Google, the world’s biggest and most preferred search engine held its second edition for ‘Google for Nigeria’ and revealed some of Nigeria’s top searches.
‘How to dance shaku shaku’ was one of the top searches. Little wonder the vice president Yemi Osinbajo decided to make a joke about the dance, knowing full well how ‘passionate’ Nigerians are about the dance. That didn’t go down so well for him though.
Speaking as a special guest of honour at the launch of books written by Funmilayo Braithwaite, in Abuja on Sunday, Osinbajo said a friend of his recently polled large number of votes just by dancing.
He stated that nobody knows what will work in Nigeria’s politics.
“As matter of fact, for those of us who are politicians, when you see `Politicrisis’; especially as elections approach, you might think there is a formula somewhere.
“Kabir and I and are the opposite sides but we are here to learn; I was saying the other day that politics in Nigeria is becoming very exciting; you never know what works.
“I can never forget my dear friend in one of the states who just danced his way through the campaigns; all he did was dance; he did nothing else but dance and he won 250,000 votes.
“So myself and Kabir are now learning Shaku Shaku; we have to learn; who knows what will win.’’
A joke which backfired and has been interpreted to the Government is out of touch with the needs of the people.
The running mate to the presidential candidate of the PDP, ex-Gov. Peter Obi reacted to the vice president’s comment.
“I have not had the opportunity of reading his comments as I haven’t seen the dailies. I know Vice President Osinbajo is a gentleman and may not have made such a comment.
“However why I am not against people dancing or learning how to dance “Shaku Shaku”, as I believe it is one of those things that is keeping our people going on in this very difficult times, I believe that the crossroads that we have found ourselves in as a nation requires sober reflection,” Obi said.
“For me in particular, this period calls for sober reflection not dancing or learning how to dance as there are many challenges facing our nation at the moment. Not the least being recently having our country named the world headquarters of extreme poverty with over 87 million people.Worse still millions more are losing their jobs, with four million by the third quarter of this year alone.
“Millions of Nigerians go to bed hungry not knowing where the meal for the next day will come from; hundreds of thousands risk death by crossing the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea to wherever they can make a living.
“These and other challenges are indicative of the dire straits facing us as a nation today. And these are what we on the Atiku team are spending our time with the best minds on how to start creating jobs and putting food on people’s table. We must get Nigeria to start working again for the good of everyone.”