The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Castle

  • Elephant and Castle (The Political Economy of Royal Succession)

    Just in case you are thinking of the huge and sprawling shopping complex to the South east of metropolitan London, this is not about shopping. Or rather let us just say that this is about shopping for a president in a royal jungle. It is about the political economy of succession in an animal farm.  All animals are equal, but some animals are truly more equal than others.

    Sorry folks, we have to return to the feral and furry realm of animals once more. A few weeks back, we had thought that we were done with animal tales. But there are compelling reasons to return to the magic world of crawlies and good old Comrade Napoleon. This is what happens when the tools of conventional Political Science fail dismally to explain or grasp the dynamics of an unfurling political drama.

    Conventional Political Science rests on a set of stable variables for its analytical validity and integrity. To a large extent, you can predict the outcome of the inevitable collision of human and social forces. After all, when you have eliminated all that is impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth, to appropriate the great Sherlock Holmes. But in the post-colonial jungle, nothing is set and everything is variable.  It is the ultimate nightmare of the political scientist.

    You would have thought that only a year after the last presidential election and given the dire and fraught situation of the country, a nasty succession battle would be the last thing on the mind of our political class. You would have thought that amidst country-wide social unrest and given the fact that the north of the nation has virtually imploded politically and economically from the Boko Haram scourge, presidential election would be the last thing on the mind of politicians.

    You would have thought that the conventional wisdom is to fix what is broken first before deciding who should handle it. But you are profoundly mistaken.  This is Nigeria, Blackman’s own country. And who would have thought that at this particular moment the Jonathan presidency would come to resemble the Yar’Adua presidency in its inert and futile probing like a stalled caterpillar and its mix of political and physiological ailments? It is all beyond our human ken. It points at some malignant tricks of some powerful occult forces.

    If anybody had thought that the next presidential election or the impending succession battle would be fought over the Boko Haram plague or how to secure the political stability of the nation by redesigning its grand architecture, they had better perish the thought.  A plantain plantation or Banana Republic does not require architectonic wonder. Just allow the oil to flow and all will be well.

    It may be an economy based on extractive predation, but it is an economy all the same. After all there is demand and there is supply, which is the first law of economics.  Secure the oil rig first and the electoral rigging can come later. This is the political economy of royal succession in an animal farm.

    Last week, there were some significant moves on the chessboard which foreshadow a great battle of will and wits in the coming months. It points towards another epic succession battle. It is a play of giants and both the grass and the grassroots are already trembling. Against the selectorate, the electorate have no chance. The people only vote after the king has been chosen for them. This past week, the elephant rumbled and the castle quaked as if it has suffered a tectonic concussion. Let us return to the elephant and the castle.

    With its mammoth brains, the elephant is gifted with phenomenal memory. It neither forgives nor forgets. Its powers of photographic recall are a tad short of the miraculous. It remembers human faces and scant topographic features. It stalks those who have attempted to harm it with chilling resolve. It often lies in wait for those who would ambush it. When roused to fury and indignation, the elephant is a truly formidable picture of elemental rage and umbrage, tearing at and pulling out everything in sight and out of sight.  Its capacity for absorbing punishment is legendary and even in death—as the Yoruba will attest—the skull of an elephant is no luggage for children.

    In anger and angst, not even the castle is safe and secure from the elephant, more so when the elephant itself has sojourned twice in the castle. A bid to secure permanent residency met with massive popular discontent in which the earth quaked with towering indignation and disgust. The elephant retreated in shame and misery. But it has not forgotten old business or forgiven old businessmen. In military parlance, it is known as discreet evacuation of troops while awaiting reinforcement.

    Last week, Nigeria’s surviving pachyderm from the Jurassic Age, the irrepressible and inevitable General Olusegun Obasanjo, finally roused himself to political battle but from the economic trenches.  With well-controlled indignation and in an act of political marksmanship quite stunning for a man of his advanced age, Obasanjo took the economic policy of his political protégé to the cleaners. The proposed introduction of the 5,000 naira mega-bill, he averred, was not only going to further compound the economic miseries of Nigerians, it was bound to fuel massive inflation.

    All hell was let loose at the castle. This was the political equivalent of Pearl Harbour when the Japanese suddenly overwhelmed the imperial might of America. You would have thought that as a distinguished member of the Council of States and Jonathan’s political benefactor and godfather, Obasanjo had a safe and secure communication channel, a hotline as they say, to communicate his misgivings to the presidency. But this is what late M.K.O Abiola famously described as “high-wire politics”.

