The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tatalo Alamu

  • State of nature

    State of nature

    Can Black people handle the modern nation-state? As the twenty first century finally gets into its mighty strides, there has been no shortage of drama and excitement. There have been a couple of “revolutions” against the old order. The Middle East has been on a permanent boil. Externally induced wars have seen to the end of Iraq as it came to be known after colonial surgery in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

    As a fallout of the fratricidal confrontations in Iraq, Syria and Libya, a humanitarian catastrophe the like of which has not been seen since the Second World War threatens the very foundation of the nation-state in Europe. The whole world is becoming a very unusual place even for its leading nations.

    The nation-state paradigm which has brought humankind its most spectacular achievements to date appears to have reached the end of its tether. Nobody can be sure of what will replace it and how this will be done. We live in interesting times. This is about the only thing one can vouchsafe for now.

    In a sense, it is obvious that this is going to be a shorter century than the twentieth century which the great historian, Eric Hobsbawm, has described as the shortest century in history. Times and epochs appear very short and fleeting when galloping and breathtaking events unfold mercilessly and with a cruel and relentless tempo. If we ever thought that the remarkable twentieth century was “short”, this one promises to trump all records.

    The grim irony cannot be lost on European statesmen and its philosophers of human progress. The very naïve belief that the international order of nation-states imposed on the rest of the world by European states after the treaties of Westphalia and Utrecht will bring peace, progress and prosperity to humanity by osmosis and by heroic imitation now lies in ruins and among barbed wires in a vast no-man -land across old Carthage, the Middle East and the outer fringes of Europe. The ghosts of colonial cartography have finally arrived at the banquet of imperial impunity.

    But if gold can rust, what will dross do? In the beginning, this century was touted as Africa’s own century and the golden opportunity for the entire Black race to struggle free of the millennial savagery imposed on the continent by colonial conquest and confiscation. Ever since the middle of the fifteenth century, an entire continent and race have been reeling from a coordinated and systemic subjugation from Europe and the Middle East which virtually destroyed its traditional political institutions, its traditional belief system, self-confidence and its mode of apprehending and making sense of reality which have been in place for over a millennia.

    In the place of this ancient system, Africa was saddled with inchoate and incoherent political institutions which further distort the African psyche, an absurd legal and judicial system which lacks the rigour of applicability and the terror of deterrence, and a religious arrangement which has seen to the rise of spiritual predators and hypocritical vendors and vultures of venality all over the continent. Hell is on earth and it is here on the African continent in its most troubling manifestation.

    This is the root cause of the trouble with Africa and a gargantuan mishmash and mismatch like Nigeria. To be sure, other peoples and races have been conquered and subjected to systematic pillage before, but they have managed to retain their ontology and fundamental cosmology, yielding only to change that is organically driven and internally powered by local forces at play. No African nation can overcome crippling limitations imposed on Africa by the nation-state paradigm except its talented first eleven are allowed to roll up their sleeves and set to work.

    Africa was never designed as a congeries of nation-states. The Berlin Conference of 1884/1885 in which the “virgin” continent was carved up parceled among the colonial adventurers attests much to this fact. The entire continent was compulsorily and forcibly acquired as a market and trading outlets for European goods. Till date, many African countries, long after the departure of the colonial masters, still behave with true fidelity to the founding charter.

    Yet despite this crippling genetic disability, there was much hope for Africa at the beginning of this century. The optimism was not entirely misplaced. South Africa had finally shaken off the yoke of the monstrous system of apartheid. A new Black elite redolent of hope and possibilities was in power. After almost two decades of the most vicious military despotism, a new democratic dawn arrived in Nigeria just as the new century was birthed. Angola had seen off the cheerfully bloodthirsty Joseph Savimbi.

    A few African countries, particularly Ghana, Botswana, Senegal, Tanzania and Mozambique were also stirring. If only these countries, particularly Nigeria and South Africa, could achieve a linkage of soul and system, then they could serve as the much needed economic hub for the entire continent. The Black person was on song once again.

    Unfortunately, sixteen years into the new century, the hope has spectacularly dimmed. Libya has unraveled under the weight of internal contradictions, leaving many sub-Saharan countries unprotected from the scourge and menace of al-Queda and ISIS. The Arab spring has eventuated in even more authoritarian and paternalistic regimes. With Jacob Zuma, South Africa is stalling and struggling to regain the old magic of the founding patriarchs of the post-apartheid settlement.

    But it is the Nigerian tragedy that is most compelling. Nigeria remains a classic example of how not to run or organize a nation-state except it is a state of nature where everything is short, nasty and brutish. But it is precisely because of this abject nature of human irresponsibility that primitive human kind resolved to put their destiny in the hands of a law-imposing Leviathan.

    Despite the euphoria surrounding the departure of the military, the nation appears to have suffered a complete and comprehensive institutional implosion. None of the three arms of government appears to have been spared. In fact if a fraction of the daily menu of outlandish revelations are to be believed, one can  safely say that the nation has been  saddled with the worst breed of elite vermin ever thrown up by the entire continent.

    It is clear then that under the present circumstances, Nigeria isn’t going anywhere. The damage to the national psyche and fabric has been overwhelming. There is despair and despondency abroad. An eerie disorientation has settled on the nation. Victims applaud their victimizers, in a startling display of what is known as the Stockholm syndrome. A group known as Bring Back Corruption is advocating a return to the shameless old order. As it was in the beginning with old colonization, so it is now with the new colonization.

    But one thing should now be clear from the creeping anarchy and lawlessness.  If the major culprits of this historic heist ever go Scot free or with a slap on the wrist as a result of our derelict legal and judicial system or some shabby political compromise, we can be sure that the Hobbesian state of nature will be a child’s play compared to what may overtake us. The signs are already there in the bestiality, the economic cannibalism, the do or die politics and the flagrant disregard for the sanctity of the human flesh.

    In the light of this, we must now reframe our founding question. Can the Black person ever do nation-states? Certainly not under the current format and structure. In Nigeria, the whole structure has to be comprehensively reworked. The structural logjam places an impossible burden on messianic intervention and the lone visionary. While we must applaud General Buhari’s sense of duty and abiding patriotism, it is now obvious that the Nigerian project requires a total revisioning and reworking to bring the country at par with the dictates and precepts of a true nation-state.

    Nigeria cannot be described as a failed state because it was never designed to work for Nigerians in the first instance. As Chief Obafemi Awolowo famously forewarned as far back as 1945, creating a country is different from creating an organic nation. The humungous mess we are saddled with bristling with enemy nationals and mutually unintelligible cultures cannot be so described except as a cruel joke among political scientists. Nation-building is not a tea conference.

    As it is today, with nothing standing between its primordial instincts and aborted modernity, the post-colonial state in Nigeria is a hybrid monstrosity gradually reverting to a state of nature where hunter-gatherers prevail, no matter what decorative garbs they wear to the cannibal festival. This is the ultimate political psychosis where a state is primitive in soul and psyche but wears the gaudy apparel of modern governance. As an overriding state task, President Buhari must urgently gather a group of wise Nigerians to apprise him of the dangers facing the country and the immediate way forward.

