To Apongbon, and the offices of a leading Law Firm, to take a writfor libel and defamation against Mohammed Kudu Haruna, a columnist with this newspaper and publisher of the defunct Citizen magazine. Ever since last Wednesday when the pesky and foolhardy columnist attempted to out what he thought was the real identity of the man behind this column, snooper has been inundated with calls to confirm or deny whether he was also the elusive and reclusive scholar so named by Mohammed Kudu Haruna.
Well,snooper is happy to report that this was a case of appalling mistaken identity. In journalism as everybody knows, it is a taboo for anybody to unmask the identity of a pseudonymous columnist. For a man who has risen to the top of the profession to commit such a gaffe is bizarre in the extreme. Something must be happening to Kudu these days. If this is his way of rewarding a friendship of over forty years which began in August 1975 at the Youth Corps camp in Awgu in the then East Central State, then the stress of these times must be getting to the old boy.
Many mutual friends have asked snooper to take it easy with the old boy. One mutual acquaintance even volunteered the information that Kudu may be obsessing with the identity of TataloAlamu because he(Haruna) himself is no stranger to conflicted and conflicting identity: A Yoruba boy who speaks Nupe language but who thinks he ought to be Hausa/Fulani. Nobody can beat that for generic and genetic upheaval.
The identity of the man behind the mask or behind the pipe has been the subject of a raging controversy for quite some time. For the education of Kudu and his ilk, the original name is an oriki from Ogbomosho food lore. Thanks to Mr AgboAreo, a diligent researcher and prolific pen-pusher, Atatalosigbegiriana, means he who regrinds fresh pepper to add to stale gbegirisoup. TataloAlamu was an iconic musician who plied his trade around Beere, Ibadan going towards Mapo Hall and was famous for his profane lyrics and pulsating beat. Snooper was a denizen of the ancient quarters.
A famous columnist of the seventies actually contracted snooper to find out the true identity of the mysterious columnist. A week after snooper confronted him with the fact that all evidence led in his direction, the man screamed: “ Ha won fepaminiyen!!!” (They want to kill me!”) Another famous columnist prowled around The Nation for quite some time before he was sent away with the miscue that the columnist was none other than the Nobel laureate himself.
During the Abacha years, SeyeKehinde, formerly editor of the fiery Tempo paper and now publisher of the City People, told a famous general that he was about to pay a visit to the columnist (Real name revealed). The man took SeyeKehinde aside and thundered. “ You mean that fellow is for real? I had thought it was a pen name all along. Kai, but there are lunatics in this country. How can anybody append his real name to such incendiary stuff?”
TundeFagbenle, celebrated columnist lately of The Punch, has his own unique theory. The man behind the mask is an anjonnu or spirit. “I mean he goes out with us drinking and hell-raising and yet by the early hours of the morning, he would have written another tome. No normal human being can do that. The man is ebora!!”
But the prize for strenuous sleuthing must go to the celebrated spy-master, AlhajiUmaruShinkafi, the MarafanSokoto. This column once wrote a piece on him and the man ordered one of his subordinate spooks still in service to fish out the writer known as TataloAlamu within twenty four hours. The spook later confessed to snooper at the Isaac John Guest House of the Lagos State Governor that he beat the deadline by two hours.
As snooper writes this at four in Lagos in the morning of Saturday after having had lunch a few hours earlier at theKatsina Motel with KashimIbrahim, Mohammed Haruna can see that he labours in vain to pin down the man behind the mask.
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