"Solarslide elecsham!"

KWENU! Our culture, our future

Solarslide elecsham!

M. O. ENE

New Jersey, USA

Saturday, April 21, 2007

“#A na-ekwu nke e emere, e emekwee ozo…emekwee ozo; a na-ekwu nke e emere emekwee ozo, ihe nke a siri ike!# A na-azu okwe; e tie okwe, e rie okwe”!

My friend, you have come again with your mumbo jumbo? What game is going on?

“I were nke a, m rie gi ego; i were nke a, m rie gi ego!” African abracadabra! Elec-sham 2007!

You mean Nigeria’s Elections 2007?

So I now have an accent, huh?

We all have our peculiar patterns of vocalization which, in classical linguistics….

Purleease, spare me that long grammar. Person wey fire dey burn ‘im house, e dey pursue rat?

There you go again. If we are not going to dialogue, you might as well try "penis monologue" over there at the bar; I will listen without any attempt to interrupt.

You can be so full of it sometimes.

Go on, psychoanalyze me; it’s your specialty. First, drag a chair and pour yourself a glass of my usual.

Ol’ boy, this your “usual” is too dear-o; it is not everyday “shakis.” Anyway, let me get the taste of ash on the backside of roasted pear.

Don’t worry, my dear, Uncle Sam sent his annual regards.

Ol’ boy, na true-o; my own tax return is on its way to the village via Western Union!

I bet Uncle Sam sent it directly to Nigeria… it didn’t touch your hand at all! By the way, how is the layaway wife doing yonder … still at ESUT?

Shhhh…

Oops, I was not thinking.

So you have nothing to say about the unfolding drama in Nigeria?

Nigeria is a drama. There is nothing to unfold; we should just sit back and watch the tragicomedy with ill-prepared personalities parading as professionals.

“Just sit back and watch” traitors take over the entire country and enslave our poor people?

The killing of law enforcement officers in Kano by the so-called Taleban renegades has been met with superior firepower. The Port Harcourt slayings by suspected Niger Delta militants is not exactly a cause for alarm, and their sacking of Yenegoa is now under control. Listen: the Nigerian armed forces are famous for putting down in-house insurgency: Adaka Boro’s Ijaw, Bolokiri, Maitasine’s Kano, Odi, Okigwe, Onitsha, Tiv, Zaki Biam, etc.

My dear, wake up and chew some kolanuts; who cares about little fires?

Ah ha, but little fires beget infernos! Biafra was no small fire, you know; it started, as we say, “like joke, like joke.” A cigarette butt careless tossed out of a car has been known to cause billions of dollars of damage out West… in California!

You don’t get it. This one is big. Nigeria is about to explode! You mean the outcome of Nigeria’s landslide plus moonslide “elec-sham” is of no interest to you whatsoever?

“Election,” please!

It is a sham!

It is a solarslide!

Solarslide elecsham!

I won’t argue with you. Opinions are like residual fecal matter in anatomical exhaust; regardless of the degree of famine, it lingers. Yar'Adua-Goodluck wins; Iyabo Obasanjo becomes Senate prez; Ojo becomes party chair; life goes on.

I am telling you that Peoples Deceiving Party is killing our country and you are telling my about freaking $#!@ from some exhaust pipe. Nonsense prediction, it cannot happen. PDP must implode, mark my words.

The ruling party PDP – Peoples Democratic Party, for your information, is NOT our problem; our problem is the opposition.

Edutain me?

I won’t educate you and entertain you as well; buy a round.

Ol’ boy, I am broke, my dear. Fees for handouts in Naija alone are encroaching on my rent.

What else is new! This place now accepts major credit cards.

I don’t want to leave fiscal footprints everywhere, not with current level of “akpuruka”!

Ha ha ha! Blacksmith without a sheathed sword, you will never run out of excuses!

Ol’ boy, talk now; don’t worry, I will grab a beer and lay off your MOET Nectar Imperial.

I can’t wait! Let’s start with what happened in Imo State. Assuming the opposition parties had the presence of mind to unite, it would have been a walkover as soon as PDP dropped the ball; ditto in Ekiti, Oyo, Adamawa, etc. Of course, Abia is success story.

It’s all a sham; even Abia was rigged, and we all know it. Lagos is no exception either.

It’s so funny, you know; even the state PDP is alleging that INEC announced a fraudulent result in favor of a man in jail. PDP won’t even accept that Tinubu’s AC beat it in Lagos.

Are you telling me that last Saturday’s elections were kosher?

I like that word, “kosher.” No, the elections were not all kosher. Even Mr. President and INEC Iwu admitted that much. Take what happened in Abeokuta, where the President himself voted and where the election was apparently free and fair. You are shaking your head…. ANPP allegedly beat PDP by a very wide margin!

Why… if true?

Because it was “free and fair,” and someone was there to make sure it was free and fair: the President himself. Recall that he had lost similar elections with similar margins in 1999.

What are you driving at?

See: for an object to be in equilibrium… that is steady state… you know what I mean?

No shaking!

Right! Every force acting on that object must be countered by an equal force.

Okay?