    In order to highlight the critical nature of the trouble with the country, we bring our dear readers a passage from The Remains of the Last Emperor where the following dialogue ensued between the hero and the psychiatrist-protagonist.

    “Doctor, what will happen when madness is finally eradicated from the world?” he muttered at him. The doctor stopped abruptly and then turned towards us.

    “Wouldn’t that be madness?” he began calmly. “We are not saying that madness should be eradicated. All we are saying is that some lower forms of madness should be exchanged for higher ones. Think of us in a hundred years to come still fighting corruption, armed robbery and the wastage of our best and brightest a time when we should be concerned with how to guarantee equal social opportunities for all with maximum political liberty.”(p.81)

    Twenty four years after these words were written and sixteen years into the new century, Nigeria is battling with even more vicious forms of corruption and armed robbery and other social vices even as we continue to waste our best and brightest.

    As the columnist writes this, reports came from Rivers State that an army major and some enlisted men had been shot and killed by brigands while they were on patrol to curb the activities of political thugs and economic miscreants who have turned that area into Nigeria’s axis of evil. It doesn’t get more depressing.

    Where is Thomas Adeoye Lambo who famously advocated a psychiatric evaluation for all prospective office holders in this country? As a youth, Lambo was once known to have worn a mask to his rich mother’s stall thinking that he was beyond recognition. But the matriarch quickly recognized the masquerade as her own son. As at this moment, not even the colonial political midwives would recognize the nightmare that is Nigeria.

  • Baba Lekki and Okon solve another national riddle

    As the Ese Oruro and “Yellow” Yunusa amatorial imbroglio continues to divide the nation along religious and cultural lines, Baba Lekki has been conducting a scientific inquiry into the subject with professorial solemnity. Okon had caught up with the old Marxian contrarian virtually naked under a tree at Okokomaiko complaining about the scalding heat even as smoke belched out from his massive pipe.

    “Baba, na dis gbana go kill you. Old man like you dey smoke like dem area boys for Campos”, the crazy boy shot at the old man.

    “Ha Okon he get as he be. Dis one na better hemp from Mokore in Area Five. Wall no dey fear fire. As dem Yoruba people dey say, make we dey get use to fire because of hell.” The old crook sniggered and burst into a deranged hiccup.

    “Baba make we get serious. He be like if say dis dem fine Yellow Yunusa boy, na for jail he go do wolima with dem Ese girl. At this point, the crazy old man stood up and began to sing an old Yoruba Muslim wedding ditty.

       Baaadaraimo, baadaraimo

       Aboniyawo seyawo

       Hun…. badaraimo.

    “Baba, he be like if say dis gbana don scatter your head patapata”, Okon crowed as he eyed the dancing delinquent dotard with mirth and affected disdain. The old man sat down and eyed Okon with a scholarly frown as he switched to flawless Queen’s English.

    “Okon, I am very much ashamed to be in this company. Nigerians are an idle and unthinking lot. What is happening is the religious mystification of economic poverty, period”, the old man noted.

    “Gbuaaaa!!” Okon screamed with feigned indignation. “Baba dis grammar too much. I know say you dey cram dem dishionary, but Okon na illostrate”.

    “You see Okon”, the old man began with a worried mien. “Those poor children ought to be in school. This is how we perpetuate poverty. Why is a so called eighteen year old boy only thinking of marriage when he should be in school? And why is the girl also not in school? This is what we have been telling these people. It is marriage as modern slavery which leads to endemic poverty. The two juveniles are victims of an evil system. The charge should be amended to read, State Delinquency versus Juvenile Delinquency”, the stoned sage concluded.

    “Baba in dat case equation don balance becos as dem mala people dey wire small girls old Yoruba women also dey wire small pikins. He get time like dat when I dey live as young boy for Mushin and he get one fat old Yoruba woman who go dey call me, “oko mi, oko mi”. So I come ask wetin “oko mi” dey mean sef and dem say na my husband. Naim I come pick race kia kia”.

    “Okon go away. You are a fool. I deal in facts and not palm wine bar gossip”, the old man said as he chased away the crazy fellow,

  • Transition and trauma

    Transition and trauma

    May you live in interesting times, the wise and inscrutable Chinese often say. But there are interesting times and there are interesting times. Some interesting times are so enervating of the spirit,so denuding of the will and so degrading of the human personality that you secretly wish that you were born in less “interesting” times. In a fit and feat of amnesia, one privately longs for the old status quo and its degenerate stability.

    Change is too simple and innocent a word to describe what has beenhappening in Nigeria in the last few weeks and particularly in the past few days. The change mantra, with its naïve automatic alacrity, cannot envisage such a complex phenomenon as regression in progression and stirring in stagnancy. The old order expires, but the new is yet to come fully alive. Monstrosities crawl into the vacuum. This is the lot of all societies in a state of traumatic transition.

    Change, with its rosy optimism and belief in a better and more humane society, is too sweet and compromised a word for such circumstances. For it is not a done deal yet and victory is not assured. It is a close run thing and it could go either way.  Everywhere you turn, forces of the ancient status quo are up in arms, fighting a desperate rearguard battle in what can be described the last sigh of dinosaurs. One thing is certain, if the enemies of change prevail, the unborn and even the dead are not safe.

    The Nigerian condition reminds one of what Jean-Paul Sartre, the great Frenchphilosopher, once memorably described as “the binary praxis of antagonistic reciprocity”. Your opponent lands a heavy blow and you respond in kind. Sartre could be describing the human condition, particularly in post-colonial Nigeria. You can never be sure of these things, but it was Sartre who once famously described Negritude as “anti-racist racism”.

    A cynic has actually gone as far as insinuating that with the above quote, Sartre was actually describing all marriages in general and his own in particular. It will be recalled that Sartre’s marriage to the great Simone de Beauvoir who was his equal if not superior in intellect and acuity of perception was based on what we propose as contractual infidelity.  You cheat on me and I cheat on you, no wahala. The only time Sartre ever took jealous umbrage was when he discovered that Simone had done it with Albert Camus, the matinee idol writer and playboy-philosopher ,hours or days after they met.  Some blows hurt more than others, and Sartre was actually describing boxing.

    But to return to Nigeria and concrete reality, how can you convince a man who had endured being without electricity for over a week and who had spent the preceding twenty four hours hunting for fuel like a foraging municipal rodent to accept that change is finally with us? What kind of change is this when the absolute misery index of Nigerians has shot up like hypertensive blood pressure? With no food, no fuel and no light anybody preaching the change mantra will be lucky to escape without substantial physical damage.

    On Thursday, having been dislodged from the house by the stench of collapsed refrigeration, snooper attempted to reach Ketu to get some fresh fruits at least. The market remained shut. The carnage was a scene out of the apocalypse. The stench of rotten tomato and putrefying onions assaulted the lungs. Yet it had suddenly become impossible to go back as a nasty and monstrous traffic gridlock had suddenly materialized. You begin to wonder how much more a nation can endure before something snaps.

