The powerful man and his faeces

This is a simple way to kill a man that is too powerful for the entire community to deal with. Simply splatter his faeces by his doorstep. Then allow him to do what all powerful men do to such audacity.

 I do not lay claim to the ownership of the above theory. And it is not fiction either. There is a true-life story to it. The event happened less than 50 years ago. My generation witnessed it.

There was a powerful man in a community not too far from my hometown. He was the most esoteric man of his time and in his neighbourhood. He was a diviner, a wizard, a witch, a sorcerer and an inner member of the 16 esoteric club (Eléégbé Mérìndìnlógún). He was revered by many, feared by not a few and worshipped even by monarchs.

At one time, he held procreation to ransom in his town. Yes, you don’t have to believe me, but it happened. For three years running, monthly menstrual cycles ceased in women. Those who were pregnant could not deliver; the barren rubbed their camwood-stained fingers on the dry walls (àgàn f’owó osùn ra ògiri gbígbe) and men’s reproductive fluids dried up. All because the powerful man was angry.

Who offended him? Why did he have to punish the entire village? It was a simple matter. A married woman turned down the amorous advances of the powerful man towards her. She would rather die than warm the bed of the initiate. In anger, the man cast a spell on the entire community. He went further by withholding rain for almost a year. The draught was for all forms of productions and reproductions. He was wicked. He was unforgiving!

The town did not sleep over his matter. The elders gathered and took counsel. Enough is enough, they agreed. The powerful man must be eliminated for the community to breathe. Diviners were consulted, sorcerers were engaged, and the services of the owners of the day and night were not left out. But all amounted to nothing.

As many that were involved in the schemes did not live to tell the story. Many who were sent on the mission to other lands over the matter did not return; they perished on the journey. In all this, the powerful man remained in his house, doing his normal things and feeding fat on the limbs of goats as accompaniment of his pounded yam and the torso of the ram to eat his yamflour mash (óhún fi ori ewúré je’yán, óhún fi àgbò mòmò je’ká). He was gaining weight while the town was getting dried up!

The matter came to a head and the oba of the town decided to take the supreme action. After all, it is said that it is better for a man not to ascend the throne than to say he has no control over his domain (àfàì joyè sàn ju enu mi ò ká ìlú). The king decided to open the ancient calabash; he opted to join his ancestors.

The king summoned the last Oba-in-Council meeting. He wanted to properly hand over the affairs of what remained of his domain to the chiefs. That meeting was the worst ever. All attendees were sad. They knew what was to come, especially when the king requested that all attendees must come with their traditional paraphernalia of office.

A princess, the king’s favourite, in her teens, eavesdropped on the conversation. She waited till the last man spoke. Then she stepped into the chamber and announced, defiantly, that she had a solution to the problem.

Many of the chiefs were enraged. What audacity! How would a child step into the chamber uninvited to spew rubbish? What solution could a child have when those older than her father, the king, had died in the process of cracking the hard nut?

Wisdom however, prevailed as someone suggested that the council of elders should listen to the small girl. The chief who spoke in that direction reminded the elders that Ile Ife, the cradle of Yoruba race, was created through the wisdom of both the young and the old (Omodé gbón, àgbà gbón, òhun la fi dá Ilé Ifè). They asked the girl to speak up.

But rather than speak openly, the princess walked up to her father on his throne and whispered something to him for a few minutes. Done, she greeted the elders and went back to the inner parts of the palace to join her playmates.

The oba looked at his chiefs and announced that he would try what the princess suggested. If that failed, he would then take the last option of suicide. But what did the princess say, Kabiyesi? The chiefs asked their king. The oba merely looked at them and stood up. They chorused ‘Kabiyesi’ once more. The message was clear: mòsínú, mòsíkùn ni awo Ilé Ifè (the greatest diviner of Ilé Ifè is the one who keeps secrets in his stomach). The Oba-in Council rose.

Three days after the meeting, as the sun was setting, there was a great wailing from the powerful man’s house. At first, nobody responded. The old fox, the people said to themselves, had come out with another gimmick to kill people. Everybody stayed indoors.

The wailing continued and louder as more wailers joined. It was followed by sharp dirges. Then a man took the risk. He ventured out and tiptoed to the powerful man’s compound. What he saw shocked him. The lifeless body of the man was by his bag of charms. He wanted to be sure. He touched the body and found it cold like the nose of a dog!

The man leapt in joy. He ran to the palace to announce the good news. Sooner, the entire community was out. The news travelled far and near. The powerful man’s compound got filled up such that a needle thrown up had no space to land! The man died! But what killed him? Here is what the powerful man’s wife told the crowd.

