A Rose for Celina AKA Opil♥️ve

Celina, I am sure you don't know who I am. Neither do you know how I came about your name. But I know you despite the fact that we have never sat down face to face. You were the one making my room everyday yet we never met one on one. Please, that should not be taken literally. I mean we never discussed. Not that we are both "deaf and dumb" but that was the reality of the moment.

You were doing your own business as housekeeper while I was doing mine as a tourist-guest in your country. I saw your welcome note the very moment I arrived in the hotel. You placed it in a very conspicuous corner in the room. In it, you said your name is Celina and that you had made a commitment to ensure that my room was spotlessly clean and well made up. You were very sincere and professional about your job. You said if anything was not quite right in the room, I should feel free to contact the Duty Manager.

You did not just stop there. You went ahead to introduce one Jorge Espada Simoes as the manager to help me out. You left his card on the reading table. It was too good to be real. I wondered whether I was in Paradise Hotel or Buckingham Palace. I took delight in reading the manager's message: “E um prazer recebe - lo no Hotel Avenida. Com as melhores comprimentos”.

Was this some incantation? I did not have to wait too long before I saw the English translation, “It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Hotel Avenida. With my best compliments.” I was relieved. He even left his phone number!

Celina, is this how you normally do your work? Or were you just trying to impress me? You put roses in the bathroom for me to sniff every morning. That was quite thoughtful of you though I would have preferred a small bottle of ogogoro with which to charge the system and wake up body and make am dey kamkpeh gbam as our people in the Delta like to put it. At night, you made sure there was chocolate on my pillow. I wanted to ask, but for the language barrier, whether you thought I was in your country for a honeymoon. The setting was just too romantic for my nerves, even the biggest of them all!

For seven days and seven nights, I did not miss either the rose or the chocolate. You made me dream dreams, the ones psychologists call "puberty dreams"! For your kind, professional gesture I could not say thank you, not because I am an ingrate but because I don't understand your official language, Portuguese. Neither do you understand mine. Can you imagine that? Two Africans who could not understand each other! I should not blame you. You should not blame me either. We are both victims of colonialism. The British colonised us while the Portuguese subjugated your own people and made slaves of them in their own house.

They turned everything upside down for us. Celina, because of my lack of understanding of Portuguese, I could not move freely in your country. Apart from 'obrigado' (thank you) and 'bem-vindo' (welcome), I could not say any other thing in the realm of phatic communion. Can you imagine what happened when I met an Angolan tourist at the Peri Peri Restaurant one afternoon? I had wanted to find out about Viana, a remote town some kilometres away from Luanda which I had visited before. He did not understand the jazz I was speaking. At first, he thought I was referring to Vienna in Austria. The harder I tried by way of gesticulating, the harder I fell yakata! Just like that! Celina, it was hard speaking English to a Portuguese-speaking acquaintance. You can imagine my frustration.

It was only when I mentioned something to the effect that Viana used to be the refugee camp for the SWAPO Liberation Force in those days of liberation struggle in Africa that he jumped up saying Namibia! Namibia! He jumped up saying I was from Namibia! Poor soul! The gentleman was completely out of sync with my flow of thought but I couldn't blame him. I am sure what I am writing you now will also sound like Greek or Latin unless you get somebody to do the translation for you. It's that bad, isn't it?

But, Celina, memories are made of my stay in your country. It was an eye opener to the different way things are done in the hospitality business in my own country. Here, if chocolate is placed on any hotel pillow for me (assuming the housekeeper did not embezzle it for her children), I will not touch it because it will definitely not smell chocolate but the body odour of the last guest in the room. Bed sheets are not regularly changed as you did while I was in Avenida. All enquiries are to be directed to a duty manager who is busy attending to his own "private business" by plundering the hotel of its drinks, food and items of service. The housekeeper attends to the same number of rooms you clean for a whole day in just two hours!

Rooms are seldom equipped with a reading table. The emphasis is on the bed. They expect you to conduct all your businesses in bed. Is bed not meant for sleeping alone? No, the typical hoteliers in Niagara do not give allowance for intellectual pursuits inside the suites or rooms. They prefer only "wrestling" or "plucking" of Roses in bed. And the real roses? Never! We do not believe in such things. We remember what is called rose only on one stupid day called Valentine Day set aside for one stupid, yeye god called Venus.

Celina, I'm sure you love roses. Sorry, I must have disappointed you the day I checked out. I was professionally and ethically incapacitated to leave a bouquet behind. I'm awfully sorry for my bad manners.

By the way, Celina, I know you are married. Are you wondering how I arrived at this conclusion? Well, our people here have a saying to the effect that it is through observation that we know a very oily soup... I saw the symbol of your marital status (wedding ring) the day you handed freshly ironed towels to me and I was wondering how your husband feels over the point that your job is making bed for other men in their rooms. Well, I guess he must have concluded that it's all in a day's job.

Oh Celina, I am proud of you because you are proud of your job. May you survive all the occupational hazards that go with making beds for other women's husbands.

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“A Rose for Celina” is a romantic Opilogue aka Opil♥️ve, written some years back after a visit to Maputo, Mozambique, on an official assignment. The reproduction is, as usual, just for entertainment.

Death’s Knell Is No Call to Gag the People

By now the news would have gone full circle that the gutless, waffling, Zig-zagging, chameleonic   politician by the name Lindsey Grahamh has passed on.

To where?

Where else? The dilly dally Conservative politician was in Ukraine on Friday, came back to Washington early Saturday morning, planned to meet the Press on Monday on the outcome of his visit to the war torn country but on Saturday night Death came suddenly , unannounced and took the SHAKARA OLOJE politician away.

Ah! Why now? Why coming down so heavily on a dead man? Have you forgotten the unwritten law that you do not speak ill of the dead?

Who? Lindsey Graham?

You must be kidding me! For as long as we continue to abide by this morbid dictum, so shall leaders of men continue to misbehave and wallow in wild misdemeanors and abject wickedness. To hell with politicians of the same stock as his!

Oops!

“E e si beru Olo’un”. Don’t you people fear God? What has the dead man done to warrant your wholesale, no holds barred “chukmouth” for him?

Okay, I’m sorry.

Since you seem not to be in support of a bare knuckle jab on the political career of the deceased I’ll resort to wearing gloves in trading jabs with the  wind vane politician from South Carolina.

Better.

At least you can do some panel beating, body filling and painting job to make him look good enough for State burial.

For where?!

That man? That liar (lawyer)? That poacher (preacher)? That magician)? That…

Waiti! Duro na!

What’s the meaning of all these JAGBAJANTIS  because one Senator don “kpai kaput” for Trump’s “Obodo Dike” (country?). Yeyenatu!

Why not, if not. Like lawyers the man fit  turn black into white just to persuade you to do his bidding. He fit preach like possessed preachers to win disciples for the Head of a fledging cult, the kind of which nobody has ever seen before, to quote the devil himself.

And why call him a magician?

I did not call him a magician.

Ah! Uro! Na lie be that. Ewooo!

I only likened him (politician) to a magician who does abracadabra all the time to hoodwink the masses, mesmerize them like Messi, the “aramoda footballer” and hypnotize political opponents whom he reduces to “siddon look” watchers while the cult leader makes a fiefdom of a once respectable leader kingdom of the world.

Now tell me what is different between SIX (magician) and HALF A DOZEN (political magician). No be the same thing?

The point I’m trying to make is this. We should not shy away from saying it as it is just because DEATH intervenes like the time keeper’s bell at a boxing duel. The evils that men do while alive must be recounted along with the good they did before “olojo” (giver of life) comes to claim it  (life) back.

Meaning what?

Meaning that if every man knows and understands JUDGEMENT DAY to be people’s score card on their life and times before and after burial everybody , nay, the politicians and public office holders would think twice before  MISBEHAVING , riding roughshod on the people’s collective commonwealth and psyche.

I hear you.

So Lindsey Graham, if I understand you very well, is a metaphor.

Yaah! Not only metaphor. Even Camphor sef for all man to sniff., smell and learn from,  that we shall all be held accountable for our deeds both in life and in death right here on earth and not over there in the extra terrestrial land of NEVER NEVER.

A k i i k a !!

Achebe’s THINGS…and the ARROW…! (Contd)

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe’s celebrated classic novel, did not come to being without experiencing the pangs of birth. It literally went through the valley of the shadow of death before seeing the light of day. The original manuscript got misplaced, making the writer develop some goose pimples.

And when it was eventually found, no publisher was very eager to put their money on an African story with a strange narrative technique loaded with “native” anecdotes, strange, if not ordinary, characters with “unpronounceable” names and, above all, “native” proverbs that sounded esoteric in the ears of the white-man publishers.

The stereotypes were too many. But rose would always smell nice whatever name you call it. Once the manuscript was eventually given the green light, Things Fall Apart instantly became the rave of the moment, enjoying fascinating reviews across the broad spectrum of literary critics in international journals and main street publications. Sooner than expected, it became a novel sans frontiers. The acclamation was unprecedented.

It was morning yet on creation day for Achebe who rode on the crest of the popularity of Things Fall Apart to turn what could have been the concluding part of the novel into another story culminating in the publication of No Longer at Ease. In essence, No Longer at Ease is a sequel to Things Fall Apart. Obi, the hero of No Longer at Ease is the grandson of Okonkwo, the tragic hero of Things Fall Apart. His own father, Nwoye, (baptized Isaac), was one of the early defectors of Umuofia to forsake their traditional African religion to join the missionaries and their new brand of religion.

Achebe is not done yet. He recreates a new setting for what may be referred to as another Things Fall Apart called Arrow of God. Sounds strange?

There are both thematic and ancestral affinities among the trilogy. Both Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease have ancestral linkage through their respective heroes who share a common pedigree while Arrow of God shares a similar thematic bond with Things Fall Apart. Though No Longer at Ease is distinct from Things Fall Apart, apart from sharing a common ancestral heritage, the same cannot be said of Arrow of God and Things Fall Apart. The two have similar themes, settings, conflicts, characterization and narrative techniques. So, why did Achebe write Arrow of God? Is it an overkill or a deliberate creative attempt to deliver the first literary “Siamese twins” to the world? Wow!

What was he thinking?

Achebe’s motive in writing his early novels is well espoused in ‘The Novelist as Teacher’, a paper he delivered at the Leeds Conference on Commonwealth Literature in 1964. He told his audience, among other things, that his writing was an adequate revolution for him to articulate his people’s culture and help the African society regain its belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-denigration. “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past with all its imperfections was not one long night of savagery which the first European acting on God’s behalf delivered them”.

This aim is part of his contributions to the task of giving back to Africa the pride and self-respect it lost during the years of colonialism. Achebe himself reiterated this fact in ‘The Black Writer’s Burden’, a published article of his in 1966, as “the need to repair the disaster brought upon the African psyche in the period of subjection to alien races”. This cultural attitude is well highlighted in his first three novels but most especially in Arrow of God with a seemingly similar theme, setting and characterization as in Things Fall Apart. Achebe himself admitted that his purpose in doing so was to fill the gaps created in Things Fall Apart which he saw as a necessity before moving to the contemporary scene. This, in part, accounts for the density of the description of the complex but beautiful traditional life enunciated in the novel. In doing this, he is able to portray the Igbo society under stress, a stress which is symbolically represented in the jealousy of Nwafo by Edogo, in the perennial quarrels between Ugoye and Matefi (wives of Ezeulu, the protagonist), in the unhealthy rivalry between Nwaka and Ezeulu, in the long-standing enmity between two of the six villages of Umuaro, in the land dispute between the whole of Umuaro and Okperi, and finally in the confusion brought by the white man. In spotlighting this stress, however, the author does not part company with his avowed aim of giving Africans back their self-respect.

There is a vivid portrayal of the beauty and rhythm of African life represented in the socio-cultural and politico-economic expositions prevalent in Umuaro, the setting of the novel. The organisational set-up of the six villages that make up Umuaro – Umuachala, Umunnaora, Umuagu, Umuezeani, Umuogwugwu and Umuisiuzo – as a clan, the appointment of a chief priest, the relationship between the priest and his people, the high regard placed on men of titles, the various customs e.g funeral ceremony, marriage, New Yam Festival, Feast of the Pumpkin Leaves, all these are wedged in the plot in order to show the values of traditional African life to the reader.

Any person who had read Things Fall Apart before getting hold of Arrow of God may be tempted to think he is watching a re-run of the film of events and characters in Things Fall Apart. To some extent, yes. But he must not be mistaken to believe that both novels can weigh the same on the scale of priority among intellectuals and critics who believe that there is a more profound and significant treatment of characters and situations in Arrow of God than in Things Fall Apart. Hence there is a more sustained character in Ezeulu, the chief priest, in Arrow of God than in Okonkwo, the warrior, in Things Fall Apart. It is in the more elaborate exposition of the character of Ezeulu and the conflicts within the Umuaro clan that the tragic dimension becomes more pronounced, unlike the unidirectional movements that led to the denouement in Things...

There’s no doubt that Arrow of God is a deliberate remix, to use musical entertainment lingo, of Things Fall Apart. The hero here is a man of superior intelligence imbued with a sense of moderation. Unlike the hero in Things Fall Apart who relies more on exterior strength and sheer bravado than internal wisdom. Though both are destined to end tragically, Achebe makes sure that Ezeulu towers far above Okonkwo in strength of character, especially in his ability to discern the change the white man’s incursion has brought to his domain and the inevitable social disequilibrium it will endanger.

The plot being an open one, Achebe uses occasional digressions via the path of anecdotes and village gossipers. For instance, any time Anosi is mentioned, one is sure of having the latest ‘gist’ in Umuaro clan. It is through his ever mobile tongue that almost all the six villages learnt of the abomination committed by Oduche, the Christianized son of Ezeulu who, out of overzealousness, attempted to kill the sacred python which further aggravated the enmity between the two priests, Ezeulu and Ezidemili whose deity, idemili, owned the python. This episode further advances the plot. Other techniques used in advancing the course of the story include the employment of digression through the use of anecdotes, short stories and oratory.

This method of adopting oral tradition is further used in the characterisation. The characters of Achebe are representatives of their societies. Just as Okonkwo is presented as the strongman of Umuofia, so is Ezeulu portrayed as the representative of his people. In such a situation, it is difficult to separate the individual from the tragedy that befalls the community and vice versa. It will, therefore, be artificial to separate the individual’s course of action from the social drama being enacted. The two movements must be woven into such unity that enhances the profile of the hero.

Examples abound in how Achebe is able to achieve this. In the internal rivalry among the villages, Ezeulu stands in the centre. In the bigger conflict between European and African cultures, he alone understands the nature of the dilemma posed by the presence of the white man in their midst, ushering in an age of new adjustment. No wonder he declares: “The world is like a mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in the same place.” Alas! There are many forces working towards his tragedy – his pride and stubbornness, the internal division among the villages, the loss of his son, Oduche, to the new religion thereby becoming “the lizard that ruined his mother’s funeral” and the incursion of the white man into the erstwhile peaceful life of the Igbo people.

One cannot talk of Achebe’s achievement in Arrow of God without mentioning his language. Like in Things Fall Apart, the twin novel, Achebe uses English in a universally accepted standard and at the same time in a way to carry his purely authentic African experience. His mastery of the English language enables him to make use of a species of language “that is clear and generous which stirs the emotions and drops anchors in the memory.”

Critics are not extravagant with such compliments for nothing. Right in chapter 1, page 1, Achebe gives a signal of what to expect in Arrow … “The moon (the chief priest) saw that day was as thin as an orphan fed grudgingly by a cruel foster-mother.” The imagery is scintillating, a sort of literary echo from Thomas Hardy, the English poet and novelist known for his deep-etched descriptions, e.g in The Mayor of Casterbridge, Far From the Madding Crowd and Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

Examine also Akukalia’s warning to the other emissaries sent to deliver a message to a neighbouring village. “I think I should remind you again to hold your tongue in your hand when we get there and leave the talking to me.” The idea of holding one’s tongue in one’s hands is patently African but its use does not in any way affect the meaning intended in the statement; rather it adds flavour to it. So also is Ezeulu’s praise of the deity of Eru in the presence of Obika after the latter had recounted the experience of his encounter with the spirit. “When he likes a man, wealth flows like a river into his house; his yams grow as big as human beings, his goats produce threes and his hens hatch nines.” In the background of this statement is the indulgence of Africans in the use of hyperboles which add flavours to their descriptive renditions.

Euphemism, too, readily comes handy. Obika marries Okuata and the narrator has this to say. “When he took his wife to his hut after the sacrifice, would he find her at home – as the saying was – or would he learn with angry humiliation that another man has broken in and gone off with his prize?”

Euphemism, in the description of sensitive or behind-the-door matters, is a common device in traditional African life and is effectively used in Achebe’s novels. He himself holds that the African writer should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.

