MAGASHI’S HOMILY ON OUR SELF-DEFENCE: Vanity of Empty Pride & Foolhardiness
By ‘Tunji Ajayi
In “Are We Fools?” (Nigerian Tribune, July 31, 1996) I confessed to my indiscretion with respect to unfettered hatred I had for my paternal grandfather and his burdensome farming. Though I loved the cooked farm produce like sumptuous maize, yam, roasted bush meat, oranges and bananas he often brought home every Saturday evening, I hated following him to the farm on early morning Tuesdays, regardless of being on holidays or not. I stopped feigning sickness on my often wet sleeping mat only when the disciplinarian grandfather learnt to apply that hot, pepperish Tarzan Balm with tingling sensation to dispel my “malaria fever”. Don’t ask me why my mat was often found wet almost every early morning, oozing out unpleasant odor. I don’t know. My parents often wrongly accused me of bedwetting. They were all wrong. I slept on the mat. Not a bed. How could I have bed-wet when I sleep on the mat? And that pulverizes their illogical reasoning.
Though I loved the farm produce, on which I often fed voraciously like a glutton, there were only three things I loved doing far more than going to farm. First was listening to Sunny Ade’s music which often blared to highest crescendo through the roadside record-sellers’ mounted loud speakers. The second passion was playing football, commonly called “set” in neighborhood premises, after which I, with my accomplice friends, often eloped to the popular Rasco Cinema in Osogbo Township in my dusty cloth and feet. City life; not farm made all this possible. It was in those days of the maverick film stars like the ever-wily Bruce Lee, the garrulous Hema Malini, the cunning Amitabh Bachchan, the perspicacious Shatrughan Sinha, the sagacious Shashi Kapoor etc. But there was hardly any Chinese film in which Yasuaki Kurata, Wang Yu, or Bruce Lee featured that I would not watch, come rain or sunshine. Though it was certain I would suffer body lacerations thereafter from my implacable mother who always applied her rod of discipline. How would I miss watching Yasuaki Kurata’s martial art flick and his iron fist with which he breaks hard stone, pulverizes strong iron; jumping to the sky like an enraged lion, and masterfully subduing his assailant while sky-bound with a powerful flick, while the latter groans in utter pain on the floor? Why should I ever miss Bruce Lee’s cunning eye feint and his mesmeric killer punch in “Enter the Dragon” or his “Fist of Fury” or Wang Yu’s fleeting feet in his “One-Armed Swordsman” or his “Rage of the Masters”?
But what is the kernel of my thesis above? You are what you watch. What a man sees or reads affects his thinking, emotion and action. Bruce Lee’s masterful kicks, Amitabh Bachchan and the likes’ super-hero exploits, Yasuaki Kurata’s karate feats and Wang Yu’s mesmeric taekwondo tricks, which often saved them out of troubled waters in various films went into my head, giving me phantom super-hero hope and unbridled boldness. Thus in school, I walked in the midst of my colleagues like an untouchable cavalier with kingly pride. My superciliousness stank to high heaven. I had no fear for any street fight. I was imbued with Bruce Lee’s leonine strength and Yasuaki Kurata’s protective martial arts skills. Even my proud mien and arrogant gait were noticeable in my walk and presumptuous talk. Every little and innocuous commentary from my colleagues sparked up unbridled rage in my psyche. Amongst my school mates, I walked and felt like a Champion with monstrous power in the midst of Lilliputians. In my imagination, I could easily fight and subdue any assailant with a mere fling of my feet and my deadly karate. To me, every colleague of mine was like a dwarfish fish in front of a giant. And my audacity truly remained unflinching until one unforgettable afternoon as we all trailed back home after school hours in group as usual. A hot argument led to misunderstanding between me and a classmate as we moved en route home in our white shirt and blue knickers uniform in the scorching sun. Physical fight was about to ensue. And all entreaties by my classmates to overlook the “error” of my adversary fell on deaf ears. I would not allow anyone to pulverize my honour and deflate my ego, especially in the midst of my friends, especially girls who held me in highest esteem. A serious scuffle ensued. And the street was bubbling with the cacophony of boisterous school boys’ and girls’ jeering and cheering. The “two-fighting” students gave them free film show to watch.
