With Nigeria, I am not a happy camper. I am disgruntled…aware that I have been living in this hellhole filled with vipers.
―Don Okolo
They couldn’t care one bit about the death of their old master, because they wanted more; they looked up at the man whose face was hidden behind a mask, expecting more of the two-pound romp of meat blocks he threw at them. Instead, the man reloaded and blew both dogs away for good measure. He would sit at the dead man’s table, pour himself a cup of the Columbian and lean back against the wall to savor his deeds. Now that there are no dogs to watch the coffers…let the looting begin.
For an autopsy report, that would be pretty damning and conclusive that the one who took a double-snouted shotgun blast to the head, at close a range as one foot away, had died. One would expect to find the remnants of bone fragments, skin tissues, and a splatter of brain matter against the white-washed wall, where the victim was seated against while sipping coffee and catching up on his daily dose of the day’s news from Daily Times. He did not see the intruder scale his backyard walls, engage his guard dogs by feeding them red meat, and then slowly had walked his way, stealthily toward the kitchen’s back door to let himself in. The dogs, both crossbreeds of a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler, have found a new master…one with a goodie-bag of delights. They probably followed him into the house and watched as their new buddy, on His Majesty’s Secret Service, took aim, and blew to smithereens, the head of the one they have known for ages.
The question is: How much of a thief are you? Are you one with a heart, or one that wants it all? Larceny (Thievery) is not always learned.
This decapitation and post-mortem happened right after Yakubu Gowon was granted a free pass to London, England to nurse his wounds, pass up his days wallowing emptily. He had quite a cache (as in cash, too) with him; one hundred million pounds he had carted away to fall back on. Let me make one thing clear here: If I were the Head of State at the time, I would have helped myself with as much. The simple fact is this; it would be near impossible for anyone to state categorically, that he/she would walk into a den with that big a cachepot no one was guarding and only lick his/her lips staring into all that cash money and not dip their filthy hands into it. The question is: How much of a thief are you? Are you one with a heart, or one that wants it all? Larceny (Thievery) is not always learned.
Yakubu Gowon was a Christian…and could have been the only reason why Murtala Mohammed, Obasanjo, Theophilus Danjuma, and Adekunle (The Scorpion) did not waltz into Igboland to commit a Rwandan styled massacre of the Igbo people. Arguably, Gowon would be the only one with the resolve of a true Christian, the bona-fides of a true human being, to have ruled Nigeria. In my opinion, we owe him. With the departure in early 1975 of Yakubu Gowon, that is, the scaling over the walls began. The guard dogs were compromised, and we took a beating first, and then a shotgun blast to the head. Since then, the foxes have been guarding the henhouse. Nah!!! They have been invading the hen houses and eating up all the chickens.
Here are the names of these cunning beasts, held together by a common thread…the muscle of being miserably, mentally under-developed to govern, whose mouths are filled with bird flesh: Murtala, Buhari, Babangida, Obasanjo (forget the toothless attempt at democracy of Shehu Shagari and Shonekan) Deadly as a cobra, Sani Abacha, Abdul Sallam, Obasanjo, again, to his hand-picked stooge, Goodluck Jonathan, Buhari, again…and you will begin to see a cesspool of incompetents; men that were at the bottom of common knowledge who took turns blasting away at the body of a moribund (dying) polity.
Who needs to go to school in the region where her people do not clamor to acquire a feat as noble as…and as distinguished as…?
Someone just recently submitted the fallacy that one does not need a formal education to rise to the position of power…to govern, that is. He said, all one would ever need is the governing competence, education be damned, to manage the affairs of a people. (Oshomole) By saying so, he had, inadvertently, or willfully blown smoke into the anus of past and present rulers of this beleaguered nation in the last forty-five years. And right now, they are happy. The next despot waiting in the wings should be fired up; he would most likely gather up his elementary school certificate, and the slew of roadside, market square, bunker house, boiler pit accolades printed in Oshodi and burn them. He doesn’t need to lie about his academic achievements, if any…any longer. By saying so, who needs to go school? Who needs to go to school in the region where her people do not clamor to acquire a feat as noble as…and as distinguished as…?
The precepts (principles) of all governance are teachable. Believe me, they are. There are Public Affairs Schools, where the various disciplines of acute policy-making decisions are taught. The simple process of any decision-making is propagated under certain aegis or protection of strictness, and pride. And, not a shade of it is driven by nepotism and/or religious bull crap.
Sodom City, a book of mine, tells the tale in languid diatribe, and in most passages, viperous language. The truth most Nigerians would rather not be told. They know that they are sick to the core, but would rather not accept the diagnosis and the prospects of the kind of decay that would set in should they continue to wallow in this extremely shallow grave with vultures clearly hovering above. The next strong wind would expose the carcass…and the vulture, the notoriously patient bird, would swoop down for easy pickings. There is this unheard-of symphony palpable in the wind…her quotients have been misread…deliberately misinterpreted to keep the royal screwing in place…because it benefits those it was designed to benefit. The once prominent notes are now disjointed. Who is conducting this farce? (Travesty) Do we have a world audience listening to this cacophony? Are Nigerians watching this symphony from hell satisfied with it? Could it be that we are cool with the stridency? (Harshness) Have we not learned from the sound of shells being pushed into double-barreled chambers that we could be shot if we didn’t seek a safer ground? Have we no fear of leather being rapidly pulled through seven wrangler belt loops (John Wayne) that we are about to get a lashing? Would we remain in the vicinity of the one brandishing the shotgun? Those are the things I want to know. With Nigeria, I am not a happy camper. I am disgruntled…aware that I have been living in this hellhole filled with vipers. It is as if I am immune to her stings and would live in this pit of depravity, they themselves dug, and not raise a ruckus of my own to fend them off. I could have imbibed her (the viper colony) culture of carefully standardized apathy, (Inactivity) who waits for their meals to come to them. This is an elegiacal tribute to the vipers’ sauciness and their lackadaisical arrogance towards me.
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