Royal Wedding: Why the Queen Snubbed Jonathan – By Phil Tam-Al Alalibo

Prince Williams Kissing his Bride, Kate

April 29th, has rolled into the annals of British royal history as the day when the future King of England, Prince Williams, walked the aisles to marry his heartthrob for the past ten years, commoner Kate Middleton. The occasion was graceful as expected of any such royal undertaking, abundantly pregnant with pump and assorted pageantry and attended by almost two thousand guests from all walks of human endeavor with an additional one billion in TV viewership around the globe. But in the midst of the nuptial festivities of the century one has to wonder which criteria the Queen applied in selecting who was invited and who was left out in the sumptuous celebrations that heralded a new beginning for the late Princess Diana’s offspring.  With only about two thousand in attendance, it meant that the Queen who had the sole responsibility of determining who got invited had to make the conscious decision to exclude some very prominent citizens of the world.

Unfortunately, the exclusion list included President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, two former British PMs, the Pope and a host of others. What troubles the mind is the utterly questionable characters of some of the well-heeled personalities that were invited to grace the occasion such as the sex-craved king of tiny Swaziland currently with thirteen wives most of whom are teenagers. And  could you imagine that the likes of Robert Mugabe, the brutal dictator, murderer of thousands was invited and had to be represented by his ambassador to Britain? Even Gadaffi’s representative to Britain, the ambassador was invited but that invitation had to be quickly rescinded in light of the inauspicious developments in Libya. Even some of the Saudi royals, the custodians of the holiest places of Islam, were invited to witness the formalization of love, but they somehow politely excused themselves for fear of being accused of attending a Christian ceremony where the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ would be invoked on the young couple.

But perhaps, the most alarming of all was the reasons given by Buckingham Palace for not inviting the President-elect and sitting president of the largest Black Country in the world and the second largest Commonwealth country after ‘explosive’ India, Nigeria. Palace protocol officers were secretly worried that an invitation to Jonathan would have presented untold challenges to the planning process and they were particularly concerned about the dreaded “Nigerian factor” that would immediately come into play. An invitation to Jonathan, therefore, would have drastically increased at least by 20 percent the list of invitees as Jonathan would have travelled with the entire cadre of Bayelsa chiefs of all grades most of whom had never stepped foot outside the muddy creeks of their domain.

The chiefs in turn would have brought their wives, girlfriends, babies’ mothers, a tribe of personal assistants, pounded yam cooking chefs, teeth brushers, eye glass cleaners, shoe polishers, general errand boys, brief case holders, make-up artists, their barbers, pastors, maids, second and third wives and would-be lovers (even political thugs and MEND militants would be sneaked in to help rig the upcoming British elections) all of whom would have found their way into the presidential jet en route to London. Given the peculiarities of the occasion that was laced with the best of Elizabethan traditions, palace protocol officers were deeply concerned that Jonathan’s cowboy hat or popularly known in the local parlance as the ‘resource control hat’ and his Niger Delta “atebo” outfit with the gold links on the chest would have been grossly out of place, sticking out like an offensive thumb. There was also a very serious security and health concern lodged by the mobile phone industry in Britain that the towering and sharp headgears of the ladies (including our First Lady, Madam Patience) that would have joined the president would have  jammed cell phone signals and the sharp pointed sword-like edges would have been capable of inflicting permanent damage to invited guests.

In addition to the cadre of assorted Bayelsa chiefs that would have been part of the entourage, politicians from Abuja and across the states would have joined the president on this unique trip on the same (one) invitation. British security officials estimated that all the ministers (senior and junior, including permanent secretaries) 24 out of the 36 governors would have joined the president and some would have used the opportunity to siphon public funds into Britain not to mention the inordinate amount of estacodes each one of these governors and senators would have claimed further impoverishing the Nigerian state. Somehow, there was also the concern that the occasion that was billed for 11 a.m. London time, would have started much later as the Nigerian entourage would have arrived Heathrow Airport quite late (as usual) and make their noisy entrance into the church singing as they settle into their pew “He has done for me…what my mama cannot do he has done for me…”

Jonathan’s fate in this regard was further sealed when the complaint was lodged by the caterers of the wedding ceremony that they would not be able to find ingredients for amala, kpof-kpof, accra roro, bitterleaf soup with stock-fish and egusi soup that would have been demanded by the Nigerian entourage. And as though that were not enough, there were heightened concerns that some of the senators on the trip would ‘corner’ Kate Middleton’s younger sisters during the reception not to mention the beautiful bride maids promising them trips to Obudu Cattle Ranch in Tinapa (Cross River) and heaven forbid from the British point of view for an African, a bloody Nigerian politician for that matter to be connected to the royal family through possible marriage. Above all these, there was a bigger concern – the invitation that would have been sent to President Jonathan (knowing the 419 innovation of our people) would have somehow found its way to eBay being sold to the highest bidder and that would have seriously compromised the security of the ceremony.wp_posts

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Posted by admin on Apr 29 2011. Filed under Africa & World Politics, Articles, Columnists, NNP Columnists, P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry