A fictional representation of Leadership Crisis in Nigeria
Obas and Isibor and Jayjay had come to pick Ekoyata to go to the night party. They saw people who came to fetch water in the compound. As some went out, others came in. Ekoyata paused to answer some of their greetings and then continued with his friends on their way to the party.
The road was narrow, rough and full of dust. But they could not see the dust now. The night was dark with only a few stars blinking overhead. But Ekoyata could see the dust in his mind because he had driven through it a few times before. The harmattan wind was still hitting hard like arrows coming to them from different directions. Ekoyata felt the thick crisp clothes on him. At least he was warm inside. But the cold hit his face and his hands.
But what did Ekoyata expect to see there? Would the celebrants block the road with their canopy? He still remembered that there were riots in some parts of the country some years before when the government restricted dangerous funeral parades and road blockage when people paid tribute to their dead.
'Do they spray money when people are dancing?' Ekoyata drawled with impatience.
'Yes,' one of them said.
Ekoyata didn't see him because it was very dark.
'Sometimes, they spray money if big men are there,' the same voice said.
Even though he didn't see him, he knew it was the voice of Obas. Ekoyata had asked that question because he remembered again that the government had banned the spraying of money on people's head when they danced. The government had said it was unpatriotic. He knew too that the ban didn't stop it. Showy rich people went to the bank and ask for new naira notes. At a party, they removed the wrappings and sent them up to rain back over people. That helped to show that money ran with them like water. Their millions were as common as copper.
But Ekoyata was surprised that he could think like that. For the first time in a long while, he was thinking about things in the world as they were known. He was thinking without bringing in the sad miseries of his own life. He thought maybe this memory overshadowed the meaning of his own existence. Maybe his mind was trying to compare his country with America. There, people were more patriotic, but here, they weren't. There, law was active once enacted, but here, it wasn't. Law was as dead as when it was not brought into existence. There, personnel wanted to show example. Here, even criminals were voted to rule the people. He had found that in his country, those who were supposed to be the custodians of the law ended up being the chief lawbreakers.
Obas was right in his saying that when the big men were around, they spray money. But who were these big men? They were the same people who make the law, the same people who had access to money, the smart people who know how to get hold of public money.
Ekoyata had seen it even in state burials, some who were or had been the embodiment of their statehood committing the same crime, raining money over people, spreading it on coffin floors to be buried underneath the ground, spreading it on grave floors that would be covered and on the heap of sand at grave sites. He had seen people trampling the money and tearing the money when they were thrown, as they fought to have hold of some of the free money.
The night was silent. So what else did he hope to see? Would there be a cultural or a Highlife musician? His mind swelled. He wanted to see their cultural again. If there was one, maybe he would see those black girls again. He would see those beads again trembled over their waist. He would look at their breasts through their blouses of scanty bead nets. He listened for any sound of music, but he could not make out any. It was dark and the sky hung low overhead. They started to see in the darkness after some time. But every image was only a deep shadow and rendered the night thicker like gel. He saw firefly in swam, their light bobbing in the bush that towered over them on either side of the road. Sometimes, they found people in front of their small houses, their bodies lit by the red glow of fire.
Jayjay and Obas and Isibor were talking nonstop. They didn't say much about the party. Or he was thinking and had missed much of their words. He felt the night like no other nights he had known. He was passing through the bush in the night. He had not done it before. Very few people were out on the streets.
There were no houses for the past fifteen minutes or so trek now. It was all darkness and the fireflies. He heard tiny creatures chirped or whistled. Dry leaves squeaked under their feet. Then he suddenly thought that someone had hooted. And the voice came from the bush. But who could it be? A hunter or a witch? He remembered that Obehi said that the witches cloaked their activities on trees in the forest. They hated rich people who could bring development. When development removed trees, they become homeless. The witches feared to be homeless. And he wondered whether they were also considered intruders by the witches as they passed in the night so that they began to hoot. But he was not afraid. He was full of curious excitement instead. He would even like to see a witch. He remembered the images of witches he had seen in books. They were always painted like musters. Were they really like that? If he could see one, he would know.
