The Monica Ambrose in All of Us 

Tony Monye

A  friend of mine often sends me Whatsapp video, photos and comic strips of motley shapes and forms, almost on a daily basis. I wake up expecting some; I pull down each day’s curtains having seen some from him. Often most of the pieces are of good informative and educative quality. A few times, they rest on the other side of the wall. On the mean, these items enjoy positive appeal. Just a few days ago, I got one interesting but ruffling video. It was the sort I have never seen before but it gave me the three of great entertainment, cause(s) for more reflective thinking and worries, all in one view.

Many more views only added depth to the three takeaways. It was a video-clip from a Netherlands-based Nigerian. Monica Ambrose. Monica, a woman probably in her late thirties, unlike the rest of us, is quite ambitious and bold. She would like to give a shot at our dear country’s presidency in 2019. The present leadership has only got her ire. Although she admits to challenges with spoken English, she would like us to know her ambition is no joke, after all, her only deficiency, that is, the English language is just a language like all the others. Her vision for the country is complete but it’s only in her head, though she invited no one in. And, like the rest of us of qualified age, she has the right to contest. She is therefore, welcome to the race to Aso Rock in a couple of years.

Social media, like all other inventions of man, have their blameless sides. They also have got their cheerless slants too. And, many have witnessed both perspectives of social media. They have given some bliss whilst ditching out sources for worries to so many. Social media are serving as avenues for setting forth opinions – right or wrong, sustaining and refuting them. They are good sources of information, as friends could drop some informative pieces. Accessed by us, we only become better informed. Social media help in reuniting, re-igniting age-old but long lost friendship, even from far-flung places. They fill us with elation as well as distress. Their effects are pervasive and they can also be quite invasive. Their speed of movement is quite phenomenal, speedily trekking from the corners of our world to the centre-stage in one of the shortest possible time. I have got my doubts if anyone, at the moment, could see the end of social media. Well, whilst they are here with us, we have got to enjoy them.

Back again to Monica Ambrose. Like the rest of us, Monica seems truly perturbed by our nation’s tottering steps, especially of the past two years. In fact, she sums it up as being calamitous. So, unlike the rest of us, she has voted to do something about it. Her disgust in the nation’s previous ‘statesmen-leaders’ is like a first-rate painting on some bright canvass, easily seen and acknowledged. Monica doesn’t feel chickened by the monstrousness and enormity of the country’s problems. On the other hand, she’s quite convinced the task of guiding Nigeria to Eldorado needs especially her and it’s giving her some very loud calls. So, she’s offering herself for the nation’s top job. In the video, Monica detailed her beyond average qualifications for the office of the Presidency of the Federal Republic of our staggering nation, Nigeria. They are four. She is a married woman. She has got three children (all Dutch citizens). She has lived in the Netherlands for seventeen years. According to her, she has seen it all, particularly living in the developed world as offered by the land of that talented, dreadlocks wearing footballer, Ruud Gullit. Calling on the support of all Nigerians, beginning with those of them living in the Diaspora (a word she really struggled to pronounce), as we march towards 2019, Monica’s promises are few. Good roads. Electricity. Free education. These are some of the basic things all of our earlier ‘great’ presidents haven’t been able to get off the way. And, the best of all her promises, unlike previous leaders, Monica would want us to know she isn’t light-fingered. So, she won’t pilfer from our commonwealth, as all her children are Dutch citizens and are already on benefits.

The other, un-reflected sides of the Monica Ambrose video have left me completely ruffled, lost wholly in some sort of stupefaction. It revealed in very clear details many valuable and easily seen qualities in us – Nigerians. As Nigerians, we effortlessly make light of very deep pursuits, revealing our lack of knowledge. In our braggadocio, we go for bigger ‘shoes’ although we only have got smaller ‘feet’. We easily fall preys to cheap international conspiracies, possibly because we are bereft of the brilliance to engage them. It exposed how, after many generations of supposedly rare sort of leadership, Nigerians still have very weird and shrunken view of governance. Governance is still a big struggle of meeting some of the simplest tasks of road construction, electricity generation and basic education. It is no blame of Monica Ambrose. It falls on the laps of all those who have, at one time or the other, occupied some of the ‘coolest’ seats at State House (Dodan Barracks) and Aso Rock. It is just strange how she ended the video rebuking and diminishing the strength of the English Language. There is no language that reveals the universality of development as much as English. It is unarguably the most sophisticated language given the present time. In the end, I only hope that, with the audiovisual, Monica Ambrose was having some rich fun because she gave a sizeable measure of it. At its best, the Monica Ambrose video offered some dazzling comic relief for the night, inducing sound sleep.