RUNNING AWAY FROM ONE’S SHADOW:
A Recluse President & The Ember Of Fake News
By
Tunji Ajayi
Bob Marley’s averment in his song, Running Away remains incontrovertible. “You cannot run away from yourself” he reminds the lily-livered. But he goes further in Who feels it knows it: “Don’t sit by your window gazing at the streets Just get up and move. Get right on your feet . . . .” I recall that in The Ears & Eyes of Society, (Nigerian Tribune, August 7, 1996) I had related the story of how I converted my teacher’s punishment, while in Primary 2 to an enjoyable pastime. I had asked my hardnosed teacher a seemingly innocent question; but which she considered a foolish one, and thus she had to beat me mercilessly with six strokes of the cane. But why would a loving teacher be so harsh on a precocious and loquacious young kid who was merely puzzled and expressing his innocent curiosity and wanted to know how babies got into their mothers’ womb? Apparently not done, the teacher gave me more punishment. It was to write the 26 alphabets A - Z repeatedly ten times on my slate with chalk. Each time, she checked and rubbed it off for me to start another round. Oh God! No more history subject in our school curriculum. Most of our modern-day kids may not even know what chalk & slate are! What a retrogression in our education, but mistaken for progress!
However, by the time I wrote the fifth round of the 26 alphabets, the punishment had metamorphosed into a kind of enjoyment and game for me; as I had unwittingly memorized all the alphabets and was just writing them down almost effortlessly without copying from her facsimile. Perhaps we can spot an imperceptible but important lesson here. A supposed obstacle can be turned into a ladder to climb higher. Most people are pessimists who only see the difficulty in every opportunity; rather than being optimists, spotting the great opportunities which abound in every difficulty. That singular occasion must have also spurred my love for meditating and writing. The former, viz meditating, emanates from the inner mind, while the latter is an art. One who meditates often becomes a deep thinker, with his thoughts and ideas being eagerly shared with others; lest he becomes a pregnant idealist.
But then, pregnancy of ideas and thoughts often causes excruciating pains to the psyche. Yes, it does. Ask our journalists who are often under intense pressure to cover their beats and package them into stories for submission to their news editors before their newspapers are “put to bed”. A journalist is restless and expectant until he gets his feature stories published in his newspaper. Again, ask Mr. Àlàdé-Hùwo of the popular fable who had a sacred secret about the protruding short goat-like hoof on his forehead, often stealthily concealed underneath his cap which he hardly removed to conceal his burden and avoid public shame and opprobrium. People became curious and wondered why he never removed his cap. But Àlàdé on the other hand would not want to be identified with a hoof on the head and never disclosed his problem to any soul, including his closest friends and confidants. He thus became over-burdened with this secret by developing bulging tummy like a pregnant woman. He needed to be relieved of the "pregnancy pain” which fortunately he did, but only when he let out the secret - by whispering it inside a hole dug in the ground.
We have another lesson here. A leader who truly has great ideas for the benefit of the led; especially to relief his people of excruciating pains, heavy burdens and anguish, would be pregnant with such ideas and eager to speak to them without being prodded. That probably explains why the wise King Solomon talks about the beauty of words in Proverbs 2511: “As apples of gold in silver carvings is a word spoken at the right time.”(NWT). Great calamities are often avoided when a leader speaks consolingly to the depressed at the plausible time.
Now back to Mr. Àlàdé’s anecdote. As the fable goes, the hole wherein he let out the secret thereafter grew a rotund pawpaw tree whose stems the children in the neighborhood plucked to make local traditional trumpet. The children innocently blew their trumpets; and the staccato of songlike tune that oozed out got the children and old men alike astounded: "Àlàdé-Hùwo! Àlàdé-Hùwo!" (meaning Àlàdé grew horn on the head!) Thus, the secret hitherto kept for many years ripped open via a weird source. The kernel of the story is clear: There is no mystery that cannot be explained; neither is there any story that defies being told. Consequently, if a nation and its people must learn and grow, information must be allowed to flow freely. Where information is distorted or its flow subtly or covertly restricted, anxiety to know by those entitled to know surges up; but quite often via the rumor mills and grape vine. However, when rumors and gossip are encouraged to thrive, albeit unwittingly, societal growth and development become endangered. Gossip and fake news threaten national security and people’s welfare.
But how does a government that claims to hold fake news in strict abhorrence in one breath, unconsciously promote the same fake news it claims to hate in another breath? Most Nigerians often complain that the president hardly talks, and that he doesn’t even listen to their woes and cries. But if we watch the mien of an examination candidate given question papers by the invigilator, he looks so excited; wanting to start answering the questions, quite often before the invigilator even asks him to start. Conversely, a dullard who doesn’t understand the questions and has no clues would go numb, looking so dumb, morose and jittery, and sweating profusely even in cold weather. I have driven for many years now without being booked for running foul of driving rules. That, I honestly feel makes me a good driver. But recently on my trip enroute Ebonyi State via Enugu airstrip to cover a cultural dance troupe’s (Original Nkwa Umu-Agbogo) events for an audio-visual documentary production; out of sheer curiosity, I peeped into the cockpit of the aircraft I boarded. I was nonplussed, benumbed, and looking askance since all I saw were digitalized boards emblazoned with mere buttons. Everything appeared so strange. But here is the question: Does being a hefty, good articulated vehicle driver make one a good aircraft pilot? Hence the Yoruba proverb: “Gìdìgbà ò sí’lèkùn, àfi eni toó bá n í kókóró lówó.” (A man’s hefty physique does not open the locked door, but only the one that holds the key opens effortlessly) Consequently, expecting solutions from a man who has no clear understanding of a problem is like ‘waiting for Goddot’; which is a forlorn hope. That explains why credible leaders in other climes, having lost the confidence of the people, often resign voluntarily when they disappoint the nation over which they preside.
