“Ours is a demonstration of craze after all!”
He rode into office drunk. Even before his ride, one could not help but remember how he stood atop the mountain of fire to issue a fatwa to the striking workers for being so blind, deaf and dumb to the transformation agenda of his master.
Although he could be labeled a veteran–when Nigerian democracy from 1999 is discussed–having been a local government chairman, a chief of staff to a governor, and at consecutive times junior and senior minister of the federal republic, he appears to have learnt nothing on what democracy entails.
The moment he paid for his form, like a wrestler whose confidence rose to pinnacle on seeing the golden belt, he equated democracy with conquest, ballot for bullet and apostasy in place of naysaying. The governor’s sit became the Iron Throne and the process, a “Game of Thrones” wherein the players either win or die. Welcome he says, to democracy’s fin de siècle.
In words, he was gentle; in deeds, defiant. Like the old Mongolian conqueror of yore, anything must be crushed save himself and his target destination. With his Blattodean eyes set on this mission of conquest, he made red of blood and soil of flesh.
By noon, the fin-tailed were burning in the habitat of the cold-blooded as the bloods of the warm-blooded flowed in.
Before the close of the day, at least sixteen had had their places in the morgue.
In his world, they were nothing but ANTS. Even the law enforcers understood how unfit ANTS are to the Politics of Higher Species. With war comes casualties and what nobler way to wage war than on ANTS? Better to crush rodents for men to live than annihilate women for some social white queens.
His voyages as a mirror of democracy were not enough to make him understand the very basic of the independence of the electoral umpire. So in a bid to hear from the horse’s mouth, he set out on a learning expedition to INEC under the full view of motion cellphones and animation cameras on Election Day. The irritating protesters saw his car parked inside the lot of the umpire and railed.
How lame!
They never knew our man, in addition to his quest to unlocking the misery of independence was there to give a helping hand to the counting of the million ballots. Although he knew that the bench-man was popular for having “no knowledge of electoral matters,” he still went ahead to hand him some N200m probably to help him get some education in his area of lacking.
With the election came an opportunity to prove his bona fides as a member of the esteem party of mathematical ingenuity of 16 greater than 19. He not only achieved the feat, he shattered the record and set a new standard whose outcome would be too gigantic for either his party to meet or his mentees to surpass. While his sponsor brags on the breakthrough in two digits, our governor reached a perfect estimation of 292,878 greater than 1,228,614.
With this at heart coupled with his groundbreaking result, he challenged anyone to counter his good works. At home, he lapped some spirit with a few doses of kola; on screen, he feigned helplessness in the face of the horror movie allegedly emanating from his backyard–calling it the handiwork of rebellious forces bent on wrestling power from the chosen one even after realising how lame it is to dethrone whom thy Lord had placed in position.
That was why with some 1,029,102 thumbs in his pocket, he did not think twice before deriding the bench for being so enamoured with inanities to the point of calling his evidence “incredible and unreliable” all because of some silly vituperations emanating from the throats of some 56 “hearsay witnesses.”
Even as polling units became provoking units and the state map appeared in police colours, as far as he was concerned, the rabble-rousers’ case against him was only a figment of their collective imaginations unless they “prove wrongdoing at each polling unit.”
As a wigman himself, he could not understand why the law of nurture could be so blind to the law of nature of the end justifying the means.
From tribunal to appeal, appeal to supreme, he was disappointed that none of them gave him credit for his great efforts at unmasking the demons responsible for the arcaneness of mathematical computations and analyses–an effort rooted in several weeks of sleepless nights which although has let some narcoleptic condition in, gracefully and effectively produce an unprecedented amount of democratic results.
With his clandestine mastermind of the release of three notorious armed robbers who have killed at least a police, a soldier, and several civilians, the mad governor, like King Nimrod in the days of Abraham, has just proven his mettle as a giver of life.
Unlike his sick counterpart who predicts deaths, he relishes in his divine gift as a custodian of life under the tutelage of the Nigerian Dame Jesus.
It is not certain if the bench realises that the man whom they asked to remain as the chief security officer of a state after annulling his mandate shares striking similarities with the mad king of George Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire.”
Unfortunately, neither his electoral offences nor his practice of annihilatory politics have been sufficient to place him behind bars.
The present situation where our actions and inactions result in throwing up no other leadership elements than those in the mold of our subject only confirms a thing: that the beautiful ones are dead.
Until new ones are born, the laughing stock we’ve made of leadership would continue to be a model for how not to be a nation; and the crises rocking our moral, political and social lives would only degenerate into a more potent weapon against our collective humanity.
You might be wondering who the madman is. He was the one Omoyele Sowore had in mind when he asked that: “If you can win a popular election, why go through the back door?”
Thank God I’ve not mentioned a name.
Modiu Olaguro, a youth corps member teaches Mathematics at Jebba.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @ModiuOlaguro
Website: www.ghettosassembly.wordpress.
