Today is 40 plus one day already since we celebrated Christmas. Many Nigerians actually struggled really hard to make merry indeed. Those in parts of Plateau State would have preferred to struggle to make merry than to be shot in cold blood on Christmas morning. However and wherever you found yourself at Christmas, surely now, the tastes of 41 days ago must have left the buds of everyone. However, the mouth which does not reckon with yesterday’s feasting is always at its post like a true soldier. The mouth will make demands as its natural role and will always seek more stuffing.’ By the way, Christmas was 40 days ago yesterday and the number of days after Christmas leapt vividly on Friday when Catholics everywhere in the world celebrated the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. After Christmas and epiphany and now, presentation, the mouth, like the orisa that receives appeasement every day, has been receiving its due willy-nilly.
The mouth and the belly are related in their eternal quest for more. The Igbo refer to the stomach as a deep well which humans struggle daily to fill. The ‘well’ which the stomach is receives appeasement just like the mouth. The quest to fill the belly triggers various kinds of human activities. This need also brings about reactions to difficulties many Nigerians encounter in their desire to meet this basic daily existential need. However these difficulties don’t seem to get the kind of attention the normal Nigerian desires from their government at all levels. There doesn’t seem to be any strong will on the part of our minders to ease the difficulties. Those who are in charge of our resources have refused to use them to help ease our difficulties. Rather, our rulers are on a rabid competition for a medal in who gets richer at the end of their government expedition. The country and all its wealth are in their big agbada pockets which many believe are connected to the suits and cloaks of some foreign powers.
My grandfather brought me very close some proverbs and anecdotes that are common in Ikwuano. I heard from him that Òkúkò n bu mmiri achu òkpàrà, ulo a-digi ya mma. The fowl pursuing (hunting) grasshoppers in the rain has some real domestic issues. He also told me one anecdote that has to do with the ogunwagalaba or simply ogu (chameleon) and his frightened children in the face of a raging storm. From the same man, I also got fed with a short, amusing, interesting but beautiful life lesson the bush fowl (òkwà) taught through his advice to his boisterous children. But of the many of such narrations that live inside of us (as still) village children, the one that came as the most relevant now is that which has to do with our relationship with a very common domestic animal: the chicken (òkúkò).
Because of their availability, chickens are almost taken for granted in the Igbo rural and semi-urban communities. We see free ranging chickens nearly every day, everywhere and anyhow. They live and are catered for within the compound. Most homes would have chickens which they rear for food. Some are so gifted that they have so many of them to make commercial items of, apart from the food purpose of the chickens. The point is not the sociology of chickens or the act of rearing them in homes and in communities; it is the anecdote that comes from the very domestic animal. In Ikwuano, we are taught that when you wake up in the morning and the chicken chases after you, run because you wouldn’t know if it had grown teeth overnight.
Of course, as with anecdotes and proverbs, this is not about the chicken. It is not about what the domestic fowl can do to you even at its most vicious state but about the sudden change from the usual attitude. It is about the fact that even some of the most ardent supporters of the government and administration of President Ahmed Tinubu have suddenly started to act like the proverbial chicken that is pursuing the owner of the house early morning. They are all over the social media and in various business establishments where the economics of the Tinubu administration is dealing with Nigerians.
One of the most prominent examples in consideration is the popular Fuji musician, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall. The veteran artiste is popularly referred to as K1 The Ultimate. He was all over the Internet on Thursday and yesterday (Friday) for calling out Tinubu. The dog that wags its tail when he sees you and frisks you now barks viciously at you, President Tinubu. That is what many have taken the ranting of K1 the Ultimate to mean. Something has gone wrong in the relationship between the dog and its friend.
Another school of thought believes that the K1 The Ultimate was a bait. They think the royal musician, the Number One Tinubu supporter, could not have so quickly joined the over-crowded train of wailers less than nine months into an administration he worked so very hard to enthrone. K1 is a rich man, and he has worked hard and long enough to earn that flower, but is he now back in the trenches with the normal Nigerian? It is better, in the contention of the nay-sayers, that Nigerians must not fall for his leg-over. Nigerians must look away from the lamentations of K1 and other Tinubu supporters.
It is for every individual to react as they deem fit. The majority will know that if the Nigerian economy continues in this uncontrolled drift, even government appointees, who are seen as the real conduits, will lament and cry out. For now, only the affected and afflicted cry. But, are they listening? Are they listening to the shrill cry of hounded of Nigeria in the beleaguered states? Are they listening to their cries in Plateau State? Are they listening to their cries in Benue State? What are the new things the Tinubu administration has done about and in Taraba, Kaduna and Niger states with regards to security?
Wasiu the ace musician didn’t even make allusions to the security situation. He didn’t remember that Ekiti State is currently sour. He is more concerned about the fact that there is hunger in the land. When hunger takes possession of the belly, nothing else would find space there. He spoke to hunger and sundry hardship in the land, serious issues on their own, even if some took it with a pinch of salt.
He knows that traditional rulers were murdered in Ekiti. He also knows that school children were snatched from their mothers and fathers in the state. These are heart-rending situations to which the affected parents and relatives would want resolved before food is placed on the table. The state is in dire need of leadership as far as security is concerned. The EFCC boss has been explaining his allegation that some religious sects are in cahoots with terrorists. He is on the way to eating his words. While he does that, he should remember that people are being kidnapped daily and people are being killed.
But why is K1The Ultimate in the main arena here? He is one of those who can get the ears and the serious attention of the powers that be. So, let him continue to raise the issues as they affect all of us, for the government isn’t supposed to be for a few people. The government isn’t supposed to hear only those who would simply compare our sorry security state to what the United States of America and South Africa are suffering. With the comparisons, the likes of our Oga Bayo Onanuga is saying that we should keep quiet because we have not been killed as much as they are killing themselves in the USA and South Africa.
and then