The Obi Cubana discussions actually went viral on Facebook before coming to this group but it can start anywhere.
Truth is, what Cubana did is unprecedented and had richer resonance than the Buhari party.
We all know who Buhari is. We expect him to spend Nigerian money as he likes. We expect Nigeria's political, business and other universes to converge at his son's wedding.
If the wedding was any different, it would have been news.
Is this wedding anything new really?
Did a Lagos socialite and her millionaire husband not give out such gifts too, although the Buhari gifts would be more and more expensive?
In contrast, who is Obi Cubana?
Before the burial, an unknown Igbo man.
Ethnicity is vital here because he is a descendant of those people whose only economic identity after the war might not have been far above the 20 pounds egg rasher( see Achebe Girls at War for the reference) they got after the delegitimisation of the Biafran currency, people who have distinguished themselves in a variety of legitimate and illegitimate businessess within and outside Nigeria, from trading to banking and in various professions, from academia to the public service. being particularly innovators in the Nigerian film industry.
Who could this be whom he and his associates treated money with joyous abandon, even perhaps mockery, kicking bales of cash like footballs, throwing leaves of notes into the air to descend as rain, slapping people's faces with thick bank notes as gifts, in a carnival in which women cavorted in bikinis in a pool as they were sprayed with money, where dozens of cows arrived for consumption in trailer loads?
What spectacle!
Can the Buhari wedding beat that?
I doubt it.
Mystery.
How did Cubana and his associates makes this money?
What are their antedecents, their history, their businesses?
Are they fully or semi legitimate?
Echoes of the exhibitionist rich man eventually arrested for fraud-Hushpuppy?
Was this another such or simply a grass to riches story?
Does the Buhari wedding have such mystery?
No.
The source of the money in the Buhari wedding is largely known, the actors are known, their trajectory largely public knowledge.
Nigerian govt money or money from well wishers happy to associate with the centre of power for various reasons.
Is there any entrepreneurship model concept to be derived from the Buhari wedding?
None that I know of, except that of how to gain political power partly through claims of being incorruptible, claims of being economically challenged in the world of Nigerian big money politics as well as frugal and to show a different face on getting power.
Is there any inspirational story there?
None that I can see.
As for the Obi Cubana story, at the very least he has a legitimate business visible to anyone and is evocative or representative of an ethnically foregrounded apprenticeship business model that has worked for many, a model resonant in other contexts, a positive model of human development.
Is this model the only source of his money?
Part of the mystery.
So, one may say that through the spectacle, mystery and social contexts of the Obi Cubana display, much talk was excited.
The Buhari wedding, in contrast, might be seen as more of what is expected than what is new and suprising.
Thanks
Toyin
On Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 11:28 'Ololade Bamidele' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
--It takes one person to start this, and you've done so sir!On Wednesday, 25 August 2021, 23:36:41 GMT+1, Okey Iheduru <okeyiheduru@gmail.com> wrote:--Mr. Obi Cubano "sprays" his own money and receives 46 cows for the carnival called his mother's burial in Oba and all the holier-than-thou "pundits" were besides themselves about such a "travesty", "debasing of our morality,' "crime against the Naira," bla bla bla moral outrage of all kinds, etc. How dare Obi and his friends spend their money? So far, we haven't heard that he stole the money from anyone. The USA-Africa Dialogue Forum was animated for days with debates for or against. We even saw suggestions for future research about "Obi Cubano Entrepreneurship Model" -- perhaps the most reasonable of all the flatulence that followed that mother of all burials.Meanwhile, an unemployed youth and son of the president of the Poverty Capital of the World who was so poor in 2014 that his "friends" had to contribute N25 million to pay for his party primaries form; the wizard who has vowed to kill corruption before corruption kills Nigeria; the man who told the world how lazy the youth in his country are, etc., etc. throws the mother of all "royal weddings" attended by over 80 private jets and guests each of whom was lavished with I-Pads and I-phones (both worth about N580,000!), designer anything sold in Dubai shops and plaza's and/or manufactured in Switzerland, etc. ... and not a word on this forum!Lord have mercy!--Okey C. Ihedurue-mail: okeyiheduru@gmail.com
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