We are in a nation where truth is often being crushed and mauled with official sledgehammer in an attempt to create a yawning gap between morality and the force of law, while we run our system daily on ambivalence and subterfuge. Perhaps because we are told that law is amoral, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice looked left and right. He needed to pulverize normalcy and morality in order to find a subterfuge in his book of law and the constitution to please his master. He frantically searched and found one that would fit his current need to justify a position that it is illegal for the NASS to summon the President to speak to those who elected him. “Qui facit per alium facit per se” goes the legal maxim. Because, unless the principal repudiates his agent’s actions, whatever he does, the principal is assumed to have done it. The assembly members were elected by the people to represent them. Thus, ipso facto they are their “Agents” in government and governance. The people are the boss, hence the Principal.
If the national assembly which is a very important arm of government comprising the elected representatives of the people, who ultimately gave the President the mandate to lead the nation out of quandary summoned him to explain important issues, especially relating to insecurity, it becomes an opportunity - not only to explain and allay palpable fears, but also to clear issues that have generated the most hated fake news in the past. If the President had honoured the NASS, Nigerians and the entire world would have known why thousands of lives could be lost continually in a country without fighting any civil or sub-regional warfare. We would have known why farmers’ throats are being slashed by the terrorists, and Nigerians being kidnapped, raped and beheaded almost on daily basis. Yet the genocidal beasts are not officially branded terrorists, but their images are being subtly laundered by being referred to as mere insurgents till today. The President would have had the opportunity to explain why the killers deserve being re-invited back to the community they had waged war against; while the taxes paid by the massacred and the patriotic citizens are being used to resettle the same terrorists causing the mayhem. Meanwhile, their victims are in their untimely graves, and their displaced dependants, including innocent children are languishing and weeping at various internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps.
The President would have used the opportunity to tell us why the Sambisa forest - an existing, feasible geographical land space, serving as a hideout for the terrorists who had maimed and killed thousands is so revered that it could not be wiped off and converted to a useful purpose before millions of more Nigerians suffer untimely deaths, while the President continues to commiserate with Nigerians on daily basis. He would have cleared the air on why billions of naira were claimed to have been spent on war equipment in one breath, but many soldiers, include war generals claimed they had no equipment to fight in another breath. The President would have told us why his service and security chiefs have become indispensable saints whose replacement, even in spite of colossal failure to stem the tide of daily banditry, kidnapping, etc. may cause the world to collapse. He would have been able to corroborate or debunk the rumor that even the South African mercenaries who helped during President Jonathan’s era, and which led to many local governments being regained from the clutches of the Boko Haram terrorists, thus paving way for the peaceful conduct of 2015 general elections in the core north, were humiliated when President Buhari came to power. He would have explained the truth or falsehood in the rumor mills that the US may never again sell weapons to Nigeria again because they alleged that there are fifth columnist amongst Nigerian soldiers compromising with enemies to leak top secrets, hence leading to frustrations and human and weaponry losses, and destructions.
When the veneer is removed from the face of the masquerade, we then know that the occupant is a human here, and not from the heavenly abode as often being fabled. Our esteemed President would have tutored us on the impropriety of the claim that the word “body-double” should not exist in Nigerian’s political lexicon. Perhaps, his mere eminent presence would have pulverized the claim and put to shame the combative IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu’s vociferous claim, especially at the heels of the EndSars uproar that our President had died long ago and since been buried in Saudi Arabia. It was a claim which the last-minute cancellation of a presidential live broadcast, and previous latching on pre-recorded speeches for the President, coupled with his often eerie and frightening long silence on key national issues, had always triggered the recrudescence of fake news. What promotes fake news more than official eerie silence and failure of the leadership to communicate with the led when it matters most? The truth is that moving forward may be a mirage until we are determined to be truthful to ourselves by doing the right thing at the right time. As of now, we live on subterfuge and ambivalence and are neither here nor there. Perhaps we need to take a lesson from Aneurin Bevan, a 19th century British Politician. Hear him: “We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road.” And Bevan completed his laconic message with a bitter truth: “They get run over.” Verbum Satis Sapienti.
*Tunji Ajayi - a creative writer, biographer, author & audiovisual documentary producer writes from LC-Studio Communications, Nigeria (+2348033203115); (mobile. facebook.com/tunji.ajayi.946)
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