    It never rains but pours. As it happens in all societies in the final phase of traumatic transition, all the contradictions we have ignored or that have been bottled up startbobbing and weaving at us in repressed aggression. As soon as we thought we have escaped a major political crisis, an even more aggravating crisis of virtual economic and infrastructural collapse hits the nation.

    Meanwhile while we are tending to this, a crisis of cultural andreligious values steals the limelight. But before we can say Jack Robinson, architectural impunity stares us in the face. Add to this the painful loss of a valued member of the cabinet and his family in a show of impunity and crass negligence on the road which sits oddly with the change mantra.

    And this is not talk of the clear and present danger IPOB constitutes or the implications of resurgent terrorism in the Niger Delta. At the international level, the swift countermand of General Buhari’s overly optimistic assessment that the Boko Haramgroup is no longer operating on Nigerian soil by the American commander on ground is a painful reminder thatour little local difficulty subsists.

    In philosophical parlance, this is known as overdetermination, a situation in which things no longer obey a simple cause and effect logic but in which diverse contradictions jostled for ascendancy in a condition of multiple causes and consequences. Take the following but in no particular sequence or order:  the naira tailspin which has virtually grounded economic activities, the strike by oil workers, the industrial lock-out by some power discos, the Yunusa versus Ese Oruro imbroglio, the ethnic flare up at Ketu market, the collapse of the Lekki skyscraper and the loss of the much admired James Ocholi.

    You get a sense of a government besieged and embattled on all fronts by conflicts many of which are not of its own making. We cannot because of this urge a reversal of the irreversible momentum of history. To do that is to play into the hands of the forces of religious, regional and cultural reaction and regnant retrogression and the enemies of progress. Changing a multi-ethnic nation riven by polarities is never going to be a tea party. We can only hope that the retired general is fully conscious of the overdetermined contradictions he is tinkering with.

    The obverse of the coin is equally interesting and intriguing. For the first time in the history of the country, you have a civilian government militantly committed to ridding the nation of the scourge of corruption and embezzlement going about the business with chilling almost cold-blooded resolve. A pan-Nigerian gaggle of top officials have been docked for various criminal infractions. A serving senate president is desperately battling for his political life. The sight of a former Chief of Defence Staff and a three-star Air Marshal being remanded in Guje prison is not a normal spectacle in these climes.

    The opacity and lack of transparency in some of these arraignments may not warm the heart of those who expect a more evenhanded and just approach. It may also mean that matters are still very much atthe level of symbolic import rather than a deep psychical cleansing of the society. But by that very token, matters might have slipped out of General Buhari’s hands. The revolutionary concussions unleashed on the Nigerian society by these unusual developments and the counter-revolutionary reprisals they seem to be provoking mean that some time to come, Nigeria will be in a state of turmoil and radical unease.

    The government needs a crash course in the history of societies in a state of traumatic transition. A nation like Nigeria steeped in systemic corruption and decadence requires a thoroughly systemic and conceptual approach which attacks the root and branches of corruption at the same time.  Nobility of purpose and the integrity of the arrowhead may not be enough. The situation calls for a pan-Nigerian mobilization rather than messianic one upmanship. God forbids if the Nigerian helmsman were to fall dead at this minute, that may very well be the end of the change project.

    The greatness of a leader is measured not just by personal sterling qualities but by the quality of apostolic followership he has nurtured. There are times when a just and noble cause can be lost due to ineptness and sheer inertia. The Spanish civil war was a classic example of how superior strategy and superior artillery can overwhelm a noble and progressive cause with a little help from international conspiracy. General Frank Franco was so sure of his fifth column already embedded that he took his time entering Madrid.

    General Buhari needs to be reminded that this is not an ordinary crisis of the state but an organic crisis of nationhood. An organic crisis occurs when there is complete institutional collapse or when the ruling class has failed in a major venture for which it has enlisted the populace. The Nigerian ruling class has failed in the project of democratic and economic development of the nation and the harmonization of its ethnic, religious and cultural disharmonies. This is why the various manifestations of the multi-dimensional crisis are mounting on a daily basis. The president needs all the help he can and must summon.

    The resolution of an organic crisis is not and cannot be foreordained. If progressive forces in ascendancy falter, other forces in operation and contention may impose a nastier and even more deadly solution. A stalemate cannot be contemplated even where it assumes the garb of a modification of vision and ambition. In this duel unto death, the post-colonial political theatre and its endemic skirmishes is akin to a coliseum of Roman gladiators in which a clear winner must emerge for the society to move forward.  The binary praxis of antagonistic reciprocity is in operation.

    This is why the death of a priceless and invaluable asset like the late James Ocholi must be regretted. It was a needless waste of outstanding human capital which exposes some of the internal contradictions of the change project.  How a federal minister came to be driven by an unlicensed rogue and in an official vehicle without correct tyre pressures is a security nightmare which sits oddly with the driven determination of the government to end the culture of impunity and lawlessness that permeates every sector of the society.  One will not be surprised to discover physically challenged drivers in the employment of the federal government.

    Ocholi was a star revelation during the ministerial hearing. This society would have benefitted greatly from his forensic brilliance and intellectual forthrightness. His loss attime when his country needs him most is a painful reminder of unfinished business. May his soul rest in peace.

  • Okon reinvents himself

    Darkness has become as visible as daylight.  This column once noted that darkness can be very enthralling indeed.  As the historic darkness and crippling fuel shortage enter the second week, all kinds of outlandish characters from outer space began crowding the vision. It has been noted by scientists that when you suffer the loss of one critical faculty, the remaining faculties tend to overcompensate.

    So in the dead of the night when the generator had completely degenerated and all pretences to civilization had vanished, malarial hallucination takes over as the sweltering heat pounds the bravest of humanity into submission, you begin to imagine yourself trapped among some man-eating troglodytes. You get a sense that a titanic battle is going on out there between the forces of darkness and utter evil and the forces of light and regeneration. Con artists abound and so do secret sharers of national unhappiness.

    You can trust the punitively proactive Okon to cotton in on the act. After being lightly let off the police hook in connection with the shadowy organization that he was fronting, the crazy fellow has promised to be of good behavior. Snooper gave a long lecture about what was expected of a good citizen, but the rogue was not going to be fazed by such hoary exhortations.

    “Öga, na true you dey talk. I don learn lesson for dis yeyekontri. When dem Ibo and Yoruba cause trouble, na minority man dey carry dem can. I don learn dat one from Papa EyoIta”, the mad boy snorted.

    “Eyoitako, Eyoinuileni”, the deranged Baba Lekki hollered with drunken gusto.  The following day, yours sincerely was confronted by a most arresting sight. The entire house and Boys’ Quarters bristled with all sorts and manner of jerry cans for siphoning fuels. In addition, there was a whole assortment of magic lanterns from Taiwan which reportedly supplied light from solar energy. Okon claimed to be the sole distributor in the country. It was a cruel hoax. Okon’s lantern required total darkness to function.

    “Okon, what is the meaning of all this nonsense?” snooper screamed at the boy.

