“O’boy, are you following what’s going on in this country?”
“Of course! What else do you think I do at the tower of Rutam House? Periodically, I do come down to beer parlors like this to hear the opinions of ordinary Nigerians like you.”
“O’boy, are you following what’s going on in this country?”
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“Of course! What else do you think I do at the tower of Rutam House? Periodically, I do come down to beer parlors like this to hear the opinions of ordinary Nigerians like you.”
“I understand that you guys pray a lot over there at Rutam House instead of doing something about this country.”
“Our country needs all the prayers it could get now. The Islamists are all out to turn us all into Muslims. They are like the Tea Party gang in America who cannot accept that a black man is president so they are doing everything to undermine him. The Islamists do not accept the result of the last election and are working hard to torpedo the presidency of Jonathan.”
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“I was actually thinking about Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and his revelations about the last days of Sani Abacha and MKO Abiola.”
“Don’t mind that criminal!”
“The man is innocent until proven guilty.”
“Who locks up an innocent man for 12 years? For crying out loud, the man killed Kudirat Abiola.”
“How do you know? Were you there?”
“I’m a journalist. I don’t have to be there to know?”
“The man said he had video evidence to prove his story.”
“If he had videos, they would have killed him in jail.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because that’s the way it works. The more incontrovertible your evidence is, the more likely that you will be dead.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Between you and me, I heard that politicians now make videos of journalists accepting bribe from them. It makes it impossible for journalists to back out of whatever deal they agreed to.”
“Really?”
“Bribery reduces not just the person accepting it but also the person giving it. That’s why it is impossible for politicians, with their videos, to reveal things about journalists the way Mustapha is doing now.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Because politicians are funny people. They know that if they show the video of journalists accepting bride, they are dead.”
“Who will kill them? Journalists?”
“Leave that thing jo! Let us talk something else. All I’m saying is that Mustapha is using things he composed in his head over the last 12 years to distract the nation.”
“Should we say that the president is doing the same with tenure elongation?”
“What do you mean?”
“Going by your logic, the president too wants to distract the Islamists with tenure elongation. He wants to change the conversation from Islamic banking and Boko Haram to whether he is a dictator or not.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“You think he has it in him?”
“Has what?”
“A little Abacha, a little Babangida, in him?”
“There is always a tall man inside every short man.”
“But the president is not short - short.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean, we all consider him weak, right? There is always a strong man trying to crawl out from the body of every weak man.”
“I do not call him weak. I call him meek.”
“That’s a polite way of calling him weak.”
“If that’s the case, why then is he backtracking on the tenure elongation?”
“He isn’t backtracking. He is explaining the genesis of the idea.”
“To be frank with you, he is lying.”
“How dare you accuse the president of lying?”
“He said it was Yar’Adua’s idea. But it turned out that he was a member of the panel that recommended it.”
“In any case, my only problem with the idea is the timing. He should have waited for Mustapha to finish hallucinating.”
“So you’re ok with this Nigerian idea of always looking for short cuts. If Boko Haram uses okada to terrorize people, you ban okada. If men get aroused by women’s shape as seen from their trousers, you ban women from wearing trousers. If Boko Haram had succeeded in bombing the IG of police with a car, would you have banned cars near government officials? Why can’t we confront the real problems and stop chasing shadows?”
“Listen my friend, Islamic bank is not a ploy. It’s part of a big plan. They already got their Sharia. They already know how to make bombs. If you give them an Islamic bank, next they will ask for the head of Jesus.”
“Don’t be outrageous!”
“I’m not. I know these people. They will not be satisfied until they dip the Quran inside the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Don’t be dramatic. How do you know that?”
“Remember that I’m a dramatist and a bright student of history. In fact, I dealt with this topic very well in my novel.”
“What novel?”
“My novel- the great Nigerian novel.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It hasn’t been published yet.”
“Oh.”
“But in it I quoted Allie, the girlfriend of Gibreel in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. She said something that applied very well to these Northern Muslims.”
“Are we allowed to read The Satanic Verses in Nigeria?”
“I read it abroad. I think we are allowed to read it but not to write it.”
“Anyway, what did she say?”
“Talking about Gibreel, she said that “The worst thing about him … was his genius for thinking himself slighted, belittled, under attack. It became almost impossible to mention anything to him, no matter how reasonable, no matter how gently put.” That’s the Muslim north for you.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. That is the Northern Muslims to the T. The Usman dan Fodio jihad is winding down. But some diehard northern Muslims want a 21st century reenactment. That’s what this is all about. If you say something to them, no matter how gentle or how reasonable, they go off.”
“You mean that the Christian leaders have been gentle and reasonable?”
“I think so. Considering…. Look, these northern Muslim people don’t even follow the teachings of their own Usman dan Fodio. Writing in his book, THE PURIFICATION OF THE HEART FROM KIBR (Pride), Usman dan Fodio warned of the danger in being proud and arrogant. He wrote that self-exaltation does not make anyone arrogant as long as one sees that another person is greater than him or his equal. What makes one arrogant, dan Fodio wrote is when, “he exerts his own value in relationship to someone else, he despises the one below him and put himself above others’ company and confidence.” To this kind of people, dan Fodio warned; “You own neither your heart nor yourself. You desire something while your destruction may be in it, and you detest something while your life may be in it. You find some foods delicious when they destroy and kill you, and you find remedies repugnant when they help you and save you. You are not safe for a moment, day and night. Your sight, knowledge, and power may be stripped away: your limbs may become semi-paralyzed, your intellect may be stolen away, your ruh may be snatched away, and all you love in this world may be taken from you.”
“You’re a genius.”
“I know.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“If not that my hands are tied, I would have written a 12-part series to explain the history of what is going on and the imperative of doing something to stop it.”
“Who tied your hands?”
“You won’t understand.”
“Try me!”
“You see, some of us know so much about this country that if we open our mouth and talk, there will be trouble.”
“I didn’t say you should talk. I said you should write what you know.”
“It’s all the same. It’ll only cause trouble.”
“But there is already trouble in the country.”
“If I talk it will double.”
“We surely do not need to double our trouble.”
“I thought as much.”
“So when is Ngozi Okonjo Iweala resuming as the Coordinating Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?”
“No comment.”
“What do you mean, no comment? With Jonathan as incompetent as they come-“
“He is not incompetent. What’s wrong with all you Nigerians? Even incompetency must be earned. The president has not earned it. Only those who have tried something and failed woefully are considered incompetent. The president has not tried. So he is simply clueless.”
“Whatever! So isn’t Ngozi the blessing we are waiting for?”
“The Guardian has no comment on anything Ngozi.”
“I’m not asking for the Guardian newspaper’s opinion. I’m seeking your opinion.”
“I’m the Guardian you’re talking about.”
“Excuse me!”
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