Early that morning, as the powerful man stepped out of his house to offer the usual early morning invocation (Ìwúre òórò), he stepped on something. On a closer look, he discovered that it was faeces! Kaasa! He shouted, waking up the entire household. Who could have done this; who had the audacity to defecate by the doorstep of the wicked?

His wives knelt to beg him. An innocent child could have done that, they suggested. They asked him to have mercy all to know avail. He dashed into his room and brought out his bag of charms. Inside it were the most terrible of the charms one could find.

The powerful man brought out the gourd containing bójówò (die before sunset) and emptied the content on the faeces. He brought out àgbélépòtá (Kill-your-enemy-within the confines of your home) and recited the accompanying incantation. He used èpè (curse), he used àfòse (happen as I say) and he did not spare olúgbohùn (instant answer). He completed the process by dropping a good portion of àbùlé (powdery substance) that had no antidote! Done, he packed his bag, entered the house, instructing that nobody should wash off the faeces until the news of the death of the culprit was broken.

But as the sun was going down, the powerful man felt some sensation within him. Something he could not explain happened to him. He reached for his divination bags and consulted Ifa. Alas, Ifa revealed to him that the faeces by his door belonged to him. Págà! He lamented. His wives and children ran to him to ask what happened. The man ignored them and began incantations to reverse what he did in the morning. Then he realised that he used àbùlé! It was too late. The pain came down like torrents. His system changed. He knew that games are sold in carcasses (òkú ni eléran úntā).

Within the hours, the powerful man answered his creator! His family members wailed. The palace rejoiced. The princess who brought the solution was celebrated. The king caused the most expensive beads (Iyùn) to be put on her neck as she was decorated in camwood lotion.

The king told the chiefs what the princess whispered to him three days earlier. The girl advised that since the powerful man was too big for the community to handle, they should allow him to kill himself. She told the oba to find a way of getting the man’s faeces and splatter it by his door. Knowing that the powerful was wicked, the girl posited that he would likely not spare the culprit.

And that was what the king did. He got his most trusted servant to trail the powerful man to the dunghill where he used to defecate. The servant did as he was instructed. When the powerful man was done defecating, the King’s servant packed the faeces and at the dead of the night, splattered it by the doorstep of the man. The rest is history. People of my generation and those older know this fable as told around Egbeoba then! The theory here is the summary of the name of a friend, Aseniserare.

No man can be more powerful than his community. It is said in my place that while the swaddle of a man cannot go round the community, the swaddle of the community can suffocate a man. This is why the elders counsel that the powerful men of this world should tread gently. Why? The ground slips, our elders submit. And that is true, the ground slips. It does any season, rain or no rain.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the most powerful man in town today. This is not debatable. He was a governor between 1999 and 2007. He had 35 other contemporaries then. Today, those other ex-governors of his era carry his bag. Especially in his South-West, President Tinubu has his fellow former governors who now eat the crumbs from his table. Even those who are old enough to be his father now serve him. Tinubu is a typical Orí àpésìn (the head that others must worship).

Before becoming the President in 2023, Tinubu had played the role of a successful kingmaker. Lagos State, his adopted state of origin, is under his armpit. From the councillor to the governor, he determines who gets what in Lagos. He appoints and removes governors of the state as he wishes.

From Lagos, Tinubu exports politicians to other states. He did it in Osun State by donating this now estranged political son, Raufu Aregbesola, to the good people of Osun State as their governor. He supported Olusegun Mimiko in Ondo State. Ekiti and Oyo States had in the past ‘benefited’ from his political patronage. Ogun State is a ‘customer daada ni’ to the man called Jagaban! Tinubu told the Ogun State governor, Dapo Abiodun, to his face that without him (Tinubu), Governor Abiodun would not have smelled the Governor’s House. As far as Tinubu is concerned, the Ogun State governor is Dapo eleyi (this mere Dapo).

President Tinubu also registered his presence in the South-South, particularly Edo State. He made Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s governorship dream come through. The Jagaban’s political signatures can also be seen in Cross River, Delta, partly in Bayelsa and lately in Akwa Ibom States. He has, completely, by proxy, annexed the oil-rich Rivers State!

The Lion of Bourdillon has also spread his tentacles to the North. He was in Kano and Kaduna States. He successfully dislodged the Sarakis from Kwara State. His shadow looms all over the northern political landscape and he is the èrùjèjè (the fearful one) of the South-East.

