The return of fine bara

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Around 1980 or so the Fuji lord, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, tore into his promoter, Olabisi Ajala of the “Ajala travel all over the world” fame, for being too exploitative. His lines: “Oni o gbe bukata wa/Ayinde mo gbo bukata re/ ola ogbe bukata wa/Ayinde mo gbo bukata re/ Ema se ba won wi o/ Fine bara/Decent bara ni.” Gloss: Today you come with burdens, I bear them. Tomorrow you come with burdens, I bear them. (My people) Don’t rebuke them, it’s stylish begging, decent begging.”

Throughout his career, Barrister, as his admirers fondly called him, scoffed at leeches even among members of his own extended family, prompting a rebuke from his long-time rival and friend Kollington Ayinla, who panned him for being an unfeeling star who “abused those who birthed him” (“Eni to n soro s’awon to bi, to n f’ebi e tayin”). But Barrister’s bustle is not my topic today. My interest lies in the recreation of the parasitism he deplored through President Muhammadu Buhari and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) naira redesign policy that has effectively turned out to be cash confiscation.

In the Jero series Wole Soyinka informs us that prophets do not like to be frightened. As it’s turned out in recent weeks, not even judicial majesties like to be frightened. Firmly “grabbing” their opportunity to lash Buhari, the judges of the apex court took no prisoners last week. In a unanimous decision, they trashed and dustbined the president’s order outlawing the use of the old N1000 and N500 notes (and restoring only the use of the old N200 notes along with the new notes until April 10 this year), tagging his action an affront on the 1999 Constitution. That is, an affront on their, and other citizens’ economic survival. Delivering their verdict in the case brought by 16 states of the Federation against the Federal Government, the justices took the president to the cleaners, ruling that the old naira notes and the new ones must circulate together until December 31.

Hear Justice Emmanuel Agim, who delivered the lead judgment: “The rule of law upon which our democratic governance is founded becomes illusory if the president of the country or any authority or person refuses to obey the orders of courts.” Agim went on to charge the president with a string of infractions, including usurping the powers of the CBN when he issued the directive banning the old naira notes from February 10, breaching the fundamental rights of Nigerians with the unlawful use of executive powers that inflicted unprecedented economic hardship on them, and giving “no reasonable notice” to the public “in line with Section 20 of the CBN Act, 2007.” In the last eight years that Buhari has taken charge of Nigeria’s affairs like a czar, the judges of the Supreme Court have never gone after him like they did on Friday March 3, so what could be responsible for their volte face? Look no further than Barrister’s fine bara, decent bara concept. I’ll explain presently.

Like other categories of big Nigerians, their judicial majesties must have been riled up by their inability to spend their own money, and by the demeaning practice of begging family and friends for a bob and a tanner! It goes like this: “Emeka, I don’t know if you’ve got like, say, N1,000 there. I need to have an haircut!” The speaker here is not a bend-down-select merchant in Yaba; (s)he is a millionaire made an emergency beggar by Buhari/Emefiele’s naira confiscation gimmick. Imagine delivering a one-hour judgment as an apex court judge, then suddenly remembering that you do not have N300 with which to buy ordinary booli. That is madness. You definitely need a town hall different from balablu! Imagine being unable to make a down payment for roast corn even as a newspaper editor! This is obviously the work of the devil. No two ways about it. If anybody commits any “stupid crime” at this time when judges are not smiling, they will use congo to measure out a lengthy sentence for him or her! Fellow Nigerians, do not choose this kind of time to be unfortunate!

Following the Supreme Court judgment, Nigerians expected either President Buhari or the CBN Governor to at least say something comforting, but mum was the word from both, even when some Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) began paying out the old naira notes on Monday. It is all theatre of course: the same banks paying out the old notes have been rejecting them as deposits, and no one has been able to spend the money so far. Go to markets, restaurants, etc, with the old notes and you get disgraced. We are talking about the same old notes harvested by shrewd traders as Nigerians hurriedly sought to dispose of them after the February 10 deadline, buying things at cut-throat prices just to be rid of the notes which they expected the traders to go through stress depositing at the CBN! In an inversion of the Afrobeat king Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s lines, this is double wahala for living body!

Right now, the anger on the streets is oven-hot, and Emefiele should not dare to adventure himself into the streets, the theatre of rage, except under armed guard. Boys and girls are not smiling and if market women should chance upon him, they would tell him something! In Yorubaland there is something called pasaye, which is making a targeted person a living-dead. The target is beaten to stupor and grievously wounded in such a way that (s)he is practically dead, yet breathing. Such a person would be seeing his/her ancestors in a clear vision, but be unable to join them. Unless something is done to arrest the looming descent into anarchy, that is the fate that awaits the hoarders of the people’s money. I hope the time never comes when bank managers will be pounded in the mud by irate mobs. How can you collect people’s cash and fail to give it back? For how long are the devious, wealthy individuals living in forced modesty expected to keep up with the pretended humility?

Let no one trust in the power of arms. Just give the people their money. Drafted to keep the peace, Mr. Soldier, seeing his own son in the rabble, would direct his bullets to Afghanistan. Proverbs to bones and silence.

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