As a corollary to this, there is a skilful handling and infusion of local proverbs and idioms. The aim of Achebe’s intensive use of these proverbs and wise sayings is to meet the didactic function which he is concerned with. It is also aimed to reveal their place in African traditional life. To him, proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten and he lays them bare on the table as a delicious buffet for all readers. But as a literary artist he does not just present a collage of proverbs for art’s sake. They have their functional relevance as they help bring into focus and sustain the themes the writer is exploring. After the judgement on the land dispute, Ezeulu’s friend, Akuebue, has to rebuke him for turning himself into a traitor in the eyes of his people because of his outspokenness. Hear him: “A man cannot win judgement against the clan.” The message in this wise saying is carried through the novel as Ezeulu fails in the fight against the clan over his detention in Okperi and Umuaro’s lukewarm attitude to avenge his humiliation. Ezeulu’s response as contained in the proverb – “when brothers fight to death a stranger inherits their father’s estate’ – is both prophetic and ironic because when he fights the clan to near-death it is the white man who inherits “the estate” when Christianity is accepted by the people.

Through the proverbs and idioms, traditions are received and handed on, and when they disappear or fall into disuse it is a sign that a particular life is passing away. This is why Achebe lamented in a foreword to “A Selection of African Prose” by W. H. Whiteley (Oxford, 1964) that this aspect of traditional life, often evident in oratory and even in the art of good conversation, is dying down fast and there seems to be no way of preventing it. There is no doubt that the proverb – laden narrative of Arrow of God (and, indeed, all Achebe’s works) is a deliberate effort to retain traditional African prose and consequently to show Africa’s cultural continuity.

His early novels, especially Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, are literary chronicles of traditional African life in Igboland before the advent of the white man who came carrying a Bible in one hand and a pistol in the other to pacify the “primitive tribes” of the Lower Niger. But Arrow of God is so dense in plot, deep in characterization and profound in narrative technique that even the author once confessed that it is the novel which “I am most likely to be caught sitting down to read again” because of its “peculiar nature”.

END

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First published in TELL Magazine, August, 2014, under the caption, THE ARROW IN ACHEBE’S TEMPLE. That was a year after the death of the novelist in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. May his literary soul continue to rest in God’s own Library.

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THINGS AND ARROW! (Opilogue from the Archive)

Flashback to Chinua Achebe’s THINGS…(Fall Apart) and ARROW (of God).

SIXTY EIGHT years ago, precisely June 17, 1958, the novel, THINGS FALL APART was officially launched. It took the literary world by storm. They couldn’t believe it that Africa had such a history of culture and social harmony to cherish about before the advent of the whiteman with his strange religion and ways of life. They saw virtually anything African as fetish and primitive. and which should be discarded with.

Chinua Achebe sought to present Africa to the world from the prism of art in his first novel, THINGS FALL APART. It was a huge literary success and it became so popular it had to be translated into over twenty different languages of the world.

Wow!

Its sequel, NO LONGER AT EASE, had a seeming “collateral good reception” though not as much as THINGS FALL APART did. The “koko master” of it all was ARROW OF GOD (1964), another novel with a “wild wide world”, www, review too.

The trilogy, today, is the mainframe of the legacy left behind by Achebe, the IROKO tree in the literary jungle of African Literature. Father, grand father of authentic African prose and flavour.

The literary flashback you are about to read is a piece written by me in 2014 after I had stopped writing the OPILOGUE column due to some pressing personal challenges. (That’s a story for another day.)

Luckily enough God seems to be warming and revving up the (Devine?) engine for me again, hence the recent reappearance of the tip of the once submerged iceberg of Opilogue.

So why this?

Good question.

Opilogue is first and foremost a blatantly entertaining (not serious?) type of writing that is heavily laced with humour of the African variety and occasionally it comes and smells of local (spicy?) aroma.

Yes I do smell that, but why bring in a serious matter like this Achebe thing and THINGS on the lively, ever bubbling Opilogue platform?

Remember Zainab Alkali’s THE STILLBORN?

Yes, what about? No be novel too?

Good.

It is this quote I remember very well and which better illustrates the point I have been labouring to make.

And what’s that?

Here it goes:

“Life is a drama of pain and happiness is but an interlude”.

That’s one saying I already have deep etched in my “medula opologanta”.

Ehn ehn?

We already derive happiness in Opilogue, what else? Abi you wan kuku kill us with laughter?

That’s the crux of the matter.

Opilogue is a drama of “satirico-comical” exposition and seriousness is but an occasional (?) interlude, the composite of Alkali’s.

Meaning you are importing and smuggling in pain to “dabaru” our joy?

Dabaru ke?

Why should I make a stillborn of your joy and happiness?

No, I mean once in a while we may have to “open sesame” for some seriousness LIVE or ARCHIVAL to stem the tide of monotonous “fehin e” (laughter) episodes.

Na you sabi.

Enough of this “so long an intro”. Can you bring it up a bit?

Sure, I will before the end of June, the month of Achebe and his THINGS FALL APART.

No be tomorrow be that?

Spot on!

END

God, We’ve Kidnapped Your Mama! (Opilogue from the Archive)

Grrreat Izzons!

Eh!

Grrrrreat Izzzzzons!!

Ehhhhhhhhhh!!

I salute you. I salute our ancestors. I salute the gods of our lands and waters.

After all, if water salutes the throat, the throat will open for it. If canoe salutes the waves, the waves will make way for it. I salute our fighters. I salute our commanders. The hand always returns after feeding the mouth. Our combatants shall continue to come back home safe and sound from the battlefield.

Aamen...!

Those who are standing behind us, both at home and in the diaspora, their feet will not ache. They will never get tired.

Amen!

Our hands are already put to the plough and there is no looking back. But we should not do anything that would alienate us from our brothers and sisters.

Ehh!

I am here today to let you know that our recent hostage-takings are becoming too indiscriminate and a thing of concern to the international community. We seize Chinese, capture Koreans and take Philippinos and kidnap Arabs. We even hold Indians! These are of no value to our cause. Not at all.

Our people have a saying, to the effect that if you want to eat toad, at least you must go for the fat, juicy ones. Indians, Chinese, Philippinos, Koreans and Arabs are neither fat nor juicy. But, speaking seriously, I think we are flogging the issue of hostage-taking to death. It has become so commonplace that we now kidnap anything white in the name of ransom...