'Who was that?' he asked.
'What did you want to ask?' Jayjay asked.
'I thought you heard it. Someone talked like he is trying to scare us.'
'Where?' Obas asked.
'I don't know. Like he hooted.'
'That was not a person,' Jayjay said.
'Maybe you are talking about the owl.'
'They talk like human beings?'
'Yes. They hoot,' Jayjay said.
Ekoyata felt elated again. He knew that owl hooted, but he had not heard it before by himself. He had only read about it in books. He listened to see if he could hear it again. The croaking of some animals were coming to his ears. There were many sounds in fine blend making for endless wonders. There was a wall built by the darkness pointing to godship in the invisible realm. And there was a breeze making for peace that bonded. A new sense of self filled him. Then he heard the voice of the owl returned, hollow like death and deep like the grave.
'I think this was the sound you heard before,' Isibor said.
'Oh yes, it is,' Ekoyata said, half hearing him.
'They are many in the bush here,' Obas said.
Then, the world of sound suddenly fell away from Ekoyata. He began to dream of himself. His mind tried to draw the image of himself living in that corner of the country. And he began to think that he knew why he was out there in the night and why he was going to the party. He wasn't seeking to blend with Baneke folks. It didn't seem possible. They were from different worlds. They were poor and he was rich. They were unsocial naive villagers, but he was a city slicker. They lived in slums, but he had posh apartments. Eguabor said he had changed. Eguabor had said he was fooling around with people of low clout. And Eguabor had said it was bunk. If Eguabor wanted it so, let it be. But for all Ekoyata cared, Baneke was a soft landing for him in his fall that started in Arizona, USA. The fall was still on. But he was trying to know where he would land. He was not feeling sorry for himself. What his coming had done for him more than amply justified that decision. He had started to realize himself. That was the reason his body hungered for a keen sensation which had led to his acceptance of the invitation to the burial party this evening. Yes, the hidden meaning of his life was revealing to him in tiny bits. He was now able to handle himself better. He thought that he could now sit down and enjoy the party when he got there. The only thing he didn't know now was whether he would land with his head or his feet when the fall is complete.
He turned his head and said something to his friends.
'Are they going to have music there?'
'Yes,' Jayjay's voice came.
'Cultural, Highlife, Hip hop?'
'It will be Highlife,' Obas said and immediately felt that he had to say something more upfront to prepare Ekoyata's mind. 'He is a local musician.'
'The first son of the man is a youth,' Isibor explained. 'He doesn't have a plenty money. So, some youths brought money together to help him.'
One word struck Ekoyata: TOGETHER. ...Brought money together. Some youths came together... He tried to think why it made such a deep impression on his mind. Somewhere deep inside him, it seemed familiar in a new way and yet unknown. It sprang from his blood and yet eluded his consciousness.
'Ekoyata,' Jayjay called.
He didn't answer. In an altitude of listening, he cocked his head, his nerves tinged with rapt thinking. When people were weaved together, they could do things. But was he right about that? What had BADU done? BADU had not been able to do anything. And Baneke didn't change since the time the colonial left. BADU had not done anything good or bad and there was no consequence. Maybe if the right people came together.
'Ekoyata,' Jayjay called again.
He didn't answer. Jayjay thought that he was not there again with them. Maybe he had been taken up in the current of the darkness, risen up in the dark tide that stretched over their head and floated away. Jayjay flashed the torch in his hand and saw him.
'What are you thinking about, sir?' Jayjay asked in a frightened voice.
'Me?' he had returned suddenly to the present.
'Yes, sir. I called you two times.'
'Oh, I don't know if the party will be an interesting one.'
'Oh, don't think it won't be,' Obas said. 'You always talk about the others you saw and say that you have never seen something like them before. How come you suddenly think that this will not be interesting?'
'I don't know, Obas. I just think so.'
'In a short time, we will know,' Obas said.
They were silent, trekking, the sounds of their plodding footsteps rising in consonance with the nocturnal forest music.