    “Ha oga, I dey Oil and Light business now, Market force don turn everybody to market by force”, the crazy boy sniggered as he gave instructions to some ruffians and ragamuffin who were hailing him.

    “But I thought  they have banned the sale of petrol in jerry cans. What type of a country is this?” snooper raved at the boy.

    “Ha ogadat one na market force again. When you ban all dembannable you must to unban all demunbannable. I no sabi grammar but I sabi common sense.” The crazy boy retorted.

    “This country has gone to the dogs”, snooper lamented.

    “OgaOkon no be dog. I never touch woman for three weeks. Ask Sikira. All dis grammar no go help. If you wan buy fuel come meet me for Alapere under dem bridge. Na direct fuel from Arepo”, the impish rogue slammed and sauntered away with his retinue of brigands leaving snooper stranded and speechless. In black humour, snooper remembered Fela’s immortal lyrics: Overtake don overtake overtake.

  • How to regrow a shattered nation (2)

    How to regrow a shattered nation (2)

    It is crunch time in Nigeria. It has been coming for quite some time, but it has now arrived with fearsome fury. It exempts no one. A malignant downpour does not spare anybody, the lords and the lorded over. In any case, you cannot purchasedizziness and start complaining of tizziness.

    In order to rise from its current prostrate position, Nigeria requires maximum efforts from all stakeholders: the state, the political society and the teeming Nigerian masses either in antagonistic cooperation or paradoxical complicity or something more daring and devastating in the long run. It is not a situation for hoary exhortations. They will fall on deaf ears.

    But there is no way we can come to terms with the dismal plight of the nation without confronting the origins of the current phase of the crisis and without coming to grips with the unfailing and prompt recurrence of some of its malignant manifestations. Chief among this is the downward spiral of the national currency, particularly after the infamous “liberalization” policies of 1986, and what we now propose as the devaluation jinx that has haunted the country ever since.

    On the face of it, the argument for the devaluation of the naira is unanswerable. It is based on the irrefutable logic of sound econometrics and formal economics. Whenever a huge gap opens between the official value of a currency and its real market value, it is imperative for this gap to close in order not to give room to distortion and sundry sharp practices. In Nigeria, this gap has reached over a hundred per cent. Only the unstable oil-rich Muslim countries of the former Soviet Empire can beat this.

    On the other hand, a government which spends a disproportionate amount of its foreign exchange earning propping up and sustaining the artificial rather than the real value of its official currency is adjudged guilty of fuelling massive distortion and disequilibrium in the economy. In both cases, devaluation appears logical and inevitable.

    In its recent critique of the handling of the Nigerian economy, the IMF puts the case with succinct restraint. In a competitive economy, exchange rate should be allowed to reflect “market forces”. Therefore, restrictions on access to foreign exchange should be removed. In other words, the fate of the naira should be determined by the vagaries of the demand and supply of foreign exchange even where such demands are obviously frivolous and nation-disabling.

    On deeper investigation, it will be discovered that the IMF and all the zealots of market forces merely convert a problem to its own solution by starting out on a wrong premise. The aggregate strength of a nation’s economy cannot be reduced to mere foreign exchange racketeering. There have been countries that blockaded themselves against the importation of foreign goods without doing any harm to the prestige of their national currency on the long run.

    The fundamental issue here is political, and this is what the IMF shies away from as if it is a plague. Why is it that there is such a run on the naira, and what is the guarantee that after the current round of devaluation occasioned by a glut of naira chasing scarce foreign exchange another round will not open up in the foreseeable future compelling another round of devaluation, that is if the country itself has not been completely grounded by then?

    The answer, apart from the crash in international oil price, is the unprecedented scale of state stealing which has put tremendous pressure on the local currency. The fact that these monies have to be taken out at all costs and by all means simply translates to a naira besieged on all fronts. Last week the siege on the naira finally broke through its defensive cordon and the result is an economic tailspin of unprecedented dimension.

    Yet this is a country of prodigious natural resources, a country of phenomenal human capital, a country that fought a ruinous four year civil war without borrowing a kobo and without its currency being devalued. Why has the same country found it difficult if not impossible to maintain a healthy balance sheet in peace time? What is the difference between 1966, the year Chief Awolowo emerged as Finance Minister and Vice-Chairman of the Federal Executive Council, and 2016?

    The answer lies in the deteriorating structural configuration of the country and the kind of predatory political elite the gargantuan political dystopia must throw up.  From a twelve-state structure in 1967, Nigeria now has a thirty- six state structure consisting of mainly unproductive and unviable states which puts a crushing burden on the federal purse. Unable and unwilling to resolve the political logjam the elite resort to stealing as an insurance against the volatility and uncertainty of the times.

    The question political psychiatrists and scientists of behavioural pattern must now answer is why the Nigerian political elite often go on historic binges at particular periods. Like the passage of some monstrous birds homing on its prey, these predatory sprees can be timed to precision.

    They always follow phases of economic boom when the treasury is filled to the brim. This is when they sniff blood. After the pillage, the country always ends up screaming for a messiah to come to its rescue. By a curious irony, it always ends up with the same man. And the rumbling and grumbling begin all over again.

    This was the case in 1979 after the first military government left a buoyant economy and a healthy balance sheet for the profligate and corrupt civilian administration to squander. It required a military intervention to send them packing. The same thing has happened between 2010 and 2015 after soaring international price of oil left the country awash in petro-dollar. It has takena virtual people’s uprising to terminate the binge.

    In 1986, the IMF took side against the Nigerian populace by conspiring with the military dictatorship to foist devaluation on Nigeria without a society-specific inquiry into what was driving the phenomenon. The result was instant de-industrialization, the destruction of a glorious education system, massive flight of cultural and intellectual capital and the traumatic immiseration of the Nigerian people.

    Thirty years later, the IMF is back with the same prescription and automatic pills of devaluation, even as it avoids the painful political question of asking what actually went wrong beyond the devious econometric figure crunching. The marauding political class have been let off the hook so that they can return to feast on the nation once again as soon as the economy improves and foreign reserve is aplenty . Could it be because the west is the choice destination of these pilfered funds? A dullard and his dollar are soonest parted.

    Fortuitously and by some relentless historical gaming, the IMF is faced once again with the same man who rebuffed them thirty two years ago and has done so all over again. And this time around again, the retired general is not about to let the thieving political class go scot free, even though the exercise is about to be bogged down by sheer institutional failure.

    General Buhari should continue to resist the poison pills of devaluation while applying all fiscal measures possible to rein in the market forces and all political measures feasible to staunch the run on the naira. In the final analysis, the so called market forces are not mysterious or metaphysical wraiths but creations of economic relations which are vulnerable to human praxis. No serious nation ever leaves its currency completely at the mercy of market forces.

    Of course it can be canvassed that as it is, the naira is effectively devalued. This is neither here nor there as long as the “devaluation” remains unofficial. Currencies are not static storage of values.  All currencies experience a permanent swing between devaluation and revaluation with most governments doing little or nothing about it. In stable currencies, the swing is minimal. But in a country like Angola things can get cyclothymic with a swing of 180%. But the Angolan economy has not collapsed. It is actually booming.