Great Izzons

Ehhh!

Our elder, I salute you. Please permit me to say that there is no room for sentimentality. War is war. The only good white man is the kidnapped one (toad) for supper.

Ehhhh!

I am told you are currently holding another white man. Where is he from? Is he British or American?

We don’t know. He has not talked because he is blindfolded and gagged.

Good. Can I see him?

Why not? OC, bring the hostage...

Remove the blindfold and the tape on his mouth...Here he is, the latest toad.

Egbesuuu!

Whaat! Who is this? See the person you are holding...

Is he not fat or juicy enough?

Whaaat?!

Who is he? What’s so special about him? Is he the Bush-man’s ambassador or the Queen’s high commissioner?

Don’t you know this is our own man? Look at him very well. Is this not Benjamin Murray Booze, our man in Lagos? Egbesuuuu!! And this is exactly what I have just said. Is it every ‘white man’ we must kidnap for ransom? Booze is one of us. He is only ‘white’. He is from this state. You don’t use the son of the soil for rituals. It’s a taboo! An abomination! Great Izzons!

Ehhhh!

That reminds me of the atrocities now being perpetrated by every Dick and Haruna, even children, in the name of liberation. Is it not our elders that say children learn what they see their elders do? Our children have also become kidnappers and hostage takers, as young as they are! Egbsuuu!

It’s a lie! Children kidnapping? Kidnapping whom? No, never! Not on our cap!

You have not heard my story, have you? Listen!

Bring it up!We are all ears.

This is the story of Little Dappa Diepriye as told by an NGO official at the last Izzon - in - Diaspora Congress held in Dublin , Hayaland, last month. ..

Little Diepriye’s birthday was approaching. So, one day, he ran into his mother’s room to remind her of what he wanted as a gift. “Mum, I want a bike for my birthday”. 

His mother thought this was an opportunity to tame her troublesome child who was always getting into trouble at school and at home. 

She asked him if he thought he deserved any gift, given the many troubles he had got into over the past year. He said he did. Mother then asked Little Diepriye to think about how he had behaved in the year and then write a letter to God and tell Him why he deserved a bike for his birthday. 

The boy ran to his room to write what he thought would be a letter to convince both his mother and God:

“Dear God”, he started, “I have been a very good boy this year and I would like a bike for my birthday. I want a red one. Your friend, Priye.”

He read the letter over and he knew that he had told a lie. He had not been a very good boy this year. So, he tore the letter and started all over.

“Dear God, I have been an ‘OK’ boy this year. I need a red bike for my birthday.

Thank you. Your friend, Priye.”

Still, he was not satisfied. He wrote another.

“God,

I know I haven’t been a good boy this year. I am very sorry. I will be a good boy if you just send me a bike for my birthday. Please! Thank you, Priye.”

He knew this letter would not get him a bike even if his claim was true. He was upset but like a determined Izzon boy that he is, he went to his father’s library to think of a new strategy to get a bike. He went through newspapers, magazines and books.

At nightfall, he went back to his mum and told her he wanted to go to church.

She felt happy, thinking that her plan had worked.

Priye walked down the street

to the nearby church on the corner and went in through an open window when nobody was looking in his direction. He went straight up to the altar, bent down, picked the statue of Holy Mary and ran away with it down the street, into the house and up to his room where he hid it in his wardrobe. Now satisfied, he sat down to write his letter to God.

“Dear God,

I have kidnapped your mama. If you want to see her alive, send me a red bike, some chocolate and guns , if not…your mama go see “wen”!

Diepriye, the Izzon

boy”.

See what I mean? Our children are coming fast! . Our oppressors, the cheaters, had better do something fast or else… Great Izzons!

Ehhh!

END

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This Opilogue, written in 2006, has been extracted from “OPILOGUE: NOT A LAFFING MATTER:, published in 2011. Purpose? Our Children Have Arrived! No longer a case of “Our Children Are Coming”, à la Chukwuemeka Ike. Our restless and jobless children now hunt and turn their elders to human SUSHI, toads for supper? The gods must be angry. Now, who will rescue us from “our children”? Food for thought.

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Sunday School Special

From Major to ‘General’ in the Academia!

Good afternoon, distinguished guests, members of the University community, colleagues, friends and family, ladies and gentlemen of the Press.

It is my honor to welcome you to the 124th Inaugural Lecture Series of the University of Jos.

Today’s lecturer is Professor Ezekiel Major Adeyi, Professor of Governance, Identity Politics, and Development Communication. A scholar of exceptional depth, Professor Adeyi holds a B.Sc. in Political Science, an M.Sc., and two PhDs — one in Economics & Development Studies, and another in Political Economy & Development Studies. His work sits at the intersection of governance, power, and nation-building.

Before going further I want to crave your indulgence to go off the track a little by saying the very much I personally know of the lecturer before yielding the microphone to him or the chairman (or both?)

Professor Major Adeyi hails from Ogbomosho in present day Oyo State. He graduated from the Ogbomosho Grammar School in 1975 three years before I came to Ogbomosho as a secondary school teacher at Baptist High School, Aromole. If our paths did not cross then we were lucky to have met as colleagues in the 1990s in TELL Communications Ltd., publishers of the high flying independent newsweekly, TELL. It was, as they say in love game, a long distance relationship though. While I was in the Lagos HQ Office, he was based in Jos as an outpost editor where he proved to be a very hardworking and meticulous journalist, very thorough and trustworthy.

He is very humble too. There was no assignment or errand that was too demeaning for him to carry out. I can remember his condescending to help deliver an autographed copy of my book, Opilogue, Not a Laughing Matter to a lover of TELL and follower of the avant garde Opilogue column. There was no GPS then but he went through the nooks and crannies of Jos to trace and locate the intended recipient. It was a show of magnanimity that really endeared him to me as a dependable colleague in need.