    A  succession war is in full swing. The elephant has bared its battle-tested trunk. Knowing fully well that transformation is the kernel of Jonathan’s message and self-declared mission, and knowing fully well that a sound economic policy is the heart of transformation, the great elephant has wrapped its trunk around the presidency’s soft and septic underbelly.

    This is a textbook military operation, a bold Panzer strike at the jugular before the mopping up operation. Once Jonathan is rendered combat-ineffective, it will be a question of time before his limping presidency is taken out of contention. Obasanjo is a past master of the politics of delegitimation. His artillery bombardment of Babangida’s “deficits of honour, credibility and integrity” prepared the ground for the Minna General’s crucial lapse of concentration and hurried exit from power.

    The same gambit led to the eventual unraveling of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, General Mohamadu Buhari and lately the Yar’Adua presidency. In the particular case of Alhaji Shagari, Obasanjo gave a damning and devastating critique towards the end. When the Daily Times deliberately published a garbled and mischievous version, the irate general sent a blistering rejoinder. Abacha who could read the game very well swiftly impounded him, but this did not prevent the goggled one from meeting a similar fate.

    For months, there have been rumours of a final and terminal parting of way between godfather and godson. It was deliberately leaked to the press that Obasanjo was eyeing a Sule Lamido/ Rotimi Amaechi ticket. This was swiftly and hurriedly denied. The stinging economic rebuke is the clearest indication so far that that the Jonathan administration is an object of stringent scrutiny by Nigeria’s power mafia and the report card may not be too flattering.

    Predictably, the presidency has been placed at the equivalent of a war footing. Presidential canine sentries simply tore into Obasanjo. There were even echoes of Michael Okhai Akhigbe’s infamous put-down of the old warhorse as a frustrated farmer. Leading the pack of hounds is Doyin Okupe who ironically was  Obasanjo’s former spokesperson. With patronizing glee, Okupe dismissed his former boss as a private citizen who is entitled to his own views. One can almost hear the bellicose medico smacking his lips in relish. It all recalls a passage from Job: “My desire is that mine enemy hath writ a book”.

    The elephant has the castle within its rifle sight. But the castle is unmoved and unmoving. It all points at a nasty roforofo fight or what the Yoruba call yanponyanrin. The old general may be trying to return to his old political base. But for once in his career, he might have made a fatal political miscalculation with Jonathan. This is because other unstable variables might have crept into the equation. The chap from Otueke is unlikely to go down lightly and meekly.

     

    • First published in 2013.

     

  • Unique nature of Elmina Castle

    Unique nature of Elmina Castle

    Between the early 16th century and the middle of 19th century, the wicked trade in humans was booming. Millions of Africans had their freedom taken from them. They were forcefully captured, held under inhuman condition and shipped to the West Indies and America, then known as the New World.

    Right through the coast of West Africa, from Calabar, Badagry, Lagos, Ouidah in Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Senegal, The Gambia and so on, there is probably no other relic of this obnoxious era that graphically captured this better unremembered era like the Elmißna Castle. That it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site is an indication that the castle has greatly impacted on humanity.

    It stands on top a rock facing the sea, a little detached from the town. The location is a vantage position as it allows easy access to the sea and from the building. One easily monitors activities in the town of Elmina. Just in front of the castle are canons that might have been used in the fierce fight that was waged for the control of this lucrative trading post. Tens of young men and women from the town cluster around an approaching vehicle bringing tourists to sell every kind of craft. They were very persuasive in haggling.

    At the right hand side of the gate into the castle’s compound, there is an old metal chain.  It left one with an eerie feeling. Between the gate and main entrance, there was a kind of deep excavation. To get to the main building, one has to pass through a bridge. This is the first line of defence. Without the bridge, accessing the main building is difficult.

    Although the three-storey rock castle is painted white, that does not remove the negative vibe the building emits. Maybe this is psychological being aware of the obnoxious history of the place.  How did the European trader conceive the idea of building such monstrous impregnable building in the heart of Africa?

    To understand that, one has to go back to when the European exploration of the world championed by Spain and Portugal, the then world powers, started.