    President Buhari should shore up the value of the naira by placing an immediate ban on all frivolous importation of second hand and virtually worthless goods from Asia and Europe. The humungous saving can be rerouted to the development of infrastructure such as haulage, mass transportation, basic electricity, cottage industry, potable water and decent housing.

    The national motto should be: Produce or perish!! From now on, it is expected that we must only consume what we can produce. AlikoDangote, the billionaire industrialist, has noted that the annual import bill for rice is about eighteen billion dollars. This should be gradually phased out and the money diverted to local production of rice, mechanized farming,experimentation with local yield-boosting strains and irrigation schemes which demystify the annual superstitious wretchedness of waiting for and appeasing the god of rains.

    A cardinal plank of any salvage mission worth its salt in Nigeria is a thorough going drive for a new national orientation and salvation ethos. This is virtually impossible without the errant being brought to speedy restitution. The people will refuse to be galvanised for any national mission once they perceive that they are being taken for a ride. He who comes to social justice must come with bruised palms.

    At a similar point in their history, the Chinese, defeated and demoralised by the Japanese Army, humiliated by the Russian Imperial Command, resorted to the economic model of autarchy, a system of severe self-isolation which brooked limited or no contact at all with the outside world. When they finally emerged on their own terms, it was as an economic superpower.

    Given the rampaging impact of globalization in which non-state actors routinely bypass the surveillance of the state, this model may no longer be available but the Chinese spirit of proud self-reliance commends itself; so does the Vietnamese model of prudence and doughty self-sufficiency which has seen the South East Asian country overcome the trauma of civil war and occupation by France and America. In the early years of independence, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru defiantly declared that if Indians could not feed or clothe themselves let them go hungry and naked. India never looked back.

    Nigeria must borrow tropes from these great human societies: the wily invincibility of the inscrutable Chinese, the proud forbearance of the aristocratic Indians, the doughty indestructibility of the hardy Vietnamese, the Teutonic thoroughness of the disciplined Germans and the genius of American ceaseless self-surpassing.

    Nigeria can overcome its present travails and trauma. But it will take a visionary galvanization of the national spirit and a political restructuring of the misbegotten colonial slave-house to release the energy and genius of the people. Given the inherent can-do spirit of the people, their flair for the unusual and the flamboyant zeal with which Nigerians have excelled in virtually all spheres of human endeavours, these are redemptive resources waiting to be harnessed by an exceptional leadership.

    Exactly forty years ago, General Murtala Mohammed stood on the continental podium to proclaim that Africa has come of age. It is a question of time, despite the defeats and setbacks, before another Nigerian leader or international diplomat will mount the global podium to proclaim that Nigeria has finally come of age.

  • Okon founds APON (Aboriginal People of Nigeria)

    As the trial of NnamdiKanu, the rogue Biafran neo-nationalist, gets underway, Okon has been making hay playing both sides of the divide often running with the hare while hunting with the hound. He has been seen protesting with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), while he was also linked with supplying hired demonstrators to a mysterious pro-government group based in Ikate.

    A few days ago, the crazy boy actually raised the stakes by co-founding a pro-nation group known as APON (Aboriginal People of Nigeria) to infiltrate and cause trouble at every IPOB rally.  The plot was to raise anti-Nigerian hysteria to a shrill pitch at these gatherings and then slip away when the bullets start flying leaving the hapless Biafran autochthons to deal with the dead and the dying.

    The logo of the new group carries the image of a truly aboriginal Australian aborigine with a massive primitive bangle set above flared nostrils. When Okon was confronted, the crazy one retorted that he was operating under a new doctrine of necessity. “Ogana doctoring of necessity. Even doctor sefsabi say ebana necessity. Na necessity make dem stupid Kanu boy come look for trouble for Naija and na necessity make dem mala come dey shoot dem people. . You know say when man who no get brains come jam man who no get mouth, dat one naOjuelegba proper”.

    “Okon, you are not sleeping in this house tonight”, snooper shouted in alarm.

    “No be di thin wey we dey talk about me dat?” the mad boy charged at me. “Na demWazobia people dey cause trouble for obodo. Make dem come dey go make we come find rest.  Na dem come run here and nademdey cause wahala. We sabi when demOduduwa man come from Egypt. We sabi when dem Ibo people come from Israel. Na dem mala come last from Futa. But nademdey kill, nademdey kidnap, nademdey abduct, nademdey do 419, nademdey eat people and nademdey wire small girls. Make demdey go”.

    It was this last stunt that landed Okon in jail on Friday. A day earlier, he had gone to the head office of the shadowy pro-government organisation  to demand for full payment for his services. He had been met at the entrance by a pompous American wannabe with a fake Yankee accent. Okon eyed him with savage contempt.

    “Oh me man, you have come for your honorarium, then?” the African American opened.

    “Even honourable sefdemdey steal, so please pay me my money and forget dis stupid grammar”, Okon snapped.

    “So, you have come for your tranche then. How many lorry-load  of assholes?”, the Yankee Lagosian continued with his prancing and preening, not in the least fazed by Okon’s irate disgust.

    “I bring a container of Ibo rioters and another container of dem Yoruba spare parts. If to say you get common sense you for go bring my money, now, now”, Okon raved as he primed himself for fistic exertion.

    “All right, all right. Where is your LPO?” the crank from Connecticut demanded with hair-raising levity. By this time, Okon had lost his cool completely.

    “Wetin be LPO? Wetin concern long playing record with money you owe?” By this time, Okon had dragooned the poor New Yorker to himself and given him a resounding head butt followed by a of series devastating jabs. New Yorker crumpled on the floor as Okon made good his escape. He was captured hiding inside a giant disused bin. After being viciously assaulted, Okon was taken to the police station where he was stripped and remanded in custody.

  • As the naira duels onto death(1) (How to regrow a shattered nation)

    As the naira duels onto death(1) (How to regrow a shattered nation)

    Baron von Clausewitz, the great German military historian and philosopher of war, had noted that war was the continuation of politics by other means. Had he lived in our brave new world of modern technology where you don’t actually need to put troops on the battle ground to subdue an enemy, he would have learnt that economic contention among nations is the continuation of political warfare by other means. Economics is the brutal game of market domination that human societies engage in to maintain political control.

    In this war of all against all, there are nations like Nigeria that are singularly unlucky in the sense that they also boast of enemies within in addition to external adversity. As this column once noted, Nigeria is crawling with enemy nationals who are bent on bringing the nation to heel either economically or religiously if they fail to bend the political configuration to their will or whim.

    A nation is particularly vulnerable to economic brutalization if a significant section of the populace or fractions of the political elite query the basis of its political foundation or reject the socio-economic architecture on which the authority and legitimacy of the state is anchored. Such barely veiled hostility often eventuates in an armed critique of the state which leads to an outright destruction of the economy or in creative sabotage and more covert forms of aggression which take their toll on the economy. For any nation, internal peace is the first precondition for internal prosperity.