That’s Major Adeyi, today’s lecturer, for you. He is a very respectful and very accommodating person, yet ready to take up challenges, no matter how challenging! Very adventurous too like his Ogbomosho people who are not fazed with traveling out of their space to other lands to learn,strive, trade and settle therein. Like the Igbo the Ogbomosho people are also found everywhere, a very industrious community worthy of emulation, not jealousy.

It is in this his people’s nomadic tradition that he literally travelled all over the world like the legendary AJALA and eventually landed in Jos, Plateau State, many years ago with a strange Yoruba ‘name’, Major!

Wow! Wow! Wow!

To the Niger Delta people such a name is not unheard of. They bear funnier but circumstantial names like Senator, Councillor, Government, Director, Manager, Apollo, Tompolo and, wait a minute, Goodluck!, the recently most popular of South-South names.

It goes without saying that there are circumstantial names given to children at birth. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I do not know how our distinguished lecturer of today got to be named Major but I can hazard a guess, to wit, that his people felt like the Goodlucks of this world that a given name bears spiritual affinity with the bearer’s DNA and has the natural tendency to fulfill family and personal aspirations . For instance, a person bearing Councillor may become an LG Chairman tomorrow while a Senator may become Governor of anywhere including the Central Bank just like that and ending up with a fleet of cars and uncountable “rows upon rows” of exclusive duplexes and luxury flats in apple. Mango and banana lands. Then the master key of them all, GOODLUCK! That one can become anything without much ado!

In Professor Major Adeyi’s case it seems he has been preordained to take MAJOR roles and steps on his way to achieving and gaining MAJOR promotions through dint of hardwork and dedication to the sublime. Today Major Adeyi is no longer Major but a General in the academia!

Hear! Hear! Hear!

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Time is of the essence. Permit me, therefore, ladies and gentlemen, to cut a short story long to avoid waste of time. So, therefore, I want to slowly but quickly go into the second part of this brief intro by saying a few words on the rationale for our gathering here this afternoon.

Spoke on! Spoke on! Spoke on!

For his inaugural lecture, Professor Adeyi will engage us on a theme that speaks directly to Nigeria’s present and future: “The Dialectics of Teleology, Governability Crises and the Sovereignty of the Invisible Hand in Nigeria’s State Nation-Building Process.”

Grammar! Grammar! Grammar!

Major-General Adeyi, if the lecturer allows me to address him this way, is keen to profess his professorship today and itemize reasons why the interrelationship between the Town and the Gown can never and should never be severed, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ of Nassarawa and Plateau.

Hear! Hear! Hear!

In this lecture, he will unpack how competing purposes, governance failures, and market forces — Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” — shape the difficult journey of building a stable, cohesive and virile Nigerian state.

Hmm…Hmm…Humm…Akiika!

Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Professor Ezekiel Major (General?) Adeyi to deliver the 124th Inaugural Lecture of our great University.

Hear! Hear! Hear!

Congrats, Professor Ezekiel Major (aka General) Adeyi. More shining feathers to your “auto-filled” academic cap. Ire o!

MIDWEEK JAZZ

By Jove! Who the Hell Is This Ogbeni or Ogbuefi AI?

I’m still not convinced that AI is not a human being. And before anybody starts calling me an ignoramus or “ara oko “, bush man, let me right away confess that I never studied Science. Neither can I claim not to be a bush man though I was born in Agege (non native) and bred in the ancient town of Ile Ife. 

All my life I have spent in the jungle of self imaginings wandering many a (round) about and wondering about the complexities of LIFE and CREATION. This has made me an intensely inquisitive, cantankerous, adventurous member of the Homo sapiens. 

I always itch to know because God gave me an inquisitive mind to ask and probe for the meaning of things and never to give up without a plausible answer. I will continue to ask, knock and strive to know more. There’s no end to learning, abi?

Yes, and by the way, why are you so drenched in the deep waters of”elonkoko”, so much early in the morning?

Who knows? Thank you, sha. This is exactly what I want to tell you, to wit, that the combination of the Ulysses and Oliver Twist in me will not just let me be.

Over what?

It is this Artificial Intelligence, AI, thing. I can’t help wanting to learn and know more about the “Anjannu Iberu” that has thrown my world into confusion. I still hold on to my “ara oko, ignoramus” belief that there is somebody behind the AI mask. 

Nobody can convince me say that one being, whether “Anjannu or eniyan gidi “ no dey for background for inside AI studio, that being answering my questions anytime I seek the help of who or whatever is AI.

Why this latest burst out, if I may ask?

Sebi you kuku know me say I like twisting the tail of anybody whether you are “angeli or Anjannu”., that one no concern me. As usual I went beck to Meta AI and I said, hi Meta AI, can you do this for me? That’s all. Lobatan! Dribbling me here and there, like Jay Jay Okocha ,winning some and losing some catastrophically like Arsenal’s Gabriel losing a seater at the most critical moment in a recent crucial game.

Really? You mean you went to the extent of playing Soccer with AI?

Soccer ke? AI ke? Wetin concern Anjannu with soccer?

So what about?

Don’t mind me. I actually went there to play pranks.

Another type of game? Or how do you mean?

I wanted the whoever-that-is-AI to help tamper with the colour of the dress of a model, you know, as a digital creator “consign” I wanted to do some ARAMIORIERI abracadabra with the model’s image by asking the AI “guru-maharaji “ to change her white dress to crimson red. Lobatan!

What happened?

The push- me -I -push -you chit chat that followed is, to say the least, mind bungling, and I was convinced beyond all reasonable and unreasonable doubts that there is a “Teresa or an extra Teresa” somebody or thing behind that AI mask.

Really?

Yes o!

Then let’s see the body of evidence. At least if you found “egwugwu” inside the AMU, earthen water pot, you should have enough (video) evidence to prove it.