    The Portuguese, in the quest for gold and other exotic products from Africa, came to the coast of Elmina to trade. They established contacts with the natives. They had an abundance of gold and were willing to trade that for the products brought by European traders

    The rate at which our people were giving out their gold gave them the impression that the land had abundant gold. So, they named the place Al Mina which in Portuguese means the mine. The people could not pronounce the phrase at that time, so it was corrupted to El Mina. This has become the name of the town. The original name of the place was Anumansa which means inexhaustible water. In 1482, due to the insatiable quest for gold, this motivated one of the Portuguese captains named Don Diego de Azanbuja to arrive at El Mina with soldiers made up of carpenters and masons to see the then King of Elmina named Nana Kwamenansa. He gave the Portuguese the land where the castle was built. It was the first time in the Gold Coast region that a title to a land was transferred from an African chief to a European. The place was a high rock. So the Portuguese had to work on the rock to get to a level ground. The rock on which the building is standing is sedimentary rock and it is about 100 metres beneath the earth. On completion of the castle, they named it after one of their saint patrons in Portugal called St. George. This place is called St. George’s Castle or El Mina Castle.

    The Portuguese had two reasons for building the castle: first, they wanted the natives to believe it was built to protect their trade and their traders; second, to have a place of abode for their missionaries who were coming to spread Christianity.

    Before the early 16th century, all the rooms on the ground floor were used as warehouses for storage, but these same warehouses during the slave trade were converted to a place where African slaves were kept.

    When the slave trade started, the castle was accommodating a minimum of 1000 slaves at a time, 400 women and 600 men.

    The transition from the legitimate trade in goods to the slave trade was brought about. 1441 was the year Portuguese started taking Africans to Portugal by a certain man called Antonio Gonzales, one of the Portuguese explorers. When he came to a place in Senegambia, a place referred to as the River of Gold, when he was going back to Africa, he captured 10 Africans. When he got back to Portugal and the prince of Portugal saw them, he was happy because he wanted to train the most intelligent among them as missionaries to return back to Africa and spread Christianity and second, to serve as interpreters to the Portuguese in Africa. But these Africans never came back. They ended up in palaces and plantations. Since then, whenever European explorers visited Africa, they always returned with Africans.  The story changed when the Spanish got to America and West Indies. They tried to make the red Indians to work on their sugar plantations. According to history, the Red Indians could not survive Spanish brutality, overwork and the European diseases. It started reducing the population of the West Indians. So, they had to stop.  A certain Spanish priest tried to arrange for Africans to be taken to the West Indies because they were much stronger and they lived in the same climatic condition as that of West Indies. So, between 1512 and 1515, about 50 Africans were taken from Spain to Haiti. They survived the test and the demand for African slaves started coming in. That marked the beginning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

    St. Georges’ Castle, Elmina offers the best experience and sight of what the trans-Atlantic slave trade was all about, and graphically, visitors to the castle experience the unimaginably terrible conditions that the slaves were subjected to.

    After the preliminary introduction at the reception of the castle, the place is the courtyard of the building. It is in form of square with the wide space inside. The main building is three storeys, while the other linked building is just a storey.  The castle was built to be a sustaining community that could exist for months without needing anything from outside.

    Just on the right of the courtyard is the huge church where the soldiers and Portuguese traders worship.

    The building is divided into different sections. The first floor was for the soldiers and other officials. The higher the rank, the higher the floor the officials stayed. The governor of the trading post   stayed at the expansive top floor. He had a bed-eye view of the sea and could also monitor activities within the town and the castle from the comfort of the top floor. The top floor is built in such a way that it could easily access the main courtyard also the slaves’ section.

    On the left, there is an entrance to the slave dungeon. The slave area is made up of the male section and the female section. As a hall, the female section should not take more than 50 persons,while the male dungeon should take about 70 persons at most, theatre style sitting. But the female dungeon was holding about 400 at a time, while the male section could take about 600. There are no windows except a opening in front just by the door. There was no convenience. Slaves were kept with no space to turn, no place for convenience except where one was. The condition was enough to kill one even before the slave ships arrived.

    The female section was even worse. There was a kind of foul odour that pervaded the dungeon. Like many things in the castle, it was as if one was imagining the foul odour of human faeces. it was strong and pungent enough, but the smell just hovered. The guide also explained that the smell was real. It was the smell from the slaves almost 200 years since the abolition of slave trade. According to him, the condition of the female dungeon was worse than the male. The ventilation was worse added to the fact that female slaves had to pass faeces, urine and men flow all in the cell. That added to the stench. The female slave could only come out if the camp governor from the third floor saw her and desired to sleep with her. In such situation, the guards would bring her out, give her water to bath and then ship her above to the governor. There is a well at the centre of the open space between the male and female dungeon. The female slave would take water from there to bath and cleans herself. She would then be taken up to the chamber of the head. The product of the unholy liaison is the high number of mulattoes in Elmina.