    This past week, Nigerians watched helplessly as their national currency and supreme symbol of sovereignty, the naira, engaged in a duel unto death with the world’s major currencies. It was an unequal struggle; a futile and ultimately senseless contention. It was like watching a puny paperweight enter into the boxing ring with a primed heavyweight at the zenith of agonistic exertions. It was like watching one’s own economic funeral.

    The national currency was taking a cruel pounding. The apocalyptic meltdown of the naira, long predicted, appeared finally on the way. An eerie disorientation seems to have descended on the entire nation. There was a feeling of utter despair and despondency. Anybody who was in Nigeria this past week would know what is it to be suddenly caught in the equivalent of an economic tsunami.

    Helplessness and fright seized the nation particularly since no one appeared to be in charge. There was no economic communiqué; no bulletin of strategic efforts to reassure a dazedand distraught citizenry. Beyond President Buhari’s stout and patriotic refusal to devalue the naira which was made on a foreign soil, there was nothing else to hold on to, and even this in itself was not nearly enough.

    While Buhari’s compassion for the poor and the Nigerian masses is not in doubt, it is also becoming obvious that seventeen years after the termination of military rule, successive Nigerian rulers often treat the citizens as if they are errant children of some paternalistic ruler who is often bemused or exasperated by their demands for accountability and transparency. In the face of a crippled economy and rising tension, this demand for open government is going to be a flashpoint of confrontation in the coming months.

    While the British pound sterling appeared to have completely disappeared from open bidding, the naira suffered sharp and significant losses against the rampart and relentless dollar. By midweek, one dollar was rumoured to have been exchanging for four hundred naira. It was the worst moment for the national currency since independence.

    By Wednesday morning, Nigeria’s legendary luck seemed to be on a fortuitous rampage once again. The naira seemed to have miraculously rallied against the dollar. Word went round that the naira had firmed up at about two hundred and fifty to the single dollar. There were smiles of relief. Hitherto obdurate and obstinate banks were calling on customers to renegotiate abandoned forex demands. Suddenly, the Basic Travelling Allowance which had long kicked the dust became available again, or so it seemed.

    But it was all a cruel hoax. What is not available is simply not available and cannot be conjured by any fiscal humpty dumpty. By Thursday, the naira was exchanging for three hundred and fifty naira to the dollar and the downward spiral seemed set to continue. Never in the history of the nation has the national currency been subject to such steep gyrations in the pit of fiscal hell; such wild fluctuations of fortune. It was as if Nigeria of the seventies was another country entirely.

    Indeed, it may well be. Having smelt blood, the IMF started calling for the massive devaluation of the naira. It is a text book shibboleth straight out of the con book of monetarist economics and utterly lacking in society-specific rigour. The IMF has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. In the brutal game of economic domination, any non-Western country that listens to the economic subterfuge of the IMF and other accessories of western economic and political hegemony has willingly obtained a suicide pill.

    It is instructive to note that while the western powers have been urging China to revalue its national currency to bring it at par or at parlousness with international economic imperatives, the Chinese authorities actually went ahead to devalue theYuan renminbi. By dint of hard work, foresight, hyper-nationalism and prudence, the Chinese hold all the aces whereas a profligate and promiscuous nation like Nigeria holds none at all.

    It is indicative of the grim fiscal calculus even among economic allies that America is asking Britain not to contemplate leaving the EU while the Americans would never contemplate joining a comparable union on their own continent. America needs an EU-compliant Britain as a buffer against the hordes from the European backwaters. Let them tarry first in good old Britain, the island of state compassion. As big and spacious as it is, America encourages immigration only if the immigrant is ready to work and lift himself by the bootstraps without eyeing state largesse.

    On the other hand, Britain, the wise and wily survivalist, is strategically ambivalent about the bogus confederation of unequal states that is the EU. The British authorities have noted that the Welfare state is not designed for mass-migration because the whole tradition is based on the ethics of work and thrift without the prospects of immediate gratification. It is not for Balkan no-hopers looking to latch on to the apron strings of a nanny state.

    Britain has also faulted the wisdom or desirability of foisting a unified currency like the Euro on countries with different national cultures and economies. It is a recipe for economic disaster the like of which has hobbled mainland European continent in the last decade. Even the Greeks, bearers of Hellenic Civilization and descendants of Alexander who went all the way to Asia, are shouting that their country should not be turned to a “warehouse of souls” and haven of choice for migrants stranded by choice.

    Having been ringside spectators in their own economic funeral this past week, Nigerians must now know what it means to be at the receiving ends of the punitive game of economic domination that nations play. The weak and the meek will not inherit the earth or its abundant resources. If they do temporarily, they will fritter them away or be forced to surrender them by superior economic forces.

    This is not a new game in town. It has been happening ever since man emerged as homo economicus. The original impetus for a protective state came principally out of the need to protect and guard the fruits of human labour and rudimentary entrepreneurial endeavour. Those who are historically minded will now recognize Lord Lugard’s infamous “Dual Mandate”—obtained without any duality—and the sudden appearance of Commodore Matthew Perry’s frigate on Japanese shores as acts of bullying and economic aggression by stronger states against weaker nations. By the same token, the Boxers’ rebellion in China was not a sartorial uprising but an instance of fierce resistance against economic bullying by the dominant imperial power of the age.

    As we have hinted above, the economic destruction of Nigeria rests on both external and internal factors and forces. The combination of external forces and enemy nationals can be very devastating indeed. Externally, the international conspiracy to bring the oil bonanza to an end is too well known to delay us here. But it was good while it lasted. At least it gave the world the countervailing economic centre of Dubai and its glittering emporium.

    But this is small beer compared to the modern hell-hole of Nigeria in all its seething homophobic aggravations. Oil has ruined Nigeria. While the immediate internal cause of the economic meltdown of the nation and the run on the naira is the wholesale looting of the economy by the last administration in perhaps the most criminal and treasonable example of state larceny ever witnessed on the benighted continent, there other equally pressing factors.

    The first is the existence of anunproductive and unimaginative political elite that has not progressed beyond the hunter-gatherer phase of human existence. The consequence of this is the reliance on oil and a monocultural economy which made it impossible to grow other productive sectors of the economy. Second, the activities of enemy nationals who engage in covert economic sabotage or who actively take up arms against the nation such as we have seen in the Boko Haramwar or the resurgence of pipeline vandalization in the Niger Delta.

    To all this, we must add the hilarious incompetence of the Central Bank of Nigeria which rather than add the value of intellectual sophistication and conceptual rigour to the macro-management of our economy often hands out humongous donations from our national till when it is not funnelling scarce foreign exchange to Bureau De Change on a weekly basis. This is then shared out among smugglers and other crooks who import second hand goods which thus killsoff the urge to produce what we must consume. With such enemy nationals, a nation does not require much external adversity to come unstuck.

    The conclusion we have been avoiding must now be pressed into service. Nigerians are collectively in denial, unable to confront ourselves with the hard evidence. The truth must now be told if only because of its invigorating and liberating tonic. The truth is that as it is at the moment, Nigeria is broke and broken; economically defeated, politically vanquished as a result of structural debility and has only survived being militarily defeated by a rag tag religious insurgency by the skin of the teeth.

