clarity, an honorarium is a standard part of any political or business event worldwide. So that is a moot point.

However, the amounts alleged to have been dished out are admittedly too high, and if any one of the participants at the lunch event did receive such an amount, he has to look into the mirror and question himself. But, it must be made very clear that I am yet to meet anyone who collected the alleged money. What I heard from Adebola Williams of the Enough is Enough Coalition, who happened to have a meeting at Eko Hotel in the evening, is that there was a stampede at the venue of the lunch. This stampede occurred at 2030 hours. A full five and half hours after most of us left the venue.

In any event, my main annoyance is with the people especially on Twitter who have taken it on themselves to cast aspersions on ALL the attendees at the event, myself included. Let me state here in no uncertain terms: I did not collect a kobo for attending the lunch. I can also vouch for the following people - Sade Ladipo, Subomi Plumptre, Seyi Taylor, Hadiza Mohammed and Toyin Fajj. We all left about the same time.

Let me go further again and state that the very next morning, anyone who bothered to tune in to Smooth 98.1's Freshly Pressed heard me criticising the very government who gave me lunch the day before.

What must be made even clearer is that a lot of the arm-chair critics have no clue about how democracy works. Democracy is a simple process which involves bringing people with divergent ideas into a room, trashing out those ideas, and finding either a common ground for progress, or in the alternative, discarding the weaker ideas and moving ahead with the stronger ones. Simple and short, we MUST engage and dialogue with our elected representatives, even if in some cases they may have been fraudulently elected. There is no other way to move forward.

I must also say that I actually regret not collecting the 50k (I reside in Lagos) if it is true. The transformer in my area is acting up, and my generator has told me in no uncertain terms that he wants a helper. 50k would have gone a long way in getting an Eve for that particular Adam...