February 15, 2010
Dear Governor Ikedi Ohakim: Greetings from Stellenbosch, South Africa. I write you on behalf of the Commission for the Preservation of Afrikaner Heritage. We have been trying to contact you ever since we received reliable information that you are one Nigerian leader with whom we could potentially do business. Our attempts to get in touch with you through the High Commission of your country in Pretoria were initially unsuccessful as we were told that your High Commissioner, one Alhaji Buba Marwa, now operates from the city of Jeddah in order to be close to his boss. However, the High Commission was quite helpful. They eventually directed us to the BBC in London where we were able to get your address in Owerri, Nigeria.articleadslinks
Although we found it curious that locating a state Governor in Nigeria took us to Jeddah and London, the important thing is that we are now able to write you and establish a regular channel of communication. We are hoping to be able to interest you in a deal that could be mutually beneficial to everyone. On your side, it could enhance your philosophy of governance, leadership, and public service. On ours, we would have the satisfaction of putting part of our history and heritage in the care of someone who truly understands the value of things. If we collaborate successfully, it could also help erase some of the hard feelings generated in your country by our film, District 9.
Since you Nigerians know so much about South Africa, it is perhaps not necessary to tell you we, Afrikaners, are not just known for beer and braai. You must know the importance that the sjambok, that heavy leather whip made from hippopotamus or rhinoceros hide, occupies in our history and culture. How could we have brought those uppity and condescending Anglo South Africans under control and keep them in genteel Caucasian resignation without the symbolic threat that the sjambok represented? Although we hardly ever used it on fellow whites, the possibility of its use kept those arrogant Anglos in their place. And as for the kaffirs – sorry, Black South Africans – how could we have built South Africa on their backs without the sjambok? Today, people from your country come here to salivate over the neon and gloss of our cities: Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, and Durban. But your countrymen hardly ever pause to think that we built those cities by applying the sjambok very scrupulously on kaffirs.
Well, apartheid came to an end. No need to bore you with details you already know. What the rest of the world does not know is that all the talk about rainbow nation or truth and reconciliation masks the cultural genocide that Black South Africa has been perpetuating against us since the end of Apartheid. The ANC, Madiba Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, and the womanizer currently in power are all guilty. They are allowing some to the symbols of our culture and memory to die. The sjambok is disappearing. You see, a sjambok needs to be used in very specific temperatures on the backs of black people – no offence – or it will begin to rot. Of the 300,000 sjamboks that we had during the sjambok census of 1994, only about 100,000 are left. Because we can no longer use them openly on Black backs in South Africa, we have been looking for a sympathetic African custodian who knows the value of the sjambok.
Nigeria first came to our attention when we learnt that you also have a sjambok culture. Our investigations revealed that you call it koboko and you make it from oxtail or horse tail since you don’t have hippos and rhinos in abundance like us. The Nigerian koboko is therefore inferior to the South African sjambok. We were initially discouraged when we investigated the sociology of the koboko in your country. Our feelers in Lagos and Abuja informed us that your koboko is mostly used by soldiers and police men hanging from open trucks to clear ordinary Nigerians from the path of the convoys of your rulers. We didn’t see a role for the sjambok in that scenario. Too much sunlight damages the sjambok. We have winter and a generally cooler temperature in South Africa than you have in Nigeria.
Then we heard about you and your personal philosophy of governance by the rod. It is said of you that as a devout Christian you do not spare the rod despite minor inconveniences like democracy, human rights, and the internet. And if democracy cannot work in Abuja, your capital, we are happy for you that the flagellocracy you have invented is working so well in Imo state. It is said of you that you have been doing a lot of beating, flogging, and spanking since you got to Government House in Owerri. It is even said that you started your illustrious career in flogging with a woman. Elizabeth Udoudo was said to have crossed the path of your convoy in the city of Lagos and you had her thoroughly flogged in the street and in the presence of her two children.
But what mostly gladdens the heart is the news that you do most of the flogging in your office where the temperature is cool and controlled. Exactly what we have been looking for! We have a dossier on a journalist called Ikenna Samuelson Iwuoha who, apparently, had the privilege of being flogged by you in your office. It is said that you flogged him an entire day, taking episodic breaks to cool your lungs with pockets of fresh air. We have a file picture of lacerations all over his body. We did our home work.
Your treatment of Mr. Iwuoha and the photo evidence we have sourced to back it up have convinced us that you are our man. What we are proposing is to ship the remaining 100,000 sjamboks in South Africa to you since you know how to make such judicious use of this important symbol of Afrikaner power and history. Rather than suffer the heartbreak of watching them rot away through the cultural genocide of the ANC, we would have the satisfaction of knowing that they are being preserved and used in Nigeria by a man who would have been a very good Afrikaner had providence created him a white South African.
Mr. Governor, if you accept to do us this great favor, we shall award you the Hendrik Verwoerd Medal of Valor. We shall also make you a life patron of the Commission for the Preservation of Afrikaner Heritage. This will entitle you to Gold Card participation in an annual secret event we still organize away from the prying eyes of the world. We still hold a yearly kaffir flogging competition. We line up black domestic servants and farm hands and try out new flogging techniques on them. Ever since we heard of your outstanding flogging of Mr. Iwuoha in your office in Owerri, our people have been quiet anxious to have you come to Stellenbosch and share your expertise with us.
Yours Sincerely,
Eugene Terreblanche
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Senior Sjambok Commissioner
Commission for the Preservation of Afrikaner Heritage
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