The people of Imo State for instance, will not forget how he supported the candidate who came fourth in the gubernatorial election to become the governor by the pronouncement of the Supreme Court. Today, if Tinubu sneezes in Aso Rock, Governor Hope Uzodimma is available to inhale the virus!

What about Anambra State? When Tinubu visited last month, Governor Charles Soludo forgot his professorship in Economics as he worshipped the man whose certificate from Chicago State University or University of Chicago is still a subject of debate. Soludo, from a different political party, did not just endorse Tinubu for a second term, he caused all the traditional rulers of the state to confer the chieftaincy title of Dike Si Mba (Warrior from the Diaspora), on the President. Today, again, Enugu quakes under the feet of Tinubu as Ebonyi and Abia States appear conquered by him.

To cap it all, everyone who is something or somebody in the political theatre is ready to endorse Tinubu for 2027. More intriguing, those who declared Tinubu as a “drug baron’ in 2022/2023 are fighting naked in defense of the President! The 2027 endorsement for Tinubu is suffocating. The drumbeat of support is loud enough for the congenitally deaf to hear. President Tinubu has every reason to be happy; he has every justification to roll out the drums in celebration. But like our elders are wont to caution: the ground slips!

The opposition is in disarray like the community in our introductory fable. Tinubu also appears to be steps ahead of the ‘Coalition’ being formed by some old friends and foes. But should the opposition give up? Should those who want Tinubu out by 2027 resign to fate because the man appears to be steps ahead of his adversaries? I will not answer for them!

But I know there is a prince eavesdropping the conversation in the political council chamber. All the people need to do is to allow him to whisper the solution to their ears. Tinubu is not totally impenetrable; he is not completely invincible! No man is! Otherwise, he would not have lost Lagos State to the Labour Party (LP) in 2023!

How did he lose that all-important election in Lagos of all places? The people were genuinely tired of his politics. I am not among those who believed that only the Igbo residents in Lagos did the 2023 magic No! What happened was a combination of all forces, what my people call ogun àpapò (concerted efforts). Everyone dissatisfied with Tinubu’s leadership style rose against him. The battle cut across all tribes. That was why it reverberated.

It is also a feat that I believe can be repeated; it can happen again. It is even more feasible now than then. The Lagos of today is more vulnerable than the Lagos of 2023. The crack is already there, the pretension to the contrary doesn’t matter! President Tinubu himself started it with his inúbíbí (anger) and èdòfùfù (fiery temper).

Like the powerful man, Tinubu’s faeces are fresh out there on the dunghill of Lagos. It is waiting for those who will pack it and splatter it at the Bourdillon palatial home of the President and wait for him to empty his bag of charms. He started the process penultimate Saturday when he openly snubbed Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

Yes, Governor Sanwo-Olu has called us “people who cry more than the bereaved.” He added that we are “more Catholic than the Pope.” I saw the video of the governor’s visit to Tinubu’s private home over the weekend. Nobody needs any seer to know that Sanwo-Olu is a troubled man, a man in deep agony.

We should not waste time analysing his mien, his composure and utter lack of self-esteem in that video. I don’t want us to focus on his gaunt stature as he spoke to the microphone. A man who does not complain of body pain is not sympathised with for lack of sleep or slumber (Tí alâra bá ní ara ò ro òhun, a kii ki kú àìsùn, kú àìwo) He said Tinubu is his father. Yet he was “grateful that he has given us the audience today to come in and say hello to him.”. Some fathers, some sons!

If the opposition cum coalition thinks that dislodging Tinubu in 2027 is by political rhetoric, conferences and academic appearances on television talk shows, the man they love to hate won’t move an inch. He will continue to spend our money to commission a less than 30-kilometre road out of 700 kilometres and asked us to trek if we cannot afford the tolls.

That is not the language of a man who needs our votes for his second term. Only a man who is sure he has gotten 2027 in his pouch speaks in such an arrogant manner. Only a powerful man talks down that way on the citizenry because he knows that the opposition is too lazy, the coalition too colourless and his political enemies nauseatingly self-serving!

In his euphoria, may God allow President Tinubu the wisdom to know that there is no champion for life! Everyone is endorsing the President, his party is the destination for all politicians, but he must beware of the antics of politicians. May he also know that the masquerade tethered to the elder’s waist cannot afford to dance perilously at the arena. That a man cannot become too powerful for his community.

Many empires have come and gone. No dynasty lasts forever! Our elders say when the cord holding the skin becomes too tight, the Bàtá drum brings out louder sounds. What follows is a disaster: the Bàtá tears! I would have loved to say more here but our tradition forbids a young man to speak to an elder in parables. President Tinubu is an elder!

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