Windows

The prince of hauteur

Published by

6 days ago

THERE is a damnable cast of crooks that the Yoruba call “eni awosunkun to n wo ‘ra re rerin”, meaning a person that people look at with (scorn and) tears, but who looks at himself/herself and bursts into a smile. Whatever language you speak, you definitely have such horrible souls in your community. By their speech, you will know them. They are lunatics who have sewn the garment of pride for themselves, irredeemable in their arrogance boiled in ignorance. One of such individuals looked at the sky recently and judged it beneath himself: he proclaimed to whoever had ears that he would never forgive his enemies even if the Almighty did say we are to do so. A man is what he finds in his lavatory, but these tyrants speak as if the sky pays them rent. The narcissistic dunce who sees only the evil others did to him, not his own biography of crime, does not really interest me, but the duty of writing as righting urges a warning. And this is my last.

Throughout history, just like the god of man who recently decreed that whoever wrote any report about him or his church would be locked up, and like the royal ruffian who recently gave himself an alien title and directed his employers to note the latest lunacy, there have been leaders who thought so highly of themselves that they wrecked their societies. Louis XIV of France, the monarch of extravagance, war and religious politics who believed he was supreme; Adolf Hitler the purveyor of Aryan superiority; Joseph Stalin the king of brutal purges; Caligula the Emperor of extravagance, and Marie Antoinette, Queen of the stupidity, not forgetting Leopold II, the butcher of Belgium, all thought they were sane. When Leopold spoke he harped on his benevolence—yes, the same rogue who had the Congolese tortured beyond torture. A lunatic does not know that anything ails him. Were o mo pe nnkan n se oun.

In literature, Creon in Sophocle’s Antigone, Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’ play of that title, and Jay Gatsby of Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby won’t let anyone forget them. They are Gongosu, King of Edidare: they are as foolish as the wisdom they thought they had. Well, a lunatic does not know that anything ails him: he is locked in something far worse than Plato’s cave. Proverbs to the brutes shedding ghommid tears regarding what their captured protégés did to them, not the evil they themselves did to a state and a race. Like Mr. Kurtz, the character in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness whose trading exploits in Africa are driven by megalomania, they do not know that their brain is the stadium of demons.

Corrupt and evil to the bone, never having held an honest job outside politics, the prince of hauteur thinks himself to be the punisher of his community. He forgets, like the Igbo say, that if a man cooks for the society, the society will finish the food but if the society cooks for a man, he will never finish it. Our elders have words but fools have no ears. Proclaiming joy in hurting people, the ruffian does not know that the ground slips. If you own today, you definitely cannot own tomorrow. Proof? No one knew you yesterday. And tomorrow, no one will make way for today’s horse rider. If the king insulted everyone, would he have a throne today?

As our people say, “Jẹ́ kí ńfi ìdí hẹ lálejò fi ǹti onílé sóde.” (A stranger says let me just hang in this corner, then pushes out the owner of the house). It was a little power that the “owners” of yesterday gave the brute, then he became a law unto himself. He is the proverbial goat that stands on a hill; he does not see what lies behind the mountain. The stubborn person, the Haya people of Tanzania warn, sails in a clay boat; his fried yam, per the Yoruba, is getting over-peppered. Proverbs to yesterday’s gin, potent in slaying the power of reason, and in cooking liver wreckage. A bird that flies off the earth and lands on an anthill is still on the ground, say the Igbo, but no prince of hauteur knows that. These rogues are the awosunkun, the people about whom the society sheds bitter tears, but who, when they look at themselves, see nothing but laughter and glory. They would do well to read Graham Greene’s The power and the glory, a novel in which a priest “drags” a bone with a dog. Life will teach those who wish to learn that a priest can become a dog, and a dog a priest.

When you live by insulting elders, you make a case against your old age. Proverbs to the Insulters-in-Chief of this Republic, and the minions mauling their tomorrow. Just how do you combine ghastly looks with ghastly conduct? Wise people say easy does it and as the Juju music Lord Ebenezer Obey once warned, “kangun kangun kangun” will surely kangun (end) in one place. Let me sound it loud and clear to these arrogant dogs barking themselves hoarse in the public space: there is a God above who made the earth that you are trampling with haughtiness, and when your day comes your shame will be longer than your years. What’s the nastiness and meanness about? Do you think you have death locked in your pouch?

Fuji lord Killington Ayinla was miffed by such obnoxious characters. He sang that the words of their mouth would be their doom: “Igberaga lo n se won o/ won ti lafojudi ju/ Oro enu won lo ma ko ba won.” The errand boy who insults his grandfather’s age mates has never heard the Ugandan proverb, “When you befriend a chief, remember that he sits on a rope.” He keeps eating the world like yam, acting as if there will be no tomorrow.

Rich brutes are so driven by money that they fry it in hot oil, and open their door to thieves. Their tomorrow will pay for their today.

Re: The Priscilla Ojo-Juma jux wedding jamboree

I read your recent article with mixed feelings. Agreed, you are trying to preach morals and humility; my fear is that you chose the wrong couple ( Mr & Mrs. Juma Priscilla Jux). Show-off is the stuff of celebrities worldwide. They relish an ostentatious lifestyle. It intoxicates them, and as they say, different strokes for different folks. What you vehemently detest may be what other people like and covet. The couples are in their own world. They don’t see anything wrong in what you perceive as morally reprehensible and outright insanity. This is a free world, as nowadays, youth often say. Yacoob Abiodun 0810 350 1024.