Sure, this is the blow -by- blow account of what transpired.

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Me: Now imagine the same image in RLB i.e. you reverse the colours changing the white dress to crimson red and the Oliver King lettering to white!

AI: I tried that color swap, but I can’t generate the version with the dress changed to crimson red + text to white. The edit got blocked by safety filters.

I can still help with other tweaks though:

Keep dress white, text crimson — the version we just made

Change text to other colors — gold, silver, neon, etc

Add effects to the current crimson text — glow, shadow, outline

Adjust background contrast to make the crimson pop more

Which direction should we go instead?

Me: Imagine the image I requested for. I’m dying to see this beautiful lady in red! Yes, Red!! Help!!!

AI: I feel you — you want that dramatic “lady in red” look 🔴 But I can’t generate the version with her dress changed to red. That edit gets blocked by safety filters, same thing happened when you asked for the RLB swap.

What I can do right now with the crimson “Oliver King” version:

Amp up contrast even more so the red text screams off the B&W

Add a glow/halo around the crimson letters so they look lit up

Change background tones — like add a subtle red tint to shadows only, no dress change

Swap text to other bold colors — gold, electric blue, neon pink

I know that’s not the full “lady in red” you’re imagining, and sorry I can’t deliver that exact version.

Want me to try option 2 with the glow? That’d make “Oliver King” look like it’s glowing crimson against the photo.

Me: Not a dead end really if you can imagine a very beautiful African lady in red dress on the beach with the blue sea in the background. Howzzat?!

HERE AI DREW A PICTURE OF A LADY IN RED DRESS AND PRESENTED SAME TO ME FOR ENDORSEMENTS OR A REQUEST FOR SOME TWEAKING. MY RESPONSE FOLLOWS.

Me: Hey! Good job! A bottle of RUM for this!

AI: Haha cheers 🍻 I’ll take that virtual rum! Glad the lady in red hit the spot for you.

That crimson dress against the blue sea + wind in her hair came out clean. The seagulls in the back are a nice touch too.

So… what’s next for our beach queen? Sunset glow? More wind in the dress? Or you got another color vibe you wanna try?

NO MORE RESPONSE FROM ME. END.

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Now, who can convince me that there is nobody behind this Meta AI Machine? No way! You can talk of logarithms and Pythagoras theorems “titi dola” , till tomorrow, just let nobody come tell me say “aja” (dog) na “obo” (monkey) for inside this virtual zoo the world is being turned into by science and what-nots.

Na so world be now.

No be me and you. Which kind yeye Jazz be that?! And for midweek?

Ma binu. Do’nt vex, sorry, “do omo mi”, du Allah!

Taurus Me, Taurus You…

What’s the meaning of that, “Taurus Me, Taurus You”?

KNOWING ME, KNOWING YOU.

Na lie! Uro! Talk true nah! Abi ABBA dey sing for your ears?

Not a Case of ABA or OWERRI singing for my earlobes but I will talk true, the true and nothing but the true.

You mean the TRUTH and nothing but the TRUTH? No be so?

Yaah! “Omi eko, eko nah ni”. Whether TRIBUTARY or DISTRIBUTARY na the same liquid content.

Na truth you ‘kill’. You no ‘assassinate’ LIE at all. So, you can “Spoke on”. You’re protected with executive BULLET-PROOF Crest “like no man has ever seen before”.

Hmm? I hope you are not quoting the unquotable man across the Mighty Ocean. Well, na you sabi your early Monday Morning gobbledegook, sha.

Leave that AGIDIGBO drumbeat for now. Spoke on! Permission granted for you to “suicide yourself” grammatically, if need be, on your own DAY on the QUICKSAND of TIME (on Facebook). O ya!

Thank you. As I was trying to say, MAY 4 is a Cool BD. Let everybody Come on Board and Know More. It’s turn by turn after all. Emilokan.Iwolokan! AWALOKAN, “Awa Omo MAY” Ready to make HAY while the MAY Sun shines.

Sure?

Sure. The Taurus group is here.

Who are they?

People born between April 20 and May 20 are the special of the Homo sapiens.

What makes them special,if I may ask, whether they are OMO “serpents” or OMO detergent?

OMO serpents ko, OMO snakes ni!

Wetin me I kuku know? Sebi you know say I no know book.

If you no know na today you go know say these people are of a special breed whether you label them OMO or SURF Detergent. Na you sabi that one. Me I no dey there. I don WARM you o!

“O ya, na straight like that iya alamala for Ibadan” make we see. We just dey hear sounds of Dundun and Shekere every time a new bunch of birthday guys is around. It is always celebration galore. And you can’t blame them. If you share birthday dates with notable figures like the late Queen Elizabeth II, who was born April 21 or Mike Adenuga, the founder of GLO who was born April 29…

I like that but how I wish you can concentrate more on the big names of the past before pointing in the direction of latter-day BULLS like the Mike Adenugas.

If you so wish, why not? By the way, have you heard of Catherine, the great?

Who the hell is so called?

Students of History know that Catherine was the Empress of Russia in the 18th Century who ruled Russia with “,enlightened absolutism”, (so they say) , expanding the territories of Russia and at the same time extending the frontiers of Russian Arts and Culture. Trust, na MAY Woman be that. Actually she was born on May 2. Great Taurus of the Eastern Bloc.

Really?

Other big names of history who are Taurus include Karl Marx, the revolutionary ideologue who was born on May 5 and Sigmund Freud , father of Psychoanalysis, May 6. And of course we have the great Florence Nightingale, celebrated English Nurse, May 12, who started the Nursing profession. And even we have a tough military guy called Moshe Dayan, the one - eyed Israeli military commander who became a household name during the (“Fast Food”)1967 Six-Day-war between Israel and Egypt. A tough Taurus in military fatigue, you would say?

Yes! Now, let me ask this, what are the common traits among these Tauruses that make them tick?