    Once the slaves were about to be shipped to the New World, they were taken through a low roof exit tunnel to the point-of-no-return. At the point of no return, there is an opening where the slaves where taken out of the boat in a waiting boat that would take them to the merchant ship in the ocean.

    The Elmina Castle has been in existence for 533 years. Within this period, the Portuguese who were the original owners held the place for about 155 years before it was captured by the Dutch who overthrew them and took over the slave trade business. The Dutch held sway there for about 235 years before they sold it to the British in 1872. The British held the place until 1957 when the Ghana took over the place after independence.

    Touring Elmina Castle leaves tourist visitors moody. There is always a kind inner introspection, asking question about the beast in man and how man can subject his fellow humans to cruelty all because of riches. Touring Elmina castle leaves tourist visitors with a moody. There is always a kind inner introspection, asking question about the beast in man and how man can subject his fellow human to which level of cruelty all because of riches.

  • Elephant and Castle

    Elephant and Castle

    (The political economy of royal succession)

    Just in case you are thinking of the huge and sprawling shopping complex to the South east of metropolitan London, this is not about shopping. Or rather let us just say that this is about shopping for a president in a royal jungle. It is about the political economy of succession in an animal farm. All animals are equal, but some animals are truly more equal than others.

    Sorry folks, we have to return to the feral and furry realm of animals once more. A few weeks back, we had thought that we were done with animal tales. But there are compelling reasons to return to the magic world of crawlies and good old Comrade Napoleon. This is what happens when the tools of conventional Political Science fail dismally to explain or grasp the dynamics of an unfurling political drama.

    Conventional Political Science rests on a set of stable variables for its analytical validity and integrity. To a large extent, you can predict the outcome of the inevitable collision of human and social forces. After all, when you have eliminated all that is impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth, to appropriate the great Sherlock Holmes. But in the post-colonial jungle, nothing is set and everything is variable. It is the ultimate nightmare of the political scientist.

    You would have thought that only a year after the last presidential election and given the dire and fraught situation of the country, a nasty succession battle would be the last thing on the mind of our political class. You would have thought that amidst country-wide social unrest and given the fact that the north of the nation has virtually imploded politically and economically from the Boko Haram scourge, presidential election would be the last thing on the mind of politicians.

    You would have thought that the conventional wisdom is to fix what is broken first before deciding who should handle it. But you are profoundly mistaken. This is Nigeria, Blackman’s own country. And who would have thought that at this particular moment the Jonathan presidency would come to resemble the Yar’Adua presidency in its inert and futile probing like a stalled caterpillar and its mix of political and physiological ailments? It is all beyond our human ken. It points at some malignant tricks of some powerful occult forces.

    If anybody had thought that the next presidential election or the impending succession battle would be fought over the Boko Haram plague or how to secure the political stability of the nation by redesigning its grand architecture, they had better perish the thought. A plantain plantation or Banana Republic does not require architectonic wonder. Just allow the oil to flow and all will be well.

    It may be an economy based on extractive predation, but it is an economy all the same. After all there is demand and there is supply, which is the first law of economics. Secure the oil rig first and the electoral rigging can come later. This is the political economy of royal succession in an animal farm.

    Last week, there were some significant moves on the chessboard which foreshadow a great battle of will and wits in the coming months. It points towards another epic succession battle. It is a play of giants and both the grass and the grassroots are already trembling. Against the selectorate, the electorate have no chance. The kingmakers only vote after the king has been chosen for them. This past week, the elephant rumbled and the castle quaked as if it has suffered a tectonic concussion. Let us return to the elephant and the castle.

    With its mammoth brains, the elephant is gifted with phenomenal memory. It neither forgives nor forgets. Its powers of photographic recall are a tad short of the miraculous. It remembers human faces and scant topographic features. It stalks those who have attempted to harm it with chilling resolve. It often lies in wait for those who would ambush it. When roused to fury and indignation, the elephant is a truly formidable picture of elemental rage and umbrage, tearing at and pulling out everything in sight and out of sight. Its capacity for absorbing punishment is legendary and even in death—as the Yoruba will attest—the skull of an elephant is no luggage for children.

