“All local beauties were off the menu. He had those when he was a regular soldier. Now that his taste buds had graduated from the banal to the high-end exquisite, the man wanted something supple and foreign”
──Don Okolo
Leave Cardinal Jim Rex Lawson alone. This is not about him. He was great man, and a great musician to boot. My mind is one million light years away from him. He was the crooner-in-Chief…the quintessence of a melody maker. It is not him that has drawn my indignation on this day. I am right now standing at the doorstep of Nigeria’s worst authoritarian nightmare…the despot who never slept once on any night, in all the years he was in office. Well, because he feared he would be overthrown if he were to sleep at night. In his mind, the entire capital city of Abuja and her denizens were out to get him.
And if they came, they would come at midnight, or inside the wee hours. I am looking through the window, through the mind of this tyrant who spat blood-filled phlegm (Mucus) and gorged Tuwoo-sinkafa with unmatched speed and frenzy to make sharks feeding on a carcass of fish jealous at every mealtime. It is the soul-searching foray (Expedition) to tear through the fabrics of one of the world’s most oppressive dictator(s), and why he lived with a huge hole in his soul that never once bothered him. These are the things I want revealed: Why he fed the crocs he was breeding in his man-made pond entirely on human flesh.
The crocs grew to pre-historic sizes. His men stood in wait around the waterhole to collect crocodile poops, of the latest victim, as they passed them. The waste was put into a casket and shipped to the victim’s family to be buried…on the strict orders that it remained a closed casket.
The man turned his enemies into crocodile parp to keep his enemies in check. That was how much fear Nigerians had to live with during his reign.
The man turned his enemies into crocodile parp to keep his enemies in check. That was how much fear Nigerians had to live with during his reign. Almost everyone living in Lagos and Abuja was paralyzed with fear. You see, all you had to do to end up on the crocodile menu was look at this man the wrong way. If you were close enough to him, you would have done yourself a favor, if you looked at him with a freaking smile on your face. Should you fake it, he would know, and you were doomed.
Men around him were usually great actors…men who could convince an Eskimo to buy from them a bucket of snow. One had to be that good to avoid a late dinner invite to Aso Rock. If you were unlucky, he would ask you to bring your gorgeous wife along for that dinner. Right after, he would make you watch. The copulation was usually vicious. Your wife ended up under him on the promise he would let you live and not feed you to the crocodiles. Rumor has it that his canon was legendary and untamed (Uncircumcised). You should know he was not the man to keep his promises. Stay with me!
People resorted to a certain gambit to buy that elusive favor from the gang of hard-hatted men who lived in this court of barbarians; neighbors turned in their neighbors on made-up stories about false insurrections for a fistful of cash…even as he/she had said nothing against the strongman. His men would appear unannounced at your house, in the dead of night, and whisk you off to Aso Rock for a Q and A that was designed to dampen your obstinate bent. Hot prods and suya knives were employed. You would be roasted, sliced and diced before the crocodiles would get you.
Women from Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain were flown in daily to work on his lower back, and his lower front
But it was his insatiable appetite for sex that got me. Women from Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain were flown in daily to work on his lower back, and his lower front; they were tasked to mimic the touches borne out of subtleties, the finesse of soft grips to get this third-grader singing in F-minor. It was with the same efficiency as a Balinese massage therapist would apply that these motley crew from the Persian Gulf worked their magic.
All local beauties were off the menu. He had those when he was a regular soldier. Now that his taste buds had graduated from the banal to the high-end exquisite, the man wanted something supple and foreign. The Strongman stylized the sexual games he played, pushing the boundaries of morality into the realm of pure profligacy (Sinfulness) as he wrote his own sexual treatise and new theories on escapades of the flesh.
Stay with me, folks! Don’t ever think of abandoning me in this Caligula (Roman Emperor) fashioned landscape of licentiousness (Immorality). I couldn’t find my way back to base, if you deserted me. The man’s construction of this loopy thoroughfare (Highway) would lead me straight to hell if I followed it.
Take this to your bank: He was the same man who waltzed into the Federal Reserve Bank (Central Bank) and carted away boxes of cash, in the billions. He would move the cache into brand new Toyota Coaster buses. His men would drive them to remote countryside locales and bury the buses there. Fifteen Coaster buses were uncovered…dug up in just one location. The buses were estimated to hold more than five billion in U.S dollars, and two billion of Queen Elizabeth’s hard-to-acquire sterling. You should know that the Toyota Coaster buses were gutted before they were put to use. I am not done yet!
Sani Abacha, the man with the face of a puff adder, wanted so much to rule forever. He had hopes of living forever, too. He could, in his mind, defy God and create for his benefit, a potion that would guarantee him eternal existence. These possibilities drove his mind into the crannies where insane and afflicted souls lived and pried their trade in quiet solemnity in everything ethereal (otherworldly).
He was an ardent practitioner of this wicked faith. To certify that he was on a plateau others like him couldn’t reach or tread on, he demanded special sacrifices be made…special kinds of murder be carried out in the appeasement of the shallow gods he was looking to pacify. I am not making this up, folks. I will be the first to admit that this stuff makes for a great dramatic tale.
The kidnapping of children on their way to school happened every day. The gods in the constellation of Abacharoid held steady on their demands, too: Kids over the age of ten must not be kidnapped. They must fall inside the ages of seven to ten to qualify. Then, would they be considered ripe for sacrifice on Abacha’s sadistic elevated platforms, caked with blood from sacrifices past.
He lost, romping wickedly on imported Arabian thoroughbreds…in a threesome carnal scuffle.
He believed he was invincible…that his close-to-his-vest workings in the field of alchemy…to transform the blood of innocence into flaming virtuosities would keep him safe and in power…ad infinitum (Forever). He lost, romping wickedly on imported Arabian thoroughbreds…in a threesome carnal scuffle. And the three dames from the Gulf, we were told, never left the Blue Room alive after they were done with him.
But the man died in the grips of bliss, wrapped inside the draperies of humiliation. Clearly, an oddity. I will grant him one thing though; he came and went at the same time…like the Comedian, Richard Pryor, would say. That is the squalid tale of this once a country. It hasn’t changed, and if you asked me, it would never change. Men like Sani Abacha are lined up waiting their turn at the big chair…and all of them, Galadima, Sanusi, Ibrahim, Mohammad and Garuba Dantata are from the northern oligarchy.
♦ Don Okolo, Professor and filmmaker, is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of many books.
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