THE prophet never gets gracious treatment and consideration in his homeland. There is nothing original in the statement, but it needs re-stating here—as I have re-stated it by way of re-inventing or, better put, by way of re-coining the original one as contained in the truly holy book. Long before now I had dreamt about the current happenings in the land. And this column has never been tired of not shirking its responsibilities to alert every one about them. Indeed, on more than numerous occasions the columnist and his prophet, our prophet (who is very well known beyond here) have shouted and shouted and made diverse prescriptions and proscriptions about the state of our affairs and the regime lording it over us. But our decisioners have never cared or have pretended never to be troubled or worried by all our spiritual hankering. Even fellow pushers of the pen have been pretending not to hear or notice our yearning. But if America or UK or Canada says it through its embassy or what passes as its intelligence service or intelligence voice, it is blown and blown and blown ceaselessly, and our decisioners through their voice-person will be making statements that amount to nothing in the end. We are not seeking attention, but if some little effort was made to give some thought, no matter how slight, to the voice or voices from the wilderness, so to speak, most of the sad events would have played themselves out differently. Perhaps they erroneously think we are office-seekers? We are happy where we are and with what we do and are doing including the doing of this piece.

Recently, specifically on Monday, 16 April, 2012, on this page I said in the piece entitled “The cruellest month” as follows: “I can feel the heavy memories of the writing mind and its past predictions and prophecies regarding what will be and what will not be. The vignettes of despair seem to be outshining those of hope. What a shroud of extra–ordinary length and width covering Nigeria’s bright sky! Yet we must anticipate in robes and hopes of enlightenment that the prophetic power of time which is clear-cut and decisive is hovering to fruition and manifestation. But at the current moment we must maintain an honourable spiritual taciturnity.” I followed up as follows: “We are in April. And April is the cruellest month that shall herald further acts and marches that will force all to say enough is enough and more than enough. Lovers of order will no more embrace despots and lovers of power. I assert and assert my firm belief that the cruellest month shall herald us to the moment when the land shall clap and sing, and louder sing.”

Dear, dear readers, we are nearing there. I am pained by Thisday’s bombing, yet the Thisday bombing, painful as it was, and as it is still, is heralding us to that end. Thisday and the media houses bombed by Boko Haram a few days ago symbolise the tragic contribution to the painfully necessary and necessarily painful burden the Nigerian press must bear in the endeavour to build and rebuild the cherished mansion of Nigeria. The reason Boko Haram gave for bombing Thisday especially is a mere alibi. I can say—and I am saying this authoritatively, spiritually and mystically speaking. How will Boko Haram explain the simultaneous bombing of other innocents in other places, and the ceaseless attacks on worshipping student-Christians at Bayero University, Kano and at the Commissioner of Police’s convoy in Jalingo towards the tail-end and in the last day of cruel, cruel April that Boko Haram really has made more cruel? All the deaths resulting there from are spiritually symbolic.  

Boko Haram is not going to stop. It is bent on underscoring further the point it has been under-scoring, to wit: it is more than fifty steps ahead of Dr. Jonathan and its regime; and soon the president and his regime will panic in such a manner that uncontrollable anxieties will be everywhere about us between now and... I must maintain my spiritual taciturnity. But I must quote our one and only Chinua Achebe: “For as everybody knows, anxiety can hinder creative performance from sex to science.” I only need to add that anxiety can hinder a procrastinating president who vows and vows and vows to no end that Boko Haram will soon be crushed from carrying out his vow that is, in any case, seems dubious, pointless and futile. And has his own Ijaw National Security Adviser not been immobilised by the Boko Haram’s ceaseless onslaught to throw in the towel? If you think that the recent public admission of the NSA’s incapability to find the right answer to the Boko Haram anxiety does not amount to throwing in the towel, you need to take some lesson in the art of how well to read and how well to study perfectly a situation before further harm is done. The president and lord of our current fate may keep on procrastinating and proceed with his vows ad nauseam, but soon he will know better than yours truly that “Na so Nigeria be.” Early this year, it was reported here that the first quarter of 2012 would usher some big change in the life of our country. Those who erroneously think of what was said from the point of view of purely the physical have been calling me ceaselessly for further explanation and interpretation. Ours was a spiritual quarter, not that of your known calendar. I don’t say what people wish to hear or what the decisioners of our lives want us to flatter them with. Let me simply quote once again from a previous piece already referred to: “The creators of Nigeria’s political nationality, those to make Nigeria escape from its current darkness and confusion are going to be born”. The cruellest month is already heading us there, unfortunately, through the acts and marches of invincible and invisible Boko Haram that has so far over-stated its case. But nobody knows and understands the ways of God and Allah. Yet I am seeing that it is time now for PDP and its regime to go ad patres, as General Azazi has told us in so few words. Indeed, the PDP and its regime are killing themselves; in fact, they have already killed themselves. Who will bury them? Thanks, Boko Haram for bombing the press. And thanks, Azazi for your little words, for your multum in parvo, for your (“much in little”). By the way, do you speak or understand Latin? But I must end my thoughts with a quote from Chinua Achebe again: “Do not underrate a day while an hour of light remains.” What does this mean? Let the lord and his decisioners fathom this out themselves.

But praise be to God and Allah! Praise be to God and Allah ad rem (to “the matter at hand”)!

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