    In anger and angst, not even the castle is safe and secure from the elephant, more so when the elephant itself has sojourned twice in the castle. A bid to secure permanent residency met with massive popular discontent in which the earth quaked with towering indignation and disgust. The elephant retreated in shame and misery. But it has not forgotten old business or forgiven old businessmen. In military parlance, it is known as discreet evacuation of troops while awaiting reinforcement.

    Last week, Nigeria’s surviving pachyderm from the Jurassic Age, the irrepressible and inevitable General Olusegun Obasanjo, finally roused himself to political battle but from the economic trenches. With well-controlled indignation and in an act of political marksmanship quite stunning for a man of his advance age, Obasanjo took the economic policy of his political protégé to the cleaners. The proposed introduction of the 5,000 naira mega-bill, he averred, was not only going to further compound the economic miseries of Nigerians, it was bound to fuel massive inflation.

    All hell was let loose at the castle. This was the political equivalent of Pearl Harbour when the Japanese suddenly overwhelmed the imperial might of America. You would have thought that as a distinguished member of the Council of States and Jonathan’s political benefactor and godfather, Obasanjo had a safe and secure communication channel, a hotline as they say, to communicate his misgivings to the presidency. But this is what late M.K.O Abiola famously described as “high-wire politics”.

    A succession war is in full swing. The elephant has bared its battle-tested trunk. Knowing fully well that transformation is the kernel of Jonathan’s message and self-declared mission, and knowing fully well that a sound economic policy is the heart of transformation, the great elephant has wrapped its trunk around the presidency’s soft and septic underbelly.

    This is a textbook military operation, a bold Panzer strike at the jugular before the mopping up operation. Once Jonathan is rendered combat-ineffective, it will be a question of time before his limping presidency is taken out of contention. Obasanjo is a past master of the politics of delegitimation. His artillery bombardment of Babangida’s “deficits of honour, credibility and integrity” prepared the ground for the Minna General’s crucial lapse of concentration and hurried exit from power.

    The same gambit led to the eventual unraveling of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, General Mohamadu Buhari and lately the Yar’Adua presidency. In the particular case of Alhaji Shagari, Obasanjo gave a damning and devastating critique towards the end. When the Daily Times deliberately published a garbled and mischievous version, the irate general sent a blistering rejoinder. Abacha who could read the game very well swiftly impounded him, but this did not prevent the goggled one from meeting a similar fate.

    For months, there have been rumours of a final and terminal parting of way between godfather and godson. It was deliberately leaked to the press that Obasanjo was eyeing a Sule Lamido/ Rotimi Amaechi ticket. This was swiftly and hurriedly denied. The stinging economic rebuke is the clearest indication so far that that the Jonathan administration is an object of stringent scrutiny by Nigeria’s power mafia and the report card may not be too flattering.

    Predictably, the presidency has been placed at the equivalent of a war footing. Presidential canine sentries simply tore into Obasanjo. There were even echoes of Michael Okhai Akhigbe’s infamous put-down of the old warhorse as a frustrated farmer. Leading the pack of hounds is Doyin Okupe who ironically was Obasanjo’s former spokesperson. With patronizing glee, Okupe dismissed his former boss as a private citizen who is entitled to his own views. One can almost hear the bellicose medico smacking his lips in relish. It all recalls a passage from Job: “My desire is that mine enemy hath writ a book”.

    But the icing on the cake of insolence goes to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the feisty Central Bank Governor. Virtually dismissing Obasanjo as an economic illiterate, Sanusi, with caustic severity, added that the old war veteran may be a successful farmer but he is a bad economist. The main plank of Sanusi’s diatribe was that it was Obasanjo himself who had introduced mega-bill currencies into the Nigerian economy.

    Yet in the very next breath, and in patent self-contradiction, Sanusi added that Obasanjo’s introduction of mega-bills did not lead to inflation due to “prudent fiscal and monetary policy”. Does that not mean that in spite of himself, Obasanjo is not a bad economist after all? In any case, the Central Bank guru has not told us how the current massive run on the naira through various sinister scams and the Sanusi-endorsed unjust taxation of the poor called subsidy removal will not eventuate in printing more and higher megawatts naira thus fuelling more tacit devaluation and inflation.