    Being in denial will not set us free. Nigeria at the moment resembles a land that has suffered a saturation bombardment in addition to carpet bombing. The moral, political, economic and spiritual devastation reminds one of Hiroshima after the nuclear holocaust of the Second World War.

    When a people are this roundly defeated, devastated and deflated, they need to go back to the drawing board and to first principles. The change Nigeria requires is both internal and external. This nation will not be cleansed of corruption and graft until we have internally purged ourselves and reordered or reengineered the Nigerian psyche. Apart from leading the war against corruption, President Buhari should also be at the vanguard of a campaign for a wholesale ethical reorientation of Nigerians and the fashioning of a new national ethos that will drive development and democracy.

    Whether the retired general has the temperament or the wherewithal for this Herculean project remains to be seen. Modern contention among nations has shifted largely to the market place and one can now see why in certain countries economic sabotage is treated as grand treason punishable by death. If the retired general from Daura fails to confront the political, economic and intellectual debris of a collapsed nation, the fear is that he will be setting the template for a routine dissolution of whatever remains or for the emergence of an even more radically ruthless and uncompromising ruler in the long run. Next week, we bring thoughts about how to regrow a shattered nation.

     

  • On heroism and the exceptional leader

    On heroism and the exceptional leader

    This past week, Nigerians across ethnic, regional, and religious divides having been commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the tragic assassination of their favourite Nigerian leader, General Ramat Murtala Mohammed. It has been an unprecedented outpouring of admiration mixed with profound regret.

    Of course, there have been a few dissenters. This is as it should be. A nation of homogeneous group-think is a dangerous nation. But what is not in question, whatever his antecedents, is that for the few months that he ruled the nation, the abrasive and impatient Kano-born General came close to approximating the ideal of a national hero and exceptional Nigerian leader.

    Aeschylus, the great Greek philosopher, noted that the land that has no hero is a very unhappy land. To this the historic quip was added that it is the land that needs a hero that is unhappy indeed. Judging by the national outpouring of grief and regret about the plight of Nigeria in the hands of most of Mohammed’s successors, it is clear that Nigeria has suffered a double jeopardy. It is a land without heroes and a land critically in need of heroes. Nigeria remains structurally rigged against throwing up its best and brightest.

    To be sure, Mohammed, affectionately known as Muri to millions of fawning and adulating Nigerian masses, was no saint. But here was an epic individual who made heroic efforts to overcome his personal and idiosyncratic limitations and to make amends for his past infractions. Just as he was implacable and ferocious in settling scores on the field of battle, he was also judicious and humble in appeasing those he thought he had wronged. When cornered with hard facts, his petulant sulking often gave way to a boyish grin of regret and restitution.

    Snooper monitored his coup day national broadcast. Despite the thunder and tantrums, Mohammed was gracious enough to acknowledge the contributions of his military senior and superior, General Yakubu Gowon, who was retired with full benefits “in appreciation of his past services to the nation”. So solicitous was Mohammed of Gowon’s wellbeing that he was known to have sent General Danjuma to the humble general in Warwick to advise him to dispense with the informality of conducting himself like a regular undergraduate. He was a full general of the Nigerian army.

    This morning, and by popular demand once again, we bring you a fictional encounter with the late Nigerian hero. It is a fitting way of bringing to a close the moving memories of one of the greatest Nigerians of all time.

  • A freezing evening with Murtala Mohammed

    It has been unseasonably cold in England.  An icy fog lays a brutal siege on the entire country from Inverness to Portsmouth. The ambience in Birmingham is grey and dreary as country and people are frozen into a vast mass of drooping icicles. It is the worst winter in thirty years, and February is the cruelest of months. Even this late in the year rather than retreating, General Winter has been advancing.

    Trapped inside the house by a ferocious sleet storm and wrapped up like a Siberian wayfarer, snooper has hit the bottle on the rebound. Our comforter is a vicious Austrian liqueur known as Stroh”80″. Known otherwise as the spirit of Austria, It is eighty per cent alcohol and a sip could take a bull out in a second. I often wonder why the immensely cultured but imperious Austrians are allowed to do this to the civilized world. But then, there are many things the Austrians will want the world to forget.

    The generous provider of this heady spirit is an Aeronautical Engineer friend of Kogi extraction who is based in Birmingham. A hilarious and witty fellow, our man once told snooper of how he took a bottle of the strong stuff home as a Christmas present to the Oba of his town who happens to be his cousin. Kabiyesi often boasts of his drinking prowess. A few hours later when the engineer returned to the palace to retrieve a document, his royal majesty had passed out on the bare floor with his staff of office lying on top of him.

    For intellectual comfort, snooper has been reading excerpts from the interesting memoirs of Engineer Akindele, the first Director General of the Nigerian Telecommunication. It is riveting read which shows how things used to be with the civil servants and civil service of yore. But by far the most interesting revelations in the memoirs concern Akindele’s memorable encounter  with the tempestuous and unpredictable Murtala Mohammed both as Head of State and as Akindele’s supervising commissioner at the Ministry of Communication. At a point,  Akindele was so exasperated by Murtala’s  bullying antics that he blurted out in Yoruba that his own child was three years’ older than the menacing Mohammed.

    The straight-laced bureaucrat thought he was making an uncomplimentary comment beyond Mohammed’s linguistic ken. Little did he realize that the mysterious warlord spoke and understood Yoruba perfectly well.  A few years later, in fact on the eve of Mohammed’s assassination, Akindele almost took to his heels when Obasanjo asked him in Yoruba language whether he had forgiven them for the shabby manner the government treated him, only for Mohammed to retort in Yoruba: A si nbe. (We are still pleading with him)

    Although still very controversial with regards to many aspects of his distinguished career, particularly the pogrom in Asaba and the infamous burglary of the exchequer in Benin, Mohammed has long been canonized as the nation’s most iconic leader. It is also arguable that had he lived longer, Mohammed would have unraveled as deliberate and painstaking statesmanship became unamenable to his short-fused hell-raising and impetuous grandstanding. But give a man his dues. Mohammed was kind, humane, charitable and ever ready to make amends when and where his conduct or the policies of his government might have caused harm or grievous damage. Here was a noble ruler.

    From a very unflattering background reeking of supremacist arrogance, Murtala made a dramatic transition to a bold and visionary conception of the nation as an organic community of equal stakeholders. From a sectarian warmonger dripping with religious and regional prejudices, he became a Pan-Nigerian patriot of unusual mettle. It was an apostolic conversion of Pauline proportions. At a very grave time when Nigeria is once again in danger of fracturing along regional and religious lines as a result of the antics of a visionless and greedy cartel, Mohammed’s dynamic and visionary leadership commends itself to an endangered nation.

    These were the sober thoughts that engaged one’s attention as the ferocious sleet storm raged outside and one took a hard swig of the spirit of Austria. Suddenly, the last sentence of an e-mail one had been reading on the computer screen shattered the icy complacency. “Sir, at this moment, President Yar’Adua is flying back home and is due back in the early hours”.

