Women with balls

By Tatalo Alamu 13/11/2011 00:00:00

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Madeleine Albright, the former American Secretary of State, called it cojones, which is going back to its Spanish etymology. With her withering stare and caustic tongue, Albright who is now a distinguished professor at Georgetown University could freeze any man in the dark alley. So while we are still on the subject of boxing and its plentiful supply of brains and brawns, it is meet to deliberate on great women who pack the three "bs," which is brains, brawns and balls.




The late Golda Meir, the former Israeli prime minister, was a woman of unsurpassable courage and brains to match. She had the great guts of her Ashkenazi Jewish forebears. Thinking that they could outwit her, the Americans once came up with a delicate and dangerous proposal. Why couldn’t America and Israel exchange two of their greatest generals? Golda Meir promptly concurred. The wily Americans then put forward the names of the two most outstanding Israeli warrior-generals.
"In that case", Golda Meir retorted, "we shall take General Motors and General Electric". The American beat a hasty retreat. That was the last anybody ever heard of such a loony proposal.
In traditional societies, when men foul up, they usually abandon the mess for the women to clean up. In order to avert a violent revolution, Nigeria’s diseased and disgraced elite may have to hand over the reins of power to women. This is not lightly mooted. Has anybody been watching Marylyn Ogar, the SSS public face, fielding questions on television of late? She appears more presidential, more assertive and more confident than the sad pedestrian rabble we have been saddled with. It may be that some supra-natural voice is speaking to us from outer. Mothers of Nigeria, are you going to watch this country disappear just like that?