Nigerian Shoe Shiners to Visit Brazilian President

THE NEWLY formed Nigerian Association of Shoe Shiners (NAS) after their inaugural meeting last week decided to raise a delegation to visit the Brazilian president Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva, who was once a shoe shiner himself. The Association also agreed to form a political party and to sponsor a candidate for the forthcoming presidential election to be held in April 2007 because they reasoned that: “if it happens in Brazil in can also happen here in Nigeria.”

However, the Association has experienced its first major setback, as the Brazilian embassy in Abuja, on the advice of its defence attaché, diplomatically refused to issue the advance party with visas on the grounds that a shoe-shiner president is not unique to Brazil.

Speaking to The Fool’s Cap reporter, Mr Ignatus, a Nigerian working at the Brazilian embassy said: “I told them, what they’re going to look for in Sokoto is already in their sokoto (pocket). President Lula is today an intellectual and a well-respected ideologue. He was only a shoe shiner for a few months when he was aged 12.

“But all our past Nigerian military rulers were shoe shiners as recruits and cadets in the army. They would have shined the shoes of their superior officers for many years to make headway in the military careers. And many of our present civilian leaders did worse things than shine shoes. They licked boots!”