Just when we here at AP thought that monarchies were on the wane, we were astonished to learn that in a portion of southern Nigeria, a new King has been crowned in a former British colony.
Today's link, on which today’s post is based, is extremely long, which we sarcastically say might be related to the history of the long-suffering people of Nigeria:
https://traffic.outbrain.com/network/redir?p=sogJsmUFlgF-aSJ6mVkgJIrfF_tsqsrh7uW-wDwWdxJlhqDOP1zB6fpdHUvMtl9Ounkj8gINTa7XNcwoTBe3Mpg7IGbDDFGVox3VXB0O28G981mUQwzGsxAkMeQvT21EkIJxnd-sNTNYjtF5vzlhOspdLph0fKareeYXyn0kI0yAM_-uCkhkwo9Bwud5zmcd8NKRWN0wZTxr1HURJ0jstRjZSYzD3Jhv3hS5ZRzyJbyNMbKSGWCd4iQm8S280uFYqW5-t4aeDAXSig9bGWsb30MFZbCs_gzz-d0otT8QSFfiGfxLKCAoBDWrKZjUCRof8SFXWZt5hfIsT4rxB88T4kB1Vsv5-pBakb1a-9YhJ-4fKHQXeBOTRKCl_BlTixNzzGywO80-6az_Axf5ObvaF8qGtMeXPAm_F9XlyPArJ_gVOkMloPLYChj3VLgJCgIndVPIDzjoSqkTARxmjj1HaJrOtKkEoPLFyvfbZndn-gafftZN0TdM6rbs_U-kXEpJmrGKYKN725PTR-pLNA5DWOGt_mJH0GGiMA1UtEzELXuK_GFPl1z8i7lG4-VTxSJc3vH3CSfy5FlKy0pI5qu3ji4cEHv2xVgTlPhJNejbWVkGyV5ZsGnHsdvIWJNlOkqu-SEn9bllEcYPRcfzTC4xEK1S0PEpJYbqrXoLWpOI61APT47NCwWwK-RQoQ0EhXNxLBuU2km8Uzr4dCw7TMMiUTLM530SkW5_KXGJoegwK94irTAfXVUDMOPUANv_wUM2_CHUjlvuB0o3w8opHVy7iDG7_MlGipvRw-1Vo27Hy-OoS1JgA3hAEebMeW4zhYZRydSLAvKqCnJ5P8nbXai2RojvhXpCUG_MZv-iwGVCa9M8FaclQ54LkhV_39nCK6lLWteFE1NI9FcCQoanVv6cLS_8s0aTuZ3uKUQKy9Ulb87ydp-ZE5bM2Moetv6cv2kp6wrWac1bQPxka2x8fbF85maxvkOdSRR9QeOmSFLxrJewaA65w1_4gjo34xbRJYECWdfWv0otaWSrAlsroJmhKrShnE_MLK8YaCfBhR9-WxtatHfHv6YM5lLXm5WYRqgXqFZZu-bWCBC57265ZAC2dj0rcoBfHc-x8WQ8wBonBaQiwreF3PcK8U0JcPH8972iRRwpUOQxviiB3b0kkU7jPHAeMjrR1StsyE2oW8PuvMawHdaq-08gSOklozGVD0xUK93NiIybrHYYoYUSmhpdKQ&c=32de84cc&v=3&ucid=TzpyzaUi.
Anyway, to summarize the above link ever so briefly, the new king is the former Prince Tsola Emiko, and he is now the 21st King or the Olu of Warri Kingdom and the Ogiame Atuwatse III. His kingdom comprises numerous small states in the heart of the Niger Delta, which is very rich in oil. Many concerns have been raised by sensible environmentalists about pollution and oil spills in that area. The kingdom is very impoverished despite its oil wealth. As usual, Wikipedia can supply you with as much detail as you might like.
The new Olu is only thirty-seven, and he made a speech in which he urged his subjects to look “beyond oil” — and we sure like that part.
Those comments immediately enraged Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his numerous allies in the American Petroleum Institute.
So we sent our Chief Legislative Correspondent, associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith, to listen to McConnell’s rant.
“Melissa, Nigeria is a very unstable country, especially with those idiots in Boko Haram, the extremist Muslims who take great pleasure in marauding the northeast part of Nigeria, and, especialluy, in kidnapping young, innocent girls and hiding them for years on end.”
“Senator, do you want President Biden’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, to paratroop elite Army Rangers into Abuja and capture President Mohammaduru Buhari? Don’t forget, Secretary Austin has been spending a lot of time these last weeks dealing with that little problem over in Kabul.”
“Melissa, why do you keep pestering me with foreign affairs that I’m not really interested in? I am solely preoccupied with flipping both the House and the Senate in the mid-terms, which is why I am devoting all my energy to helping my close personal friend Greg Abbott, in Texas, to make it impossible for people in Texas who are brown, or black, to vote.”
“And ditto Georgia.”
“One more thing, Melissa. You must not under any circumstances tell Biden that he has to send all his Covid vaccines to Nigeria, especially to the impoverished Kingdom of Warri in the Delta Region — where probably nobody has even heard about that so-called Delta variant!"