Don’t ask me why this column is titled ‘Quantum of Solace.’ If you ask me the meaning, I cannot tell. All I know is that I came home with a James Bond DVD which I picked cheaply on the streets of Lagos. And as I tried to play it on my laptop, my son warned me that it’s a fake DVD and I stood the risk of irreparably damaging my laptop.

And the worst nightmare I can ever have or imagine is losing my laptop. Losing a laptop is the next thing to death. The laptop is close to my heart. In fact, it is my heart. It is my brain. It is my soul. It is the engine room of this column and it contains virtually everything I have written in my chequered life as a writer and a newspaper reporter.

You can steal all my worldly possessions, but in the name of God, leave me with my laptop. You can trap my money and melt it down in your so-called Stock Exchange, but leave me with my laptop and I will bounce back. You can leave me penniless, but don’t leave me without my laptop.
So, you can understand why I am not risking playing this James Bond DVD called ‘Quantum of Solace’ on my laptop.

As titles go, ‘Quantum of Solace’ is like ‘Audacity of Hope.’ It is one of those grandiloquently titled creative works that sends you groping in the dark in search of its true meaning. By a strange twist of irony, America’s President-elect Barack Obama got the title of his bestselling book ‘Audacity of Hope’ from the sermon of the incendiary preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the man of God who nearly plunged his presidential hopes and dreams into the abyss of election defeat. But Obama survived it all. Obama himself is James Bond.

He is the first black man to play the part of a real James Bond—the indomitable secret agent also called 007. One look at Obama and you see an actor who can fit into the James Bond role. He has the looks. He has the built. He has the charisma. He has the smile. He has the energy. He has everything it takes to be an action hero. Forget the rubbish Arnold Schwarzenegger said about Obama not having the right physique to be a leader!

Obama, in my opinion, is the new James Bond, except that he is not notorious for bedding beautiful babes as we see in James Bond films. This is a clean James Bond, an intellectual James Bond, a family man surrounded by his three women who are the loves of his life—Michelle and the two girls. Like James Bond, his life is constantly at risk in the hands of bad guys and terrorists who are trying to test his mettle.

In the celluloid world of James Bond, he is being tested by bad guys and evil characters like Fu Manchu and Ming the Merciless, issuing dire warnings and sending out their thugs to inflict havoc on the good people of the world. As in the world of movies, so shall it be in the real world with the real James Bond. Definitely, Obama will be tested by the bad guys of this world. We are yet to watch the real Obama movie. Prepare for it. Go and buy your ticket! It’s coming soon!

We are yet to know what stuff the new Obama James Bond is made of. From the little we have seen so far, he is one hell of a guy, who handles every crisis with a cool calm and a smile. When everybody is losing his head, he is keeping his. Crisis after crisis, he emerged unscathed. Remember the Jeremiah Wright storm? He weathered it. Remember the Sarah Palin scare?

He subdued it. Remember the presidential debates? He won them all. And remember the presidential election and the fear that America was not ready for a black President? He won almost close to a landslide sending us all to Cloud 9 and making men like Jesse Jackson to weep. Blessed are those who weep, for they shall be comforted.

Talking of Obama’s historic election as the 44th President of America, this is more than a Quantum of Solace. This is a Quantum Leap. It is a leap of faith guided by the long hand of God! With God on your side, there is nothing to fear.

Talking about fear, the thing we had all feared became real this week with the news of Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Al Zawahri showing up and deriding Obama as a “House slave” and a puppet of the American establishment who is “a direct opposite of honourable black Americans like Malcolm X.”
For everybody who loves the Obama fairy tale story, we must thank God.

We must thank God that the enemy came too late. We must thank God that Al Qaeda struck many days after the party was over. You can imagine what would have happened if the Al Qaeda leader had shown up some days to the America presidential election. The story might have changed. One way or the other, Al Qaeda obviously prefers Obama to McCain. On that score it chose to be silent when silence was golden. Forget all the taunts and mockery. Al Qaeda is a business. It cannot afford to go out of business. Any American president, good or bad, must be the enemy of Al Qaeda. That is the only way to stay in business.

Oshiomhole asked me for a loan
Obamania came to Nigeria this week in the form of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole who won in court his stolen mandate and offering Nigerians and the people of Edo State a Quantum of Solace. Solace that justice is here at last. Solace that hope is here at last. Solace that everyday is for the thief but one day for the owner. Solace that the true man of the people is here.

As the crowd chanted Obama, Obama, at the inauguration of Oshiomhole as the elected governor of Edo State, you could feel a sense of genuineness in it all. This is the real thing. Not the fake DVD imposed on the people and threatening to destroy the fabric of Edo State. In some respects, you could see Barack Obama in Adams Oshiomhole. You could hear it in Oshiomhole’s ability to speak from the heart and connect with the people. You could see freshness and hope come alive in a new spirit.

I was one of the lucky few that Comrade Oshiomhole spoke with shortly after his inauguration. He called me on his cell- phone, asking if I can give him a loan. A loan? I wondered. Yes, I would give you any loan, I replied. The loan he wanted was in the form of wanting me to release one of my disciples, Eric Osagie, to work for him. It was one loan I granted with the heart of Father Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac. It was one sacrifice I made with a Quantum of Solace that he is going there to serve a good man in power who we pray would be a source of pride to God and country.