President Bush said Wednesday that he “appreciates the government of Nigeria’s work to apprehend Charles Taylor, a warlord and rebel leader charged with crimes related to Sierra Leone’s 14-year civil war.” Earlier in the week he was livid at President Obasanjo after it was made known that Charles Taylor had absconded from his temporary home in Calabar, Nigeria. What follows is the transcript of the twenty-minute phone conversation between the two men.
BUSH: Hello Segun, this is the President of the United States of America…
OBASANJO: Ha, yes, yes…Mr. President, Your Excellency, how are you doing sir? How is Her Excellency, her most high, your beautiful wife, Mrs. Laura Bush? And sir, how are the children doing, sir?
BUSH: Segun…
OBASANJO: My prayers and love and best are with you, sir. May God bless and guide you sir…
BUSH: Segun…take it easy, save that for another time…I ain’t got time for small talk…
OBASANJO: Yes, sir…I did not mean to offend you sir! Sir, yes sir!
BUSH: OK…What’s this nonsense I am hearing…that Mr. Charles Taylor escaped from your custody? Did he pay you for this bold move? Tell me, who else did he pay…who else facilitated his escape?
OBASANJO: No sir, I was not part of the deal sir. In fact, no one knows how he did it. I have asked the security operatives. I have asked the Inspector General of Police. I have asked the police commissioner; still, no one knows how he was able to walk out of his confinement just as no one knew he was going to break jail at the House of Corrections in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in September 1985.
BUSH: Are you telling me he was able to pull this damn trick without your consent? You must know that Rumsfeld and Cheney consider his escape a very serious matter. How do you suppose I explain this debacle to them? Don’t you know I am tired of Cheney and Rumsfeld sticking it to me every time…night and day, telling me to do this and that and that and this?
OBASANJO: Sir, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble with those chaps, sir. At this point in time, all the security people who were in charge of looking after Mr. Taylor have been arrested and I shall see to it that I give them hell…
BUSH: Segun, I expect you to capture and arrest and return Charles Taylor to Liberia within the next 72 hours; otherwise, I will recall your pocket money, ban you from visiting Washington and oppose your insidious political schemes…
OBASANJO: Yes master…I am sorry master…I am sorry sir! Please pardon me…pardon me sir! I have always been a good boy, an obedient servant of your national interest sir…I have always and will forever do whatever you ask of me sir…
BUSH: Ok, I will give you credit for your past deed and pronouncements. Mostly, you’ve acted according to my whims and desires. For that reason, I will give you a longer rope; but be sure to have that Taylor of a man arrested before you arrive DC…you get it?
OBASANJO: Yes sir…yes…thank you sir…thank you boss!
BUSH: By the way: what is this I hear about that featherweight-general, Babangida, waiting to contest the 2007 elections? What’s his goddam problem? Wasn’t he your supporter and didn’t you pay him off accordingly?
OBASANJO: I have given him everything there is to give, i.e., contracts, diplomatic passports, and also appointed his people into plum positions. Unlike Marwa and others whom I have given hell, I have always threaded carefully in all matters concerning him. He is crazy and knows too much.
BUSH: Well then, I will get the fellows down the street to send you a file and you can then pass it on to your EFCC. Let them deal with your headache. But be foxy, though. As we say in Texas, “He lost too many balls in the high weeds,” and “He’s overdrawn at the memory bank.”
OBASANJO: In addition, the fellow is simply too dishonest. “There are a lot of nooses in his family tree…So crooked you can’t tell from his tracks if he’s coming or going…Crooked as the Brazos…I wouldn’t trust him any farther than I can throw him.”
BUSH: Damn Segun, you been to Texas before? How you got all these Texas sayings?
OBASANJO: Sir…what should I do about…I mean, I need help with…
BUSH: ‘gat to go Segun…got to report to Cheney…See ya in the White House…
POSTSCRIPT:
4 comments
Hello Mr Sabella Ogbobode Abidde
Your presumed analogy between Mr President and the United States president is an insult not only to the person of Mr Olusegun Obasanjo but to Nigerians in all works of life. Mind you, this site is not limited to Nigerians alone, but to every internet uses all over the world.
Your impression of the president, or the way you want to present the President of the Federal republic of Nigeria to the entire world, is unjust to his person, and unfair to the people of Nigeria. Dont forget that he represent firstly more than 40 percent Nigerian that voted him into power, and as president, he is the voice and legal representative of all.
The Liberian conflict was eating into the heart of west Africa, and someone had to take a step to remedy the situation, this is not to say that blood suckers should go unpunished, particularly in Africa where leaders out of self interest plunge their people to horrible situations, like Charles Taylor, African need to send a clear message to many like him that are nursing same ambitions.
It will be unjust to hold only Charles Taylor responsible to the entire bloodbath in Liberia, because, he had opponents or there were people that forced him into war. I am not hundred percent convinced that the hands of the present leader is clean.
Comments number one says he smokes, comments number two asks about what he has been drinking?
How many vices does Sabella really have? The rumor is also that he likes beautiful girls!
But he better stop caricaturing our president, or else, we will deprive him of smokes, drinks and women!
Assumption, assumption assumption!!!. What have you been drinking? I do not like OBJ but common now he is still a Nigerian President. He cannot be that of a boy to President Bush.
sabella,
Please I shall stop defending your smoking habits soon!!!!