A week plus ago, four or so members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm from Lagos State were captured somewhere in Abia State on their way home from a professional meeting and gathering in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. Naturally, since the time of their senseless and miscalculated abduction up to the time of their release in a slumbering morning and even up to this moment of sunbeam joy of their splendid appearance, the noise and echo of their seizure still disturb the length and breadth of our homeland. Indeed, the upheavals and chaos that heralded the kidnapping of the four Lagos journalists and their driver have underlined the tragic truth and fact that all of us are living today in a decadent and reactionary Nigeria. Sooner or later all our dreams and personal goals and happiness shall be shattered in a national crisis, and the kidnappers we are too weak and too feeble to resist will continue to do harm and terrorize us as they please. The majority of us already are prisoners, but until the real emperor in the land is taken prisoner, hell and real upheavals and chaos will not descend on our homeland. Until this happens, until the emperor is abducted and disallowed from attending his mother’s or mother-in-law’s funeral, the government will not move to the jungle of the jungle men.

But perhaps the surest way to resist the jungle men and restore real peace to the land is to give amnesty to all kidnappers in the same way that blatant amnesty has been granted to criminals who have compelled many homes and families to be mourners over their burnt, devastated and “militant”-torn motherland. Go to Niger Delta communities in Itsekiriland, Ogoniland, Ilajeland, Ikwerreland and even Nembeland and see how many families and homes are turning grief into a series of patriotic songs and dramas.

Of course, when the brigandage which has since snowballed into a national pain began during the Abacha period, those – and they were really more than many – who believed and felt that they were far, far removed from the theatre of war and the arena of casualties, hailed and sang the praises of the brigands to high heavens. When the Niger Delta, especially Itsekiriland was thrown into chaos, as it was harassed from several directions by plunderers who several Itsekiri volunteer troops rose in resistance of, when state security stood aloof, I cannot recall that the invaders were universally condemned the way we are now condemning the latter-day kidnappers. In our error, because the dark-goggled man whom we denounced was imperially in control of our status and interests, we all capitulated and delighted ourselves by way of putting ourselves under the patronage of the evilly powerful brigands.

The hen must always go home to roost. And one soiled finger dirties clean ones. Today we must be wiser. Today all of us – journalists and non-journalists and those in government and outside government – must endeavour to call a spade a spade. Today and henceforth we must partake in the truth of pleasure and the pleasure of truth always, as I enjoin our readers to welcome our kidnapped fellow members of the almighty pen from the unfancied den of terror-men.  Then we can sing and sing, no matter the dilemma we are in, righteous or unrighteous,  the song of love for our different regions and for fatherland. This must be so, as I enjoin all my readers to sing with me the following moving song by Nigeria’s “most lyrical poet”, John Pepper Clark:

Up the laughing stream
We raced down the sun.
Who there thought such fun
Could end? We held one steam.

But the pulse that never
Gave sign fell through the sand;
Depleted now we stand
Exposed more than ever.

May we not lose sight of the moral and political import of this elegant poem as we ponder where we stand between our ethnic aspirations and national goals; between the ethics of our profession and public good; and between our personal dilemma and our country’s destiny.

To Henry, With Love
Last Monday, July 19, 2010, I donated this space to a consistent follower of this column. His name is Henry Agbebire. He phoned to request for my e-mail address which I obliged him. And boom and zoom, he sent a scintillating rejoinder to my piece entitled “Learning to Lose”, which appeared here on Monday, 28 June, 2010. We inadvertently did not give him his due recognition in that publication. We do so now – with love. At a later date, we shall join words with the Lagos-based social commentator on some of the issues he raised in order to understand our differences better. Then our small boats the wind shall blow to the territory of the ideal.

Last week’s published reaction was sent in by a reader, Henry Agbebire. - Editor

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