| Urhobo Historical Society |
Following
an attempt on the life of the General Manager, Bayelsa
State Newspaper Corporation on January 12, 2009, by Dr Edmund Maduabebe Daukoru,
being the
fall-out of a publication asking him to step down as paramount ruler of
Nembe, there is a growing consensus among
citizens of the Kingdom
for Jesus Joseph Christ to be proclaimed Amanyanabo
of Nembe, Mingi
XII. The
publication had called for the worship of the serpent to be abolished
alongside
the ancient Edenic practice of burying
face-down the
first child to die in any family, after the fashion of Abel. This
eighth
chapter of Epistle To
Maduabebe by Nengi
Josef Ilagha takes the encounter between
David and
Goliath one step further.
Jesus for President
When
a man is wrapped up in himself,
he makes a
pretty
small package.
-
John
Ruskin
By His Majesty Nengi
Josef Ilagha
Mingi XII, Amanyanabo
of Nembe
Bayelsa State, Nigeria
YOUR
MAJESTY, I very nearly addressed you as Your Excellency. What a sorry slip of tongue that would have been. I know
it�s a
title you will jolly well love to take, if not combine with that which
you
already claim, but it is not your portion. If it were, everyone in your
domain
would starve to death. It is not God�s wish that any one of his
children perish
simply because Seiton wills it. It is not
done. It
cannot be so for all time. As things stand, the tables have been
turned, and
you have no choice in the matter than to play a different ceedee.
It is time for God himself to rule in the affairs of men, and I mean
directly,
through the aegis of Jesus Christ doth come, like a thief in the night.
Come
to that, I fully realize that you are tired of hearing from me, but I
am left
with no option than to reason with you on paper, by post, across the
turbulent
waters of the internet. Peace, your majesty, be
still.
It is I, Teme You Mi Nengimobo
Jisos Kraist,
Son of Man, Son of God. I have come to
crush the head of the serpent.
Have you by any chance come across a knuckle-head who goes by the
highly
suspect name of Maduabebe? It is easy to
recognize a
double tongue, isn�t it, a forked tongue, yeah?
Lest I forget. It has been brought to my notice that you
have wiped the chalk off the
faces of some chiefs in Nembe, without
recourse to
their family groups, without regard to those who voted them into the Nembe Chiefs Council. You took this truly
unilateral and
inconsiderate action for the simple reason that these discerning chiefs
saw it
fit to invoke a court injunction to forestall your unwholesome attempt
to bring
them to disrepute over some matter worth investigating a little longer.
And you
forget that, as learned gentlemen, these chiefs are well equipped to
tell you a
thing or two about their rights, even if you were to bribe the next
judge not
to hear the case they may bring to court.
Well,
I trust that Chief Olu Coker &
Co will take up the challenge you have thrown their way, and
act in full accordance with the dictates of the law. Since you have
literally
seized their bowler hats and dons, I have no doubt that they will take
fresh
pride in their wigs and gowns, dust up their law books and do what is
expected
of them � summarily take you to court, and pursue you into gaol,
with some help from Halliburton, and with the full endorsement of Gani Fawehinmi�s
spirit. It seems
to me that you have been throwing stones all about recently, quite
forgetting
that you surround yourself with glass houses imported from Dubai, if
you know
what I mean.
Needless to say that your latest action has
come as a
great show of despotic behaviour
unbecoming of a
democratic king. I have no
doubt
that you spent too much time in the presence of Olusegun
Obasanjo. Your attitude smells of something
crudely
reminiscent of the farmer from Ota. It is the way of all tyrants. They
can
never stand competition. No, they would rather not be challenged. They
are more
at home with a dinner table full of yes men who cannot stop nodding
their heads
and laughing at dull, insipid jokes. The king, yes, is always right.
Ah, our
king is ever so funny, even in his royal gown. His royal majesty is
wise, yes.
He sounds like a clown in his crown and gown, yes. Thus saith
the king, yes.
And
what if, for once, the king is wrong on this score?
Sometimes,
your majesty, I wish Chief FKC Peters-Amain
had lived
a little longer, long enough to see you ascend the throne of Nembe. O, yes, Amain
had his
shortcomings as a man and as a chief, but you wouldn�t have had a
chance to get
away with some things I see you shove aside. By the way, the man died
at a
rather inauspicious time, didn�t he? Come to think of it, the late
regent
himself is believed to have been a strong contender to the throne. He
died even
before the cement on the grave of your predecessor had dried up. Is
that right?