I immediately remembered Yasuaki Kurata’s jaw-breaking fist and Bruce Lee’s killer punch. But it is in vain that a net is set for anything owning wings. My challenger couldn’t even be intimidated by my fist. And every one of my trusted killer taekwondo kicks and jabs either missed the target or had no damaging effect at all on my foe in the street brawl. One . . . Two . . . Three. A bad feet fling resulting to a fatal fall on the floor, while I saw thunder-like blows raining on my face. Oh God! But what could have aided the fatal fall of a strong boy so much imbued in Bruce Lee, Yasuaki Kurata and Wang Yu martial arts, except one stupid banana peel on the fighting floor!
Worse still my colleagues were merely hailing my partner as damaging blows landed on my face like torrential rainfall, while they yelled and jeered at me. How I wished the spectators remembered Jesus’ admonition in Mathew 5:9. After all, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. They simply refused to remember an important Biblical canonical teaching. No one separated us nor settled the fight. They were just hollering and yelling. While being worsted, I remembered the Yoruba aphorism: “Alátise ló n m’àtise ara è.” – ¬a troubled man learns the solution to his affliction. I resolved to appealing to the onlookers: “E jòwó e là wá! . . . Nítorí Olóun e là wá!” - Please separate us. In the name of God, separate us. My pride was deflated. Don’t ask if my pugilist partner was a boy or a girl. It isn’t your concern. Face your own problem. I have forgotten the gender. I only know he was not a boy. My honour was corroded. It is a truism that pride goeth before fatal fall. I absented myself from school for almost seven days.
What is the bottom-line? It is presumptuous and foolhardy to overestimate ones strength. Like King Sunny Ade would sing: “Àìmò’wòn ara eni àkóbá nii kó bá’ni” – Overestimation of one’s strength leads to calamity. At the heels of herders and kidnappers deadly assaults on Nigerians was an advice from a man who should know better. He is our loving Minister of Defence. A retired military man of no mean repute having earned military medals for gallantry, and who was the military governor of Sokoto State between 1990 and 1992. After successful operation in Kankara village in Katsina State by the ragtag bandits where about 300 innocent school boys were abducted, while the government and her security networks were caught napping, the bandits yet again went to Kagara in Niger State to abduct yet another 42 persons, barely few days after about 21 commuters travelling in a Niger State Transport Authority bus were also kidnapped and railroaded into the bush. Our ebullient Defense Minister Bashir Salihu Magashi saw our collective failings and came up with an urgent solution. A referee sees the failings of his football players better at the sideline. Thus he often barks on them relevant orders and directives that would make the faltering team win a trophy. And so Magashi the erstwhile warlord and elegant generalissimo saw our collective effeminacy and ineptitude. The perspicacious Defense Minister saw our infamy and lack of willing power to wrestle and disarm the psychopathic AK-47 gun-toting beasts who live daily in the bush on the influence of drugs. Magashi, a former infantry battalion commander knew that our gallantry would have long ago tamed the flame of banditry; while our manliness would have tempered the ember of kidnapping scourge. A recipient of the military service stars of FSS, MSS, DSS and et cetera knew our excessive obsession with fear, and hollered apparently in disenchantment. Fielding questions in Abuja on February 17, 2021 he was magnanimous enough to remind us to wake up from our lethargic state, adding that the issue of security was not the military’s alone. Hear him: “Is it the responsibility of the military alone? It is the responsibility of everybody to be alert and ensure safety when necessary. We shouldn’t be cowards.” And typical of an omnipotent and omniscient army general who is perspicacious enough to know the content of every AK-47 rifle, Magashi the seer added a puncher: “Sometimes the bandits come with about three rounds of ammunition and when they fire shots everybody will run.” Thus it was too cowardly of us all to run for merely three bullets inside AK-47 rifles. Magashi must have been a good student of history, but which unfortunately has cunningly been expunged from our school curriculum now. He went down the history lane: “In our younger days, we stand to fight any form of aggression. Why should people run away from minor aggression?” Oh, fighting aggression in his younger days? Perhaps Magashi wasn’t in Nigeria when the youths, in their “younger days” who were not even struggling with gun-toting military men but were taught the most bitter lessons of their lives. Did we hear our Defense Minister Magashi talking of bandits onslaughts as “minor aggression”? Does he know bandits move in droves and not solo? Those who attacked Kagara school were said to be about 300! But Magashi, perhaps without having a Casio Calculator handy, he didn’t tell us how many bullets could have been in their 300 AK-47 rifles. I guess that would be ONLY 900 judging by Magashi’s “only 3-bullets theory.” And only cowards would fear a mere 900 bullets. The Defense Minister rattled our psyche further: “If these people, (viz bandits) know that the people have the competence and capability to defend themselves, they will run away.” Haa. Oluwa ooo! We have all heard our Minister’s eloquence and his military defense stratagem. But we pray no one is foolhardy enough to agree with our Defense Minister’s death-dealing braggadocio.
