April 7, 2010
Dear substantive Mama of our dear nation: Greetings ma. I call you substantive mama of the nation to remind Patience Jonathan that you are still in charge ma. She has been awfully too quiet and unseen as you go through these trying times. That is bad news ma. I would have preferred her to be visible and hyperactive now on the national social scene so that you could at least gauge what she is up to and keep an eye on her.But I digress ma. I am writing to thank you for little mercies and all the things you have done for Nigeria. Nigerians have been so unkind to you Ma. There is no name they have not given you. One Hausa-Fulani woman who writes yeye articles for Sam Nda Isaiah’s Leadership like she is on the payroll of Wole Soyinka and Yinka Odumakin called you “megalomaniac Goldilocks”. Some have called you Lady Macbeth or Imelda Marcos. If I got a kobo for every name you have been called since you took Alhaji to Saudi Arabia and successfully brought him back home, I wouldn’t need to write this letter ma.
That is my way of saying that I am not like those ungrateful Nigerians ma. I always love to see a half full cup as opposed to those perennially negative Nigerians for whom the cup is always half empty. As they say, there is a silver lining in every situation. My eyes are specially designed to spot such linings. They don’t even have to be silver for me to see them. That is why I am writing this letter to thank you on behalf of myself, my family, and all those misguided Nigerians who are out there abusing you, ignorant of so many things you have done for our country even in your tribulation.
I’m a writer ma. So let me start with what you have done for my constituency. Unknown to many people, the Yar’Adua era will be remembered as the finest hour of Nigerian literature. Those of us who are toilers in the vineyard of the imagination have never had it so good. Nigeria has been very hostile to literature and the imagination since independence. Every major prize ever won by Nigerian writers – Nobel, Booker, Commonwealth, Orange, Noma – has been in spite and not because of the Nigerian state. Official Nigeria does not like stories. Official Nigeria hounds and imprisons writers. Official Nigeria has been known to hang a writer if he stands in the way of more important things like oil.
But you have changed all that Ma. You have created an enabling environment in which the entire country is now ruled by stories. People make a mistake when they think that Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is now in charge. The only “entity” with full Presidential powers in Nigeria at the moment is what we call The Story in my line of work. The story rules. The story rocks. And through the story, writers and those who thrive on the imagination are now the effective rulers of Nigeria. Mind you, the story doesn’t just rule, it has hegemony. Madam, something acquires hegemony when a large number of people recognize its authority and collectively subscribe to it. Hegemony happens, madam, when their behavior is modified by their subscription to the authority of that thing.
What does this dogon turenchi mean ma? It means that we have effectively been ruled, week in week out, by the stories you have so carefully authored and released since you got back from Saudi. Those stories acquire hegemony when we plug into them and subscribe to their authority. Left to me, you would be made Life Matron of the Association of Nigerian Authors for services rendered to the imagination. First was the story that you were going to have a meeting with Goodluck Jonathan shortly after you got back from Saudi. The whole nation plugged into that story, held its breath, and it acquired hegemony and ruled us for a week. Then there was the story about your mother-in-law anxious to see her son. That story too ruled us for a week. Then there was the story of one Katsina man who came to Aso Rock and allegedly strolled around with your husband. That one too ruled us for one week.
Then came the story of the empty presidential motorcade that was doing maneuvers inside Aso Rock and even had Senators and Reps scampering to safety with their tails tucked between their legs. That one too ruled us for a week. Then there was the story of the Imams who visited your husband and prayed for him. That ruled us last week. This week, we are being ruled by the story of the visit of the Christian clergy to your husband. Next week, another story will begin its Presidential reign. But for his retirement, Pa T.M. Aluko would by now have completed the draft of a novel entitled One Week One Story. This is just to show how much you have done for the literary community. We are grateful for the endless and restless run of stories ma.