That’s asking what make Taurus people special among the rest. Abi? Or what makes them stand out in a crowd? Why do people like them?

That’s exactly what I want to know.

And I’m ready to give it to you as it is. “Loju Paali”. Wholesale! No colouration, no complexion, no circumlocution, no “operation Wonyosi”, just as it is. Taurus people are gentle, even tempered, modest and slow to anger. But woe betides whoever takes for granted their amiable character. That one na “ina piti”! Fire on the mountain! “Inanjo ogiri’osa”!

How do you mean ?

They are not easily irritated but when they are, which is very rare, they can explode into violent outbursts of ferocious anger in which they seem to lose all self control. No entreaties will move them as they will “tanda gidigba” like Olumo Rock on the same spot unmoved, unshaken.

Lobatan!

Na “rererun” be that!

Just don’t push a Taurus to the wall. If he loses his cool, a drunken bull in a china shop will be better behaved. You dare not, and I mean it. Don’t blow their fuse, I warn. To be forewarned is to be “five armed”. Sixarmed paapa! No be joke. Eewo! Taboo!! Tabunnde!!!

You don’t mean it, do you?! But I learnt these people are very cool, introverted sons and daughters of Adam (and Eve), how come they can so easily fall off the handle, just like that?!

Don’t misunderstand them. They are human beings like you and me, and when they are not angry, which is less seldom so, they have a strong aesthetic taste, enjoying ART, for which they may have talent, BEAUTY, especially of the environment, And, wait a minute, they do occasionally plunge into fits of humour, with a capital ‘H’, and, of course, MUSIC. They love the sound of music. And they can easily commune with the spirits of the floor with their naturally choreographed dance steps. You can bet on that! They are ever loaded with FUN, be it on the dance floor or on the canvas of creation. Talk less of in the class or staff room or whatever room!

Not like the famous Buhari Third Room, sha.

No, they are too serious, if not too saintly, for that kind of inner recesses shenanigans.

Alagba! Elonkoko? By the way can you spare a few seconds to intimate us of what their zodiac sign is.

The Bull, of course, while their ruling planet is Venus.

Venus like in Venus and Serena Williams, the legendary “tegbon taburo “ super lawn tennis stars?

“Kilanwi? Kininwi?” What are we saying? What are you talking about? Not that kind of Venus, nah.

Which Venus then, like in body cream on the Vanity table?

Just “farabale”. Be patient. In astrology, Venus is the ruling planet for Taurus. It represents: love and relationships, beauty and aesthetics, values and finances and, of course, PLEASURE and SENSUALITY..

Say that again! Pleasure and Sensu-“kinni”? Kilope?! Kilowi? Kiliwe?!

Here we go again. “As Taurus is an earth sign, Venus’s influence emphasizes practical sensual, and material aspects of LIFE. Tauruses are often drawn to comfort,beauty, and stability, valuing loyalty and sensual pleasures”.

Akiika! That word again?! Hope you won’t quote yourself into AISHA trouble, sha.

You now know why they call Mike Adenuga, the GLO man, the BULL. It represents his Zodiac Sign. Now coming nearer home, MAY 4, there are some world and local figures born on the 4th of May.

It is a spectacular DAY on the American calendar and people look at you with envy for belonging to this special breed of “Mayfarers”…

Who are the Mayfarers? Are they people who passed out of Tai and Sheila Solarin’s Mayflower School, Ikenne?

Suegbe! Maawo e! Look at you! Ikenne ko, Palm Kernel ni. We dey talk about IRU (locust bean) You think say na ORU (IJEBU) we dey talk about. Well, MAYFARER is a name coined to refer to all people born in the month of May and who are likened to wayfarers on the Road of Life, the journey everybody embarks on the very day they crawl out of the cradle. A journey that only terminates in the GRAVE. It is inevitable. It’s only the exact EXPIRY DATE that nobody knows.

Hmmm…Akiika! But why is May 4 so special and so spectacular?!

I don’t know of Naija but in America May 4th is famously known as “Star Wars Day” due to the pun on the phrase, “May the Force be with you” becoming “May the Fourth be with you”. I remember the day I was first made conscious of the special significance attached to May 4. It was at a clinic in Albany, NY, (that’s the capital of New York State) and as part of check-in formalities your DOB (date of birth) is as good as your paper ID. Immediately I mentioned May 4, “ 19 Kinninkan “, it was as if an African prince was in town. Almost everybody’s attention was focused on me. I didn’t know why the seeming commotion. Needless to say I was a little embarrassed until I got to know why. Yeyenatu!

Today I feel happy sharing same birthday, May 4, with figures like Stella Parton, singer, song writer, author, sister of the more famous Dolly Parton, my favourite Country music maestro (apart from Don Williams and Kenny Rogers) . She was born on May 4, 1949. Same with Cesc Fabregas of the Arsenal football FC fame who was born on May 4, 1987. There is also Jackie Jackson, a member of the famous Jackson family that produced the likes of Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson of the famous (?) wardrobe malfunction…

Haba! Which one be that nah? Wetin concern wardrobe ‘accident’ for May 4?

Not to worry. “AJINAMOTO ni gbogbo e!” Don’t answer (mind?) me, jare.

Anybody from the homefront here?

Dem boku but as our people are wont to say, let’s allow “omo ko ku wa lati owo iya e”.

Itumo? What kind of gobbledegook be that? This is OJUELEGBA proper. Total confusion, Texaco disorientation and Mobil standstill! Chaos!

Hmmm…Baba Whizkid!

Let them celebrate themselves as they are wont to. All I can do is to wish them well as they mark a new May 4 milestone today. Let them forge ahead in the march towards the final denouement in glory with amazing grace.

Happy birthday to fellow Fourth of May-farers and all Taurus ladies and gentlemen who are lucky enough, like ME, to reach yet another milestone today. Happy New WE!