We live in a strange country where government abdicates constitutional responsibilities and delights in shifting blames. Whenever the economy nosedives, often due to profligacy and embezzlement, government always knows where to turn. They plead that we be patriotic enough to think of what to do for our nation. So they impose higher direct or indirect taxes, and value-added tax, even without adding any value to consumable products. When water is not provided by the relevant agency, the people are admonished by government on how to provide potable borehole water privately, whose self-provision is being taxed by some state governments now. When electricity provision remains a mirage, we are compelled to provide generating set, and now being taught the beauty of self-provision of solar energy both for home and industrial use. Bad roads litter our cities, and yet we are compelled to obtain “certificate of road worthiness” for our vehicles being damaged by unworthy roads.
A country is yet to successfully repair her four refineries despite trillions of naira spent on them over the years on turn around maintenance, but relies on fuel importation, with endless increase from 20 kobo per liter in 1982 up to N170 per litre by 2021. And the masses must contend with paying the high spiraling increases while being placated always to show patriotism and bear the brunt of government’s ineptitude in a nation that prides herself as being the fourth largest producer of oil in the world. The electricity generation that had gulped billions of dollars over the years until it was sold to private businessmen still remains epileptic even without accounting for previous humongous expenses on the industry. The Ajaokuta Steel Complex – a bastion of industrial revolution, had also gulped trillions of dollars without producing a pin, yet it remains moribund with grave yard silence without activities. I heard we were recently under recession. But both nighttime and daytime are the same for a blind man. Since many of us were born decades ago, we have not known the effects of blooming economy on our lives, but whenever it turns gloomy due to mis-governance, kleptomaniac instinct and prodigality, we are reminded about the need to show patriotism, bear the effects with equanimity and pray for the country to overcome her woes. Thus, even before this Magashi’s self-defense theory, the government had always turned to the famished masses for bail out. Does the government really have any duty at all?
When economy improves, the masses don’t see the benefits. When it plummets, there is urgent call for sacrifice and vigil in the churches for profuse prayers and fasting. Billions have been earmarked on security provision and yet Nigerians can neither move freely on the streets nor be able to sleep in their homes as they are object of banditry, rape, kidnapping and slaughtering which occur on daily basis. Now that we are told by the Defense Minister of a government whose constitutional responsibility includes the provision of security, let it be provided by the government that is so empowered and showered with the wherewithal to do so. Fighting gun-toting criminals with bare hands amount to foolhardiness and attempt to commit hara-kiri. May Magashi remember the averment of the Irish-born English political writer Edmund Burke, that “government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Masses have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.” Failure to apply wisdom and provide the much needed security by the government may amount to abdication of her sacred responsibility. Verbum Satis Sapienti. ------------------------------------------ *Tunji Ajayi, a creative writer, author, biographer and audiovisual documentary producer writes from LC-Studios Communications, Nigeria (+2348033203115, +2348162124412) facebook.com/tunji.ajayi.946
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