If so, is it possible that you had a long hand, by way of long-range
missiles,
in his demise? Were some witches and wizards well paid to curtail his
ambitions?
I
hear all the new chieftaincy stools in Nembe
Kingdom
owe their fateful emergence to Peters-Amain.
What do
you really think of balkanizing the major
war-canoe
houses and letting serfs and servants become lords in council and pay
masters
overnight? Perhaps that is why you
have decided to decongest the Nembe Chiefs
Council
and do away with some rebellious elements? How do you de-chalk a chief
who has
been chalked many seasons ago? Too many chiefs spoil the case for sole
proprietorship of opinion, is that right?
How
many chieftaincy houses are there at present in all of Nembe?
How many more have been created and endorsed, between the time you
declared
your intention to gun for the Mingiship
and your
actual ascendancy to office by hook and crook? Let�s consider this
closely. How
healthy is the recent practice of breaking up the war-canoe houses into
fragments fit for staging a lobby in the rowdy parliament of chiefs,
fit for
appropriating the spoils of office?
These are hard and fast questions, and I wonder where they are
coming
from. At any rate, please bear in mind that failure to remove your cap
before
proffering answers may attract a fine.
What
to do now that Jesus Christ has come to sit upon his promised throne in
the
land where the first man was created? And there you are already seated.
O,
dear. If only there had been XIII months in a year, instead of XII,
this entire
tirade would not have begun in the first place. What to do now? If I
know you
well enough, you are already calculating how best to get a big, fat
bribe
across to Messiah, in the finest tradition of Halliburton. I wonder
just how
far you can go.
O,
go ahead and weep your heart out. Even Jesus wept on January XII, on
behalf of
the world, when the shackles brought on by Seiton
were broken in a final sense, the yoke dismantled, and the precious
captive set
loose from the hounds by none other than Ama
Gido, God of war. At the risk of sounding
intemperate and
repetitive, allow me to reiterate that you are verily, verily in
trouble with
Calvary Head. You have no choice but to confess your sins. And I mean, you must go beyond lip service. You must sit
down and
write the story of your life, ticking off hour by remembered hour. You
must set
an example for John, and for all the queens and your sundry princesses
at
large.
Now, time for interrogation.
I.
What
were you hiding under the long, woolly gown that swept through the
streets of Nembe on coronation day?
II. From
the
viewpoint of a confirmed fraudster, where is the safest place in the
world to
save stolen money?
III.
Why did
you find it expedient to introduce your nephew to drug use in the
course of
your countless trips abroad? Are you trying to sabotage him to the best
of your
ability?
IV. What
did Obu Egberi
of Fantuo
mean by saying as follows: �You Maduabebe,
can�t you
catch that Pikiri Pussy?��or,
something to that effect? Could he have been referring to your
famous
agility in bed?
V.
Why did Chief Timipre Sylva
collapse in South Africa when he heard that Bayelsans
had taken up placards to call for his removal
from office, and why did he bother to hurry back to base at all?
VI. What
exercise would you recommend to your nephew about breath control, since
the
microphones of Radio Bayelsa have been
complaining
about an excessive outbreak of wind in every edition of �Relax With Governor Sylva�?
VII.
In view of the unrelieved
power supply challenge in Bayelsa State,
what is your
honest professional advice to government?
VIII.
What efforts have you made to
bring back historical artifacts and icons captured, seized or stolen
from Nembe in the course of history?
IX. The
Ijaws are a nation of over 20 million
people, populous
enough to be balkanized into the Eastern
and Western
regions as minorities in times past. Why is it
that
only one authentic state has been created for them since independence,
namely Bayelsa, in spite of the strong
economic credentials they
command in Nigeria?
X.
Is it
true that, as the largest and most popular political party in Africa,
the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, can never be disbanded? Is Jesus Christ
under
compulsion to join this party and inherit a tradition of fraud and
corruption?
XI. If
Jesus
Christ were to float a minority political party towards the next
elections in
Nigeria, would you care to join forces with him to change the fortunes
of the
chosen nation, without expecting any form of gratification?