What we have in Nigeria are annoying forces of disorganized and unfocussed opposition trying to stop the mighty force of the federal government and the power of state incumbents. It will never fly. See what happened in Sokoto: the ANPP incumbent jumped to a new party and got pulverized by PDP, a strong opposition waiting in the wings.

I see!

No, you see nothing! Don’t let me convince you because I am paying for the drinks.

That’s below the belt!

I disagree. You are still drinking MOET long after you offered to grab a beer. Anyway, I am not saying there was no rigging or fraud. I bet some winners in last Saturdays elections were amazed by the figures, especially when prominent personalities were visibly disenfranchised. A friend told me he is yet to see someone who voted in his Onitsha ward!

You are right; did you see the "victorious" face of Andy Uba on Vanguard? He looked like someone emerging from trance in a tunnel of darkness in Awka.

I thought the only tunnel in Nigeria is in Enugu.

I am serious.

Me too; do you have anything against the modern, motorable Ebeano Tunnel in Enugu?

I have nothing against tunnels of any size or design, but this discussion is not about tunnels.

It is about everything under the sun that catches my imagination, including tunnels.

Talking of Enugu, how does the incomplete result grab you?

It is complete; PDP’s Sullivan Chime has it… as is expected.

You mean it was not rigged, that everything was above bar?

I was not there; then again, the question is: Who rigged, and who didn’t? How?

While we wait for INEC’s completion, the army was way, way out of line in Enugu.

Kudos to them for keeping it sane of Saturday; they could have kicked some butts, but they opted for dialogue. In effect, the opposition caused the delay, though they have every right to know the whereabouts of so-called “return forms” which, in Anambra, were completed, signed, and delivered from the homes of prominent sons of the soil while self-styled "Godfather" Chris Uba chilled as police guest in Abuja. But let’s stay on the role of 82 Div soldiers. Go ahead…

On Sunday, they allegedly went berserk, horsewhipped an elder statesman and reportedly tear-gassed an ex-minister.

Abomination! Ndiigbo must not tolerate such behaviors. Someone must be brought to court to answer to the charges. We are beginning to accept a certain erosion of our social sensibilities on the altar of petty politics. Then again, we must learn to use courts of law, not try to step up to the face of constituted authorities with license to kill and go.

You are sounding like Buhari.

Don’t mind the reformed dictator; he is surprisingly sounding more democratic than even Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Professor Pat Utomi. The man tried the courts post 2003; he saw for himself that the Nigerian courts are not that crazy about overturning presidential elections. 1979 is a good example and, in fact, the bastardization of a popular mandate brought in Buhari in 1983. We cannot continue to run around in circles.

You are damn right! For crying out loud, Nigeria is not Zimbabwe.

And we are headed the Mugabe way, if we don’t watch it. I think Nigerians should look at the bigger picture, count their teeth with their tongue, and ease the bull elephant out of the china shop.

But Baba is not gong anywhere; he has even enshrined himself as the party boss.

Listen, my dear: Presidential power is an executive elixir, a potent aphrodisiac. Whoever occupies Aso Rock is not going to be anyone’s larky. There is so much power under that rock to force President Obasanjo into a dignified retirement. It is all about money, and “Baba” -- as you call him -- is not known for openhandedness. The source is at the Rock; whoever controls the source controls souls.

Okay, what can we do?

Take it on both cheeks after the presidential race today and other makeup elections are won by PDP, humor the courts with an army of funny-looking lawyers, and make the Supreme Court come alive with key rulings as guidelines for future elections.

Then what?

Then we go back to where we should have been since 1993: Form two strong political parties at the national level, period! IBB could have done it and secured a lasting legacy; he dropped the ball on the altar of unnecessary dribbling. Atiku could have done it, but he is consumed by his inordinate ambition to be president. Ditto Buhari. The new hope is, surprisingly, Ken Nnamani. A strong national opposition must emerge somehow. Politically, anything else will be spinning the wheel, and PDP could rule the country for the next 50 years, as it has promised.

“Tufiakwa!” It cannot happen!

“Tufia” is aspiration for the abatement of aberration; practicability requires that you do something about it. It is easy to curse; to follow a cause is a harder road to travel.

And what is to be done?

The opposition should build on their new found unity, nurse it nonstop, and get ready for local government elections.

Oh yes, those too.

If people are as angry as you think they are, nothing will make an unpopular party popular in any town. Who is the local councilor that will snatch the people’s mandate just like that? Where will he live? Even his family will wash their hands off him. We must go back to the building blocks, the town unions and local councilors.

You have a huge point there. If the opposition parties unite and present a structure of similar strength, PDP is beatable, rigging or no rigging.

It’s called the “Kenyan Option.” By the way, you are beginning to sound like me….

So we should simply consider every bite from last night as mosquito bite and forge ahead.

Even the bite from later today must be considered “mosquito bite.” I refuse to think of any alternative; we must not go back to that dark-goggle tunnel. No interim nothing and no interregnum; let the sick baby be!

I agree with you totally. Heh ehm mmm… one more for the road?

Freeloader, go grab a bottle of beer!