MUBARAK ACCEPTS GHONIM'S INFANTILE CHALLENGE, NOT GOING ANYWHERE!

President Hosni Mubarak did not mince words as he told thousands of protesting Egyptians and their Wael Said Abbas Ghonim who wants his immediate departure from office, that he is going no where. That whether they like it or not a man steeped and seasoned in warfare cannot be easily intimidated out of the Egyptian presidential mansion and not by ordinary Egyptian boys, many of whom were still pipe dreams when he ascended the seat of power in Cairo; first in 1975 as vice president and later in 1981 as president which office he has occupied till date.


Icheoku once again reiterates that the six months Mubarak is asking for is reasonable and that Mubarak should be accommodated with it instead of the long-drawn rough road those protesters are clamoring to travel. In our oped of day before, we called out Wael Ghonim as overreaching himself when he invited the Mubarak regime to kill him while insisting that Mubarak must  go and go NOW! Icheoku asks, now that Ghonim has not been killed by the regime and Mubarak is still in office or has rejected his call, what recourse for redress is then left for Ghonim and the rest of the Egyptian protest world? And how do they plan to pay their bills if they are not paid their wages as result of a long-drawn out society in disarray or don't those Egyptians pay bills?

In legal parlance what Mubarak did with his address to the Egyptian nation indicating his intention to 'adamantly remain in office is tantamount to calling their bluff and has now formally joined issues with those protesters calling for his immediate departure. According to him, 'I have said it before and in a plain unequivocal language that I am not going anywhere; Egypt is the land of my birth and in it shall I die and in its grounds shall my body be buried!' Icheoku says never has a bluff been called this blatantly, since the January 25th uprising begun than this frontal and direct challenge to the  protesting Egyptians main demand that Mubarak goes? Their demand in chief is that President Hosni Mubarak leaves office forthwith and Mubarak in turn just told them to stuff it; that he shall serve out his term of office. Now how would the protesting people of Egypt react now that someone strong and brave enough to call their bluff is the same person they want gone? Your guess is as goof as mine; but the end sure does not look good but very ominous. What happens thence is anybody's guess but Icheoku says the party with greater leverage shall force the issue to the fore, hoping for an opportunity to take a revenge.


Icheoku says what a clever speech delivered by Grandpa Mubarak, which was meant "to meet all the peoples demand" as earlier promised by the Egyptian military Chief. Meanwhile Icheoku likes and admires men of  great courage and President Hosni Mubarak is one of such men, a man who have severally put his life on the line for these protesting young pharaohs to have a place they can proudly call a home. The parties seem to be totally entrenched in their un-shifting positions and only the destruction of one by the other will sort the situation out at this point. Icheoku admonishes President Hosni Mubarak that the protest has lasted for too long and now is time to end it; either he cracks-down on it or he should meet the protesters demand and quit.  But to apparently remain powerless in a situation where exhibition of some power may be very productive shows a man whose regime is on life-support. Mubarak has no choice at this point but to decisively crackdown on the protesters if he wants to retain power and remain in office; and the other guys need to come up with something better to support their call for the early exit of the grandpa of the River Nile. But Egypt cannot remain in a state of anomie or a standing still position forever; something gonna give way and NOW!.