Welcome 2019, welcome the new president!
Brethren, hardly is there a nation which is devoid of its heroes and villains, definitely not ours. In fact, a perceptive contemplation of our landscape here would compel the conclusion that there is no other nation which is so blest with such an assemblage of men who would not be happy to be governed by […]
Brethren, hardly is there a nation which is devoid of its heroes and villains, definitely not ours. In fact, a perceptive contemplation of our landscape here would compel the conclusion that there is no other nation which is so blest with such an assemblage of men who would not be happy to be governed by an angel but by scoundrels as ours. Wherever you turn, your sensibilities would be assailed and confronted by men in the so-called corridors of power who have achieved fame for the shame they bring to bear on their tribe and their nation. These are men who actually became men only by the favour they receive through your ballot. Before then, they were little men; they were like lilies of the field: they toil not nor do they spin. Soon after finding themselves in positions of honour they became like broken-down peddlers and hucksters of infamy and irredentism. In addition to being governors of their “villages”, they have become purveyors of hatred and proselytizers of animus. They have achieved notoriety as disturbers of public mind and sanity. It was Frantz Fanon who once said that he who adulates the Negro is as sick as he who abominates him.
Suddenly, the soul of this nation has been seized by those who constantly abominate one tribe in order to adulate the other. It is those who Nigeria has fed, clothed and housed freely and for years that now seeks its death and dissolution.
In other words, brethren, I had once entertained the thought that what they refer to as democracy is nothing but a human experiment which is perfected with the passage of time. I had thought that the experiment that produced Obama would surely produce a better one. I had thought the furnace from which emerged the Buhari of today would equally produce other Buharis for this nation. I had patronized that now disingenuous thought simply because I thought only one “angel” could carry out the redemptive work urgently needed in this nation. I thought one “Buhari” was enough for national rejuvenation. But I am wiser now. Democracy will always be democracy. It is a game of numbers. It is all about the quantity of the heads not the quality. Nobody would ask for the vote by ballot, says John Strachan, but from gross ignorance; vote by ballot is the most corrupt way of using the franchise.
There is nothing an ‘angel’ could do in a parliament populated by political vampires, blood-guzzling economic monsters and villainous tribalists. In a city where eccentricity is fashionable, where volubility is faddish and where insanity gains political acceptability, only two alternatives are available for the discerning minds: an escape into some sort of utopian space or the distillation of the slippages in our national life using insights from the Quran. For me the latter is a categorical imperative.
Open the last testament and you would discover very quickly that three different categories of people gain mention in the Quranic construction of human identities. The first are the believers (Quran 2: 2-5). They are disbelieving believers: believers who disbelieve entities other than the Almighty; believers who realize the temporality of all earthly comforts and authorities. Until you are the positive disbeliever, you cannot be a believer (Quran2: 256).
The second group is that of the willful disbelievers (Quran 2: 6-7). To them, the death of god has long been proclaimed; there can be no other authority on earth where human freedom is at issue; there is no eternal life since life here on earth is pleasing enough. The third group is the enemy-within: those who identify with us but are actually not with us (Quran 2: 8-12).
Now where and how do we classify the ‘new’ hero in town? He is an irredentist of the ‘best’ strain. He detests Islam with passion; he hates Muslims with devotion. Muslims in his domain are treated like denizens. He abominates the north, he adulates the Yoruba. He is without exception, the most exerting of national disquisition. Every pore in his skin oozes hatred for the other. He desires the Buhari of this world expires, and quickly too. He dreams of a day he would be handed the rein of sovereignty over this land. He is the ‘new’ President; for him 2019 is here.
When the above news reached me, in the solitude of my office, here in the academy where some sanity still remains, I laughed eerily. I wondered: would someone somewhere remind me exactly who the politician is? Then I remembered this intervention – politicians are like sperm, only one in a million turns out to be a human being! Indeed it is he who has lost his humanity that desires death for the other; it is he who has lost the essence of existence that appropriates tomorrow for himself. What a sorry subject humanity is – though its death is imminent yet it continues to build castles in the air.