    As it is often the case with Lamido Sanusi, the ease, fluency and facility of delivery seem to have got in the way of logic and deep reflection. In Nigerian officialdom it is not a crime to speak before thinking. Yet it is quite unlikely that these vitriolic denunciations could have passed without some tacit endorsement from the presidential bunker.

    The elephant has the castle within its rifle sight. But the castle is unmoved and unmoving. It all points at a nasty roforofo fight or what the Yoruba call yanponyanrin. The old general may be trying to return to his old political base. But for once in his career, he might have made a fatal political miscalculation with Jonathan. This is because other unstable variables might have crept into the equation. The chap from Otueke is unlikely to go down lightly and meekly.

    (First published in April, 2012)

  • Elephant and Castle

    Elephant and Castle

    (The political economy of royal succession)

     

    Just in case you are thinking of the huge and sprawling shopping complex to the South east of metropolitan London, this is not about shopping. Or rather let us just say that this is about shopping for a president in a royal jungle. It is about the political economy of succession in an animal farm. All animals are equal, but some animals are truly more equal than others.

    Sorry folks, we have to return to the feral and furry realm of animals once more. A few weeks back, we had thought that we were done with animal tales. But there are compelling reasons to return to the magic world of crawlies and good old Comrade Napoleon. This is what happens when the tools of conventional Political Science fail dismally to explain or grasp the dynamics of an unfurling political drama.

    Conventional Political Science rests on a set of stable variables for its analytical validity and integrity. To a large extent, you can predict the outcome of the inevitable collision of human and social forces. After all, when you have eliminated all that is impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth, to appropriate the great Sherlock Holmes. But in the post-colonial jungle, nothing is set and everything is variable. It is the ultimate nightmare of the political scientist.

    You would have thought that only a year after the last presidential election and given the dire and fraught situation of the country, a nasty succession battle would be the last thing on the mind of our political class. You would have thought that amidst country-wide social unrest and given the fact that the north of the nation has virtually imploded politically and economically from the Boko Haram scourge, presidential election would be the last thing on the mind of politicians.

    You would have thought that the conventional wisdom is to fix what is broken first before deciding who should handle it. But you are profoundly mistaken. This is Nigeria, Blackman’s own country. And who would have thought that at this particular moment the Jonathan presidency would come to resemble the Yar’Adua presidency in its inert and futile probing like a stalled caterpillar and its mix of political and physiological ailments? It is all beyond our human ken. It points at some malignant tricks of some powerful occult forces.

    If anybody had thought that the next presidential election or the impending succession battle would be fought over the Boko Haram plague or how to secure the political stability of the nation by redesigning its grand architecture, they had better perish the thought. A plantain plantation or Banana Republic does not require architectonic wonder. Just allow the oil to flow and all will be well.

    It may be an economy based on extractive predation, but it is an economy all the same. After all there is demand and there is supply, which is the first law of economics. Secure the oil rig first and the electoral rigging can come later. This is the political economy of royal succession in an animal farm.

    Last week, there were some significant moves on the chessboard which foreshadow a great battle of will and wits in the coming months. It points towards another epic succession battle. It is a play of giants and both the grass and the grassroots are already trembling. Against the selectorate, the electorate have no chance. The kingmakers only vote after the king has been chosen for them. This past week, the elephant rumbled and the castle quaked as if it has suffered a tectonic concussion. Let us return to the elephant and the castle.

    With its mammoth brains, the elephant is gifted with phenomenal memory. It neither forgives nor forgets Its powers of photographic recall are a tad short of the miraculous. It remembers human faces and scant topographic features. It stalks those who have attempted to harm it with chilling resolve. It often lies in wait for those who would ambush it. When roused to fury and indignation, the elephant is a truly formidable picture of elemental rage and umbrage, tearing at and pulling out everything in sight and out of sight. Its capacity for absorbing punishment is legendary and even in death—as the Yoruba will attest—the skull of an elephant is no luggage for children.

    In anger and angst, not even the castle is safe and secure from the elephant, more so when the elephant itself has sojourned twice in the castle. A bid to secure permanent residency met with massive popular discontent in which the earth quaked with towering indignation and disgust. The elephant retreated in shame and misery. But it has not forgotten old business or forgiven old businessmen. In military parlance, it is known as discreet evacuation of troops while awaiting reinforcement.