    “Coming back to where and to what?” snooper screamed at the computer screen in towering rage.  The source of the news being too authentic and impeccable, one was left to impotent fury and implacable disgust. Forgetting how scantily dressed one had become in the intervening hours, one rushed out of the house and into the receding snow storm.

    It was bitterly cold outside. Snooper swept past the adjoining streets not knowing where one was going. As the fury slowly subsided, the icy frost began to bury its chilly fangs deep in the body. It was as if one was beginning to have an out of body experience as outlandish creatures from outer space started crowding the vision. Out of nowhere, a middle-aged man appeared, smartly dressed in a navy blue French conductor suit. The military swagger and the swashbuckling gait was unmistakable. It was the old general. It was Murtala Mohammed.

    “Talk of the devil”, snooper mumbled in muted excitement as the teeth clattered away. In edgy contempt, the general ignored his new-found companion and then launched into a bitter tirade about the weather.

    “Kai, kai, it is bloody cold. Shege. Doualla, bani taba. Akoi Benson and Hedges?”, the general growled demanding for a stick of cigarette. Snooper quickly pointed at a huge neon sign prohibiting smoking.

    “Walahi, I will soon prohibit that your useless mouth for you”, the general cursed. “:No, no no, it’s not me, it is the whiteman. They have their strict rules and regulations”, snooper protested.

    “Listen, I hate these stupid Oyinbo people. They are bloody hypocrites. They brought corruption and cheating to us and they keep calling us crooks. May Allah forgive them”, the general fumed. “Is that why you only took bribes from them?” snooper demanded.

    “My brother, one bad turn deserves another,” the general began with a crooked, much endearing smile. “By the way how did you bloody rogue come by that? You have been reading classified material, eh?  Yaro barawo ne?”

    “No, no no. I have been reading Akindele’s memoirs”, snooper corrected.  “Ah that old bugger, is he still around? He is a good man but I almost shot him.  I overheard him cursing my mother in Yoruba”, the general growled.

    “I never knew you spoke Yoruba language”, snooper marveled.     “Ajoke, my wife is half Yoruba”, the great warlord noted wistfully.   “General, how about a drink at Old Orleans at Broad Street?” snooper offered.     “Drink ke? I am a devout Muslim, you know,” the general protested.

    “I also know something else. There was a famous restaurant in Lagos which was your watering hole. For years after your departure they use to take adverts to celebrate your patronage”, snooper noted with a sly wink.

    “You are a real sonobabitch, you know. Okay, we’ll have a drink, but the Stout here is not as stout as the one back home. The one here is totally useless, like the people. I’ll have Johnnie Walker instead”, the General crowed with boyish enthusiasm.

    “By the way, General, Umaru is back”, snooper said more like a complaint than anything else. “Who is Umaru?” Murtala replied in genuine ignorance. “Umaru Yar’Adua”, snooper replied. “What does he do for a living, and is he related to Shehu?”, the general queried.

    “He is our president, and he is Shehu’s brother. Obasanjo left him there after returning to power two decades later.” I replied.

    “Hmmmmm. That must be the boy calling himself 007”, the general began with a sardonic smirk on his face. “I don’t want to be uncharitable but has Nigeria now become a James Bond film? I know Shehu as a noble and first-class officer, loyal to the core. If he were to be around, I would not have been killed. Your yeye brother ran away. But this Umaru???”, the general brooded uneasily.

    “He is being supported by some northern elements who claim that the presidency is the north’s birthright till 2015 and that nothing should be done to disturb the arrangement”, snooper noted without much passion.

    “Those lot again!!! I never allowed them near the seat of government when I was in power. They are an idle lot, forever seeking for relevance and power. If I have my way, I will put them on the farm settlement near Bagauda Lake”, the general growled.

    “They are led by a man called Inua Wada”, snooper observed.

    “Kai mana, but that is my own uncle”, Mohammed blurted out.

    “I was wondering, too”, snooper croaked with some mischief.

    “You see, the problem is more fundamental. By the way, what did Obasanjo himself forget at the State house that he was looking for?” Mohammed snarled.

    “He forgot to mess things up properly. Now for the first time in the history of the country, we have three presidents at the same time: An Acting President; an inactive President and an active President”, snooper noted with muted relish.

    “I see. What is Theophilus Danjuma doing about the nonsense?”

    “Danjuma and Obasanjo are no longer on speaking terms”, snooper replied.

    “What ? You know sometimes it may be better to die young. Longevity is a curse in Africa”, Mohammed reflected with misty eyes.

    “What the colonial Army put together, post-colonial oil blocs have torn asunder”, snooper cynically pressed on even as a sad Mohammed ignored him.

    “And where is Akinrinade in all this?” Murtala growled.

    “He is out in the street protesting against all of them”, snooper replied.

    “I see. It is a total disaster then. It is Abagana all over again. I must thank Sub-Lieutenant William Sheri for not missing his target. A country where Alani is a protester on the street is not worth living in”, General Murtala Ramat Mohammed noted and began moving away.

    “General, what about the drink?” snooper protested.

    “To celebrate what?” Mohammed snapped. “But let me tell you this. Those of us who have killed for Nigeria and have been killed for Nigeria hold all of you responsible for this mess, this disgrace of the blackman”.

    The ferocious sleet storm was still raging in Birmingham. Luckily, the automatic heating system had come on unfailingly, rousing snooper from his catatonic stupor. The computer screen was still flashing with the lone apocalyptic message: Umaru Yar’Adua is on his way home.

  • Okon propounds the theory of two Sheriffs

    It was a sultry and misty morning in Lagos, but so far the rains had refused to oblige, leaving humanity in a listless torpor. As the airwaves filled with the news of the election of a new PDP chairman, Okon has roused snooper from the utter discomfort of early morning baking temperature singing: “I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t shoot the deputy”. It was a most profane and amateurish rendering brimming with savage humour.

    “Okon, what is the meaning of all this stupid nonsense?” snooper snarled.

    “ Oga, as you never hear dem news, dem Pindipi don elect dem leader”, the crazy boy chortled with sinister relish.

    “And who is it?” snooper demanded as he jumped out of bed.

    “Na dem Boko Haram man dem dey call Moody Sheriff abi na Mugu sef?” Okon retorted.

    “Oh my God, this is the end of the PDP as an effective fighting force. There is a plot to kill opposition in this country. This is a sting operation by the APC. The lion of Bourdillion has struck again”, snooper noted with awe and wonderment.

    “Oga, all dat na yeye grammar. Di thin I sabi be say we get am for two Sheriff for obodo now. One Sheriff go dey Abuja and dem other Sheriff go dey Maiduguri. When dem two sheriff come jam, obodo don scatter be dat. Dem American people go dey laugh say de come don come to become. Monkey don see man, before man see monkey. Make man go start work again for dem Yoruba Airforce General soak away but Yoruba shit no be better shit at all. Ewedu and gbegiri no be better food at all at all”, the mad boy drooled on.

    “Okon get lost!!” snooper screamed as he drove away the boy with a broom stick.