XII. Will
you
vote for Jesus if he declared to run for the next Presidential
elections in
Nigeria under the platform of the Niger Delta Peace Party, NDPP?
Lest
I forget, your majesty, I felt suitably molested by the six Nigerian
soldiers
you sent after me on January XII, 2009. I am yet to recover from the
cold grip
of handcuffs around my wrists. Parts of my body are still aching from
the
experience. When next we meet, I will point out where and where. That
was not a
joke at all. What did you do that for? What was all that gangsterism
in aid of?
By 9.50 pm on Thursday March 19, 2009, I
could have
been dead for at least forty days and forty nights. Everything to do
with
mourning my demise would have been over, and I would have passed on as
one more
statistical unit of the anonymous dead. By December 19, 2009, nine
months later,
the very memory of my existence might have faded completely from the
minds of
my kith and kin. No doubt, that would have given you great cause for
celebration.
I am asking you the next question because you
have
demonstrated quite clearly to me that you specialize in matters of
death. Is it
true that forty days and forty nights is the length of time it takes
for the
human body to rot completely? Is it true that the tongue is the last
organ to
decompose? Well, well, well. It so happens that my tongue is intact. It
is not
selling for N100,000 (one hundred thousand
naira only)
at the human parts market in Alaba
International
Market, Lagos.
Accordingly, I am grateful for this grand
opportunity to articulate the questions I have put to you so far, to
say nothing
of the pack I am yet to transcribe. Indeed, you may wish to know that
it is
time for reckoning. Put simply, Judgment Day has come, and it is only
to be
expected that you should be in the dock, given the unbecoming range of
private
and public sins you have had the temerity to commit upon the face of
the Earth,
duly disguised as a human being. I do hope that I am able to get across
to you
in crystal print, and that you understand me perfectly.
Let me bring to your notice that, in spite of
the
choking absence of funds, me and my
colleagues at the Bayelsa State Newspaper
Corporation, BSNC, have since
resolved that even if Sylva does not wish to help us, we shall do well
to help
Sylva. We shall take his face off the front page, and place yours
instead with
a nice, curious and cheeky headline to go with it. I have since engaged
the
services of professional marksmen in the advertising business to
maximally
orchestrate this patriotic purpose.
I hope you get my drift. For once, our paper
sold
out. With a great sense of fellow-feeling for your avuncular person,
your
nephew - our governor - ordered that every single copy of the edition
carrying
�Epistle To Maduabebe� be bought off the
news stands
and summarily burnt at the banks of Ekoli
Creek, not
minding the fact that the handsome face of Jesus Christ stared out from
the
cover of the edition of WWW bearing the maiden date January 1, 2009,
and quite
in spite of the very civil and auspicious greeting to one and all �
Happy New Year�!
I have it on good authority that anyone who
had
dared to buy a copy of the said publication for record purposes was
compelled
to return it to the news stands, or risk being arrested by six
soldiers. I have
since reconciled accounts with the vendors. All copies were paid for,
in cash.
Rest assured that I promptly exercised the uncommon sense to pay the
total sum
of N300,000 only into our corporate account
at
Guaranty Trust Bank along Jesus Christ Boulevard, New Jerusalem, rather
than
defraud the treasury as some characters around me freely suggested. For
once in
the first fifteen months of my virgin tenure as helmsman of the state
newspaper
house, we were able to remit some money into the corporate coffers of
the
state, all thanks to a very frank epistle to Maduabebe.
May our vendors never again suffer such severe intimidation by government.
Be a nice king, your majesty. It won�t hurt
you to
part with a mere XII million naira as a goodwill gesture to BSNC. Don�t zip up your purse, to use a phrase in
common currency. The advertisement was given in respect of sexual
promiscuity,
not royal charity. Don�t zip up on us, your majesty. After all, the
story of
the abducted queen sold very well for Thisday, Punch, Sun,
etcetera. You are evidently a popular figure
in the
chosen nation. You are blessed with great powers of negotiation, so
long as it
takes place in some discreet place, behind the back door of decency and
good
conscience.
Frankly, I felt betrayed when I read in the
dailies
that you were compelled to part with good money that could have
received great
applause, to say nothing of abiding goodwill publicity, if only it