    Last week, Nigeria’s surviving pachyderm from the Jurassic Age, the irrepressible and inevitable General Olusegun Obasanjo, finally roused himself to political battle but from the economic trenches. With well-controlled indignation and in an act of political marksmanship quite stunning for a man of his advance age, Obasanjo took the economic policy of his political protégé to the cleaners. The proposed introduction of the 5,000 naira mega-bill, he averred, was not only going to further compound the economic miseries of Nigerians, it was bound to fuel massive inflation.

    All hell was let loose at the castle. This was the political equivalent of Pearl Harbour when the Japanese suddenly overwhelmed the imperial might of America. You would have thought that as a distinguished member of the Council of States and Jonathan’s political benefactor and godfather, Obasanjo had a safe and secure communication channel, a hotline as they say, to communicate his misgivings to the presidency. But this is what late M.K.O Abiola famously described as “high-wire politics”.

    A succession war is in full swing. The elephant has bared its battle-tested trunk. Knowing fully well that transformation is the kernel of Jonathan’s message and self-declared mission, and knowing fully well that a sound economic policy is the heart of transformation, the great elephant has wrapped its trunk round the presidency’s soft and septic underbelly.

    This is a textbook military operation, a bold Panzer strike at the jugular before the mopping up operation. Once Jonathan is rendered combat-ineffective, it will be a question of time before his limping presidency is taken out of contention. Obasanjo is a past master of the politics of delegitimation. His artillery bombardment of Babangida’s “deficits of honour, credibility and integrity” prepared the ground for the Minna General’s crucial lapse of concentration and hurried exit from power.

    The same gambit led to the eventual unravelling of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, General Mohamadu Buhari and lately the Yar’Adua presidency. In the particular case of Alhaji Shagari, Obasanjo gave a damning and devastating critique towards the end. When the Daily Times deliberately published a garbled and mischievous version, the irate general sent a blistering rejoinder. Abacha who could read the game very well swiftly impounded him, but this did not prevent the goggled one from meeting a similar fate.

    For months, there have been rumours of a final and terminal parting of way between godfather and godson. It was deliberately leaked to the press that Obasanjo was eyeing a Sule Lamido/ Rotimi Amaechi ticket. This was swiftly and hurriedly denied. The stinging economic rebuke is the clearest indication so far that that the Jonathan administration is an object of stringent scrutiny by Nigeria’s power mafia and the report card may not be too flattering.

    Predictably, the presidency has been placed at the equivalent of a war footing. Presidential canine sentries simply tore into Obasanjo. There were even echoes of Michael Okhai Akhigbe’s infamous put-down of the old warhorse as a frustrated farmer.

    Leading the pack of hounds is Doyin Okupe who ironically was Obasanjo’s former spokesperson. With patronizing glee, Okupe dismissed his former boss as a private citizen who is entitled to his own views. One can almost hear the bellicose medico smacking his lips in relish. It all recalls a passage from Job: “My desire is that mine enemy hath writ a book”.

    But the icing on the cake of insolence goes to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the feisty Central Bank Governor. Virtually dismissing Obasanjo as an economic illiterate, Sanusi, with caustic severity, added that the old war veteran may be a successful farmer but he is a bad economist. The main plank of Sanusi’s diatribe was that it was Obasanjo himself who had introduced mega-bill currencies into the Nigerian economy.

    Yet in the very next breath, and in patent self-contradiction, Sanusi added that Obasanjo’s introduction of mega-bills did not lead to inflation due to “prudent fiscal and monetary policy”. Does that not mean that in spite of himself, Obasanjo is not a bad economist after all? In any case, the Central Bank guru has not told us how the current massive run on the naira through various sinister scams and the Sanusi-endorsed unjust taxation of the poor called subsidy removal will not eventuate in printing more and higher megawatts naira thus fuelling more tacit devaluation and inflation.

    As it is often the case with Lamido Sanusi, the ease, fluency and facility of delivery seem to have got in the way of logic and deep reflection. In Nigerian officialdom it is not a crime to speak before thinking. Yet it is quite unlikely that these vitriolic denunciations could have passed without some tacit endorsement from the presidential bunker.

    The elephant has the castle within its rifle sight. But the castle is unmoved and unmoving. It all points at a nasty roforofo fight or what the Yoruba call yanponyanrin. The old general may be trying to return to his old political base. But for once in his career, he might have made a fatal political miscalculation with Jonathan. This is because other unstable variables might have crept into the equation. The chap from Otueke is unlikely to go down lightly and meekly.