Nyako, prince of the navy

Despite the full knowledge of our warts, I was left reeling at the assault on Adamawa citizens, in part because I thought we were getting better with respect to human behaviour, compared to the previous centuries when so many of our citizens died in the name of slavery and expediency. The pain in my stomach […]

Despite the full knowledge of our warts, I was left reeling at the assault on Adamawa citizens, in part because I thought we were getting better with respect to human behaviour, compared to the previous centuries when so many of our citizens died in the name of slavery and expediency.
The pain in my stomach was what I imagined it would feel like to wake up one morning to discover that my beloved and deceased father was a mass murderer. I cringed with exasperation. Not because that were true but because the interview was an exercise in self emollition. In Yola, the state capital, IDPs are all over the place. Potable drinking water, which according to the United Nations is sold in push carts only where poverty has established supremacy, is the norm rather than the exception. Children are out of school and have been for months and teachers have been denied salaries for close to a year. It is a damning report card for the tenure that captured the seven years of Nyako’s administration. So there could have been many curious soft points to take Abdulaziz on.
But alas! The questions on that Gotel TV programme were patronizing just as the answers were the quintessence of vanity. I had several concerns on the direction the interview was taking because the host took time to admonish the viewers that the guest spoke impeccable English, which the interview proved the guest obviously did not. It was even more shocking to realize that many Adamawa indigenes had no real concerns about fluency in English; all they wanted to know is where Nyako now was?  The scion of the Murtala Nyako naval dynasty was short of saying that “citizens are downtown and we are uptown; they are society’s dregs and we are royalty, princely and whimsical; they are all criminals, and we are denizens of crime country and law-abiding citizens”. I almost puked.
For me, it was a frightening indication of the dysfunction of Adamawa State, and, in my lifetime, the closest it had come to completely failing its people. If I were the reporter I would have asked the prince of the navy to explain why Murtala Hammanyero Nyako is in hiding if he were proud of his actions and why was he running from his shadow? There are many questions that could unravel the depth of poverty and underdevelopment of Adamawa state but they were not asked. The mystery therefore remains.
In the course of the interview the personality proffered certain theories that were neither empirically true nor socially plausible. He said that “once a man attains the age of forty, he would have no choice but to come to the aid of his father.” How untrue! If the father knew that he was incapable of holding political office why did he take it? The flip side of the coin is that while the father was tilling the Sepore Farms why did Abdulaziz not leave the navy to help Murtala?
 The message was oblique in the sense that those who watched the program with me were disgusted with the manner of the guest and the pompous language that even the presenter or host had to caution that “you speak like a soldier here”, which Abdulaziz responded in the affirmative and even added that “we are going to pound them”, as if the contest was a combat.
The question is why am I taking on this young man who, from all indications, has the right to vie for any office of his choice? It is because where there are no written laws that thwart individual impudence there are societal mores. Some people might argue that this is the free world. But there are, and must be, limits to freedom, even to free speech. A classic example of what is acceptable or unacceptable, ‘free speech’ is the serious view taken when one maliciously shouts, ‘fire! fire!’ in a crowded theatre. It is bound to cause a stampede. It gives the same ache in the public as when a Nyako, soon after that fiasco that was called a government seeks public approval to go and again represent them in the senate. To add insult to injury, not from the southern zone where they hail but from the central zone all contemptuous of what any sane person may consider rational. And what’s more, look boastfully at the cameras and say I am the prince of the navy? It is time people looked this young man in the eye and said to him, “that was then!”