UNLESS events happen, there are no tales to tell. Unless there are tales to tell, there are no interpretations to give. Unless there are interpretations to give, there are no essays to write. Unless there are essays to write, there are no lessons to learn. Unless there are lessons to learn, the world will not move in the correct direction. Unless the world moves in the correct direction, there will be no civilization to blossom the human race. Unless there is civilization to blossom the human race, man will relapse to pre-primitive times. And when man relapses to pre-primitive times, there will be nothing more to dwell on pertaining to man as we know now….

Now what events have happened, or are happening to elicit from me this essential philosophical temper as we are entering a new cycle in the destiny of Nigeria?

The first is pertinently   Moammar Gadaffi’s which will hardly dim in the modern era. When I saw on CNN Gadaffi the foolish of Libya being bullied, brutalized and bloodied by his once-upon-a-time subjects he in his avaricious state of malignant power and devilish arrogance called “rats and cockroaches,” I nodded to the philosophical truth which states that every thing passes. Again, when I saw how CNN showed his dead body with liquid oozing out of it as it lay on display in a public morgue, in, of all places, an open market, as his erstwhile “rats and cockroaches” filed in to do for posterity humiliating snaps of what they hardly thought possible, before their very eyes, a true Libyan event and tale, I nodded once more to the truth of “every thing passes.” Gadaffi was not more human than the people he fiendishly oppressed for forty-two years. And his “rats and cockroaches” turned his corpse into beef in a beef morgue! And   I remember Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Cyprian Ekwensi. Shakespeare tells us in King Lear, his immaculate tragedy, that as “flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.” Hardy’s tragic fiction in which he appropriates the bard of bards’ tragic sensibility as contained in this cited play reveals that man is no better than what the “President of the Immortals” intends him to be. And in Burning Grass, Ekwensi tells us that on the day of death there is no medicine; every thing fails.

For forty-two years Gadaffi the foolish, moved by the power of ambition and avarice, held his people down by the sheer force of supernatural power, not realizing that someday every power given by the devil always ends in such a manner that even the devil never foresees. Someday, something must go awry and the charm of power the devil gives him who asks for and gets it will be divorced of potency. Let’s be a little bit explicit.

Gadaffi’s major power lay in his “military” virgins: the special force of carefully chosen girls who must be virgins and who as long as they were in his “army,” must remain ritual virgins to sustain his grip on power and the wealth of Libya. Of course, they took appropriate oaths to this effect. They usually were eased out with time as others were recruited to rejuvenate him and his throne against any force, internal or external. This story and others about this wizard of power have the ring of typical Arabian nights’ tales. How did I get to know this sordidly entertaining tale (and others) about Gadaffi? A Pakistani young man (a conservative mystic) with a Libyan mother with whom I became warm in friendship when I was briefly in University of Reading, England for a spell of training in the art and skill of communication several years ago, let me, at that time, into the myth and world of Gadaffi, and his vision of politics and power. Almost every thing he informed me about the Libyan linguistic and oratorical inventor of “rats and cockroaches,” a diabolical political coinage, now in the political lexicon of our era, has come to pass. Wherever he is now, this crooked Libyan inventor and orator, at this moment and passing time, is not dead to the cloner of the “rats and cockroaches” that “ratted” and cockroached” him out of this side of the mighty divide. Will his well earned “ratted” and “cockroached” end bring an end to bad power and world terrorism including Nigeria’s Boko Haram’s? No, unfortunately.

But this piece was not meant to be about Gadaffi the humiliated terrorist who has gone, and lying now in an abode of no name. This essay is not about him regardless of the bounteous devotion it gives to him for obvious reasons. This performance is about Nigeria and the “owners” of Nigeria who believe in the medicines of their marabouts and juju people and prayer contractors to keep us in perpetual bondage as they suck our sweat and wealth. Soon they will know who born rats and cockroaches. They call themselves experts of all kinds: economic experts, monetary experts, political experts, petroleum and fuel subsidy experts, power experts, technology and science experts, population experts, election-rigging experts, health matters experts, transport – road, air and marine experts, crime, intelligence and security experts…. experts, experts, experts… of this and that and of that and this… who must be in power and remain there all through, directly and indirectly, by all means and every means possible and impossible against our wish… And they are ever ready to ram their murderous policies down our throats. These are the wizards of every thing in Nigeria, but in actual fact they are the wizards of nonsense who are not seeing (and will never see) their near end and final end. Soon they will know who born dog as Gadaffi knew who born rats and cockroaches.

They are itching to withdraw what they manufacture and define as fuel subsidy. Let them O my people! Let them O our people of Nigeria! Let these wizards of nonsense do as they please with us as they peddle their jargons of exploitation and emasculation. Don’t resist them O my people! Don’t torture your minds by resisting them. Simply let your minds possess the memory of wet cement, etching their atrocities as weapons in an armoury you shall use at the appropriate moment. O my people soon we will know who the real owners of Nigeria are! Let them connive with Labour who blow hot and cold as the leadership pleases. Let them partner with Labour through the backdoor of negotiations of betrayals and betrayers. Soon all these fakes and fakers, these foofaraws and wizards of dishonour shall be revealed, disgraced and humiliated for who and what they are with profound verdicts of dialectal truth. Mark my words. And mark also the words of the illustrious Primate and prophet of the Lord in the land, whose given name is Theophilus. Soon you will know that Nigeria has a prophet called Olabayo.

As I’m writing this, I’m in distress. I’m in a disaster zone and in a tangled state in Yankee-land.  I’m in a jumbled condition. A pretty lady called Irene whose love is unrequited has visited New England and has unleashed its storm that is turning my exile into some nightmare. There’s no power for about eight hundred homes including yours affectionately.

The petrol stations over-flow with petrol buyers some of whom are not taking their turns but are jumping the efficiently long lines. (So some Yankee-fellows are Nigerians after all!) The airlines are cancelling flights. Telephone lines are dead in many places. There’s no internet connectivity/service for many including again yours sincerely. I can’t go online but I must let my tale hit destination In and Out somehow any how before check-in time lapses.

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