'You said some youths brought money together to hire the musician?' Ekoyata probed further.
'Yes,' Jayjay said, anticipation in his tone of voice.
'A lot of young people will be there too,' Ekoyata said.
'I think so,' Jayjay said. 'And some elderly people too.'
The thought of these youths gave Ekoyata a keen feeling. But he didn't know why. Was it because their suffering and the way it made them to react had already affected him? He thought maybe it was the reason. He knew how far his friends had gone in school. It was only Jayjay that managed up to the form five level. Isibor and Obas had only primary school education because college fees were not affordable to their parents. Was that what his mind tried to apply to all the youths of Baneke?
'I hope boys don't stab people or shoot gun in parties here?' Ekoyata asked.
'Sometimes, they fight the police,' Jayjay said. 'But we don't fight our own people.'
Ekoyata wondered again about what Jayjay meant by 'our own people.' Guy, this people were talking like they were united, he thought. If they were, why didn't they do things? But he didn't know what he wanted them to do. He just knew that if people were united, they could do things. When he thought about what the militants were doing in some parts of Africa, he felt that it was good. It was a way to get the callous leaders to recognize people and make them participate in the vital function of their nation's life. Then, he thought of Acaeda that radicalized people, the Guerrillas of the Guerrilla warfare that recruit children and he thought about the other Rebels. Then this seemed really bad and dangerous, he thought. Immediately, he quit thinking about them. Then he started to think about the party again.
‘How far is the place now?’ Ekoyata drawled again with impatience.
‘It is close now,' Obas said in a tone that sought to assuage the weariness he thought Ekoyata felt. 'Or do you think you should taken your motor?' he added.
'I don't know.'
'Don't be tired now, sir,' Jayjay said. 'If we quit talking now, we can hear the sound coming from there.'
But they didn't quit talking though.
'But I didn't say that I am tired,' Ekoyata said defensively.
'You didn't say that you are tired, sir,' Jayjay said in a tone that was a compromise between apology and sympathy. 'You see, I just think that you was not trekked like this before.'
Ekoyata said nothing to confirm or deny what Jayjay had said. But he knew that it was partly true. He had not trekked that distance before. But he was not feeling tired. He had never seen that night before. It delighted him. He wondered what they saw that made them think that he was tired. Was it because he had asked them how far the place was? Was his tone of voice different from his doing?
They passed more mud houses. Woods appeared intermittently. He was not tired. The night excited him instead. The wind was blowing good and the cold froze his hands as never before. He shoved the hands deep into the pockets of his trousers and felt warmer. His car would have denied him this life of night animals in their natural habitat.
They started to see more people on the street now as shadowy figures in the night shawl. Some of them flashed torches like police in the night. They didn't leave the torches alive. Dark things happen in the dark, Ekoyata thought. Night makes the world blind and people could do what they liked. And nobody would look and see. They heard the people's wild laughter stabbed into the night silence sometimes. The talking of the people in the street affected their own and they stopped talking to themselves involuntarily. Not that they were afraid of people or wanted to be snoopy. But they just happened to stop talking when they began to see many people and they didn't even know. That was the moment Ekoyata heard sounds coming from a distant music. He raised his head up and saw the darkness ahead broken into fragments. The music floated back.
For a long moment, Ekoyata waited to hear his friends say that the lit section of the night was the place they were going or the music they heard was the Highlife. But nobody said so. Nobody was talking. What is this? Ekoyata thought. Why did they stop talking the moment the number of people increased in the street? He turned his head and glanced from side to side as if he could see Jayjay and Obas and Isibor in the darkness.
'I just heard some music,' Ekoyata said. 'It had drifted through the storm and went back away.'
'Yes, sir,' Jayjay said. 'I heard it too.'
'It seemed to come from that place that has light,' Ekoyata said.
'That is the Obituary,' Jayjay said, some pride showing in his voice.
Obituary is a short biography and a notice of someone's death, Ekoyata thought. But he didn't want to correct Jayjay. He remembered Jayjay said it was their English name for burial and anything associated with it. So he decided to leave them to their understanding of the word.
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