Speaking of visits by Imams and Christian Pastors ma, I want to thank you for having faith Nigerian Islam and Christianity. That is why you brought local Imams and Pastors to conduct the Presidential sighting in Aso Rock. Had you elected to do things the Nigerian way ma, you would have imported Imams and Ayatollahs from Saudi, Kuwait, Iran, and Indonesia and later have them give their verdict on your husband to Nigerians on Al-Jazeera; you would have flown in T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, and Reinhard Bonnke to perform the Christian sighting of your husband and have them announce their verdict on CNN. Imagine what it would have cost Nigeria if you had elected to fly in all these people. For using local Imams and Pastors and saving us so much money, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
One other positive fallout of the Christian sighting expedition to Aso Rock that we need to thank you for is the manufacturing of a brand new Pentecostal superstar named Emmanuel Kure. Before this visit, Pastor Emmanuel Kure and his Throneroom Trust Ministry Inc were unknown quantities in Kaduna. Now, Enoch Adeboye, William Kumuyi, David Oyedepo, Chris Oyakhilome, and Kris Okotie must welcome and make room for this latest entrant into Nigeria’s celebrity Pentecostal pastorhood. By manufacturing and facilitating Pastor Emmanuel Kure’s overnight superstardom ma, you have rendered an invaluable service to our country by correcting the unfairness inherent in southern domination of the pentecostal market.
Until now, every celebrity ministry has been based on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. Not even the periodic slaughter of witch children by Helen Upkabio in Calabar has been able to break the monopoly that the Lagos-Ibadan expressway Daddy General Overseers have held over fame and the proceeds thereof for such a long time. Now you have created a new market in Kaduna. Apart from creating a geographical balance, it will also lead to a more equitable distribution of wealth. Ministers, Senators, Reps, and Governors always take ten percent of their monthly loot to the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. Now, I foresee a situation where only five percent would go to Lagos-Ibadan expressway and five percent would go to Kaduna.
Ma, it is gratifying to note that your creation, Pastor Emmanuel Kure, has already contributed his own quota to national development by announcing a missing “amen” in the local media. Apparently, as Pastor Kure led Bishop Oyedepo and Archbishop Onaiyekan in prayer by your husband’s bedside, there was a chorus of “amens”. As everybody’s eyes were closed, no one could say with certainty if one of the “amens” came from your husband. By publicly declaring your husband’s alleged “amen” missing, Pastor Kure has saved us the embarrassment that overzealous presidential aides could potentially have caused us.
One cannot put it beyond such aides to go behind your back, record your husband’s “amen”, and send it to the BBC for broadcast to Nigerians in a crazy bid to please you. Imagine the national embarrassment of having oga address us again via the BBC. If your aides try that trick behind your back ma, it will backfire because the whole country knows now that your husband’s amen is still officially missing and has not been sighted since it escaped the room unseen by the closed eyes of Pastor Kure and Bishops Oyedepo and Onaiyekan. Ma, you may want to announce a substantial cash reward for any Nigerian who finds your husband’s “amen” and takes it to the nearest police station. The only problem: we would never really be able to confirm if it’s your husband’s “amen” since all those who could physically recognize it had their eyes closed when it escaped.
Finally ma, some typical Nigerian badmouthers have gone to town saying that it would be so much easier if you invite local TV cameras from NTA, Channels, AIT, and select journalists from our newspapers to come and “sight” your husband. These people would be grateful to you if only they knew the patriotic reasons behind your determination to keep Nigerian journalists away from your husband. If the revelations coming from Azugate at the Punch are anything to go by, Nigerian journalists – especially those at the upper echelons of the profession – do not come cheap at all at all.
Do these Nigerians now running their mouths imagine what the damage would be to our treasury if you had to assemble a cast of top editors from all our credible newspapers and news magazines and camera crews from our major TV stations? Do they think that those newspapers are going to send hungry rookie reporters who would be content with the conventional brown envelopes containing only a few thousands? We are in the big league here. We are talking about people who would require the sort of gargantuan settlement Aso Rock regularly gives to members of the National Assembly if they are to blast front page stories claiming that they played squash with the President. You are saving Nigerians a lot of money by keeping these people away and I’m grateful to you ma.
Em… em… one last thing ma. You would have seen from this my very long letter that I am far better than Segun Adeniyi at this job of presenting your own side of the story to the Nigerian people. If he can no longer work for your husband’s office, should he be told that he has to start working for you unofficially and unsolicited as proof of his loyalty? Instead of writing positive stuff like this about you, he went to watch the nation’s cup in Angola. Can you imagine ma? At a time you needed him most, he was watching football in Angola. I’m not saying that you should sack him ma o. I’m just saying that em… em… I’m better at these things. I even applied to Chief Olabode George for a job as his publicist but I never heard back from him. I suspect that the wardens at kirikiri did not deliver my letter. That means that I’m still a jobless Ph.D holder ma. And available…
Yours sincerely,
Dr Makojami Olugbala
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