For Akinlawon Ige—a soccer aficionado—@ 65
The real month of May is here with us, and it is more matters for a May morning, as William Shakespeare famously put it. You cannot beat the bard of Stratford Upon Avon when it comes to uncanny insights about the human condition. More than five hundred years ago, the great dramatist could foresee that the nascent Industrial Revolution with its insatiable hunger for raw material would eventuate in colonization which will in turn produce major global economic contradictions the least of which is the phenomenon famously described as unequal exchange.
But as the Prospero-Caliban duet has emphatically demonstrated, Shakespeare was also immensely aware that unequal exchange in the economic department may actually lead to equal exchange in the verbal department. The old empire often strikes back in mysterious ways. When you gift a man with a new language, his first act of defiance and rebellious independence is to curse you back in the acquired language with much guts and gusto.
Snooper hopes that this lengthy disquisition about colonization and its disquiet will put readers in the right frame of mind about what Okon the rogue cook is doing poking his nose into the issue of a new coach for Arsenal Football club in faraway England. But just as colonization has produced its contradictions, the actual colonial conquest and the endemic crisis of identity it has fostered on Africans have also yielded fantastic cultural dividends. Why are we so blessed!!!!
In Nigeria today, the youths know more about what is happening in the English Premier League than what may be happening in the field of politics. They know all the coaches and the coached. They even know the uncoachables and the unsignables. In an infamous mix-up, when some youths were asked whether they know Obafemi Awolowo, they responded that the only Obafemi they were aware of was Obafemi Martin, aka Oba-Goal, the famous footballer. They view learning and reading as leading to entrapment in the poverty web whereas football leads to fame and fabulous riches.
On Wednesday, Okon barged into the living room covered in feces, looking as if he had survived a fall into a pit latrine and oozing with an offensive odour like a walnut fairy.
“Okon, what is all this nonsense, and where are you coming from?” snooper asked covering his nose.
“ Oga na Yoruba shit. I go dig dem Yoruba NIA man’s house see whether dem dollar for Ikoyi apartment remain. Naim I come fall inside shit tank. You know say Yoruba shit na wicked shit after dem don take gbegiri soup, akara, bushmeat…..” the mad boy whimpered as snooper cut him short.
“ Just shut up, you hear and go and clean yourself”, snooper screamed.
“ No oga na change I come change make I go back. I go clean when I don come back. Even dem whistle I wan blow come fall inside shit tank. Kai dis wicked Yoruba people. Na juju dem man dey use. He get one big tortoise who dey guard dem house…” the mad boy drooled on.
“ Okon, you will leave this house at once. By the way what is that paper bulging from your pocket?”
“ Ah dat one na dem shortlist for Asiere Wanka, abi wetin you dey call dem Arsenal coach? We don tire for him tuketuke coaching. Make him go home, abi na by force? He get two Nigerian coach I dey eye like dat. One na Ibrahim Shukushuku, na him dey coach dem Benue Warrior when three Yoruba players come kaput for field. That one he go show dem oyinbo people African pepper. The second na Emmanuel Vampire, dem dey call dat one Air raid or ten-ten. When dem wound him player and carry him out, him go ask him own player make dem reduce dem tally. So dem know wetin Vampire mean. He get one match for Enugu like dat only six players remain so dem referee come pick race. Na him go finish dem premier league.”
On that note snooper drove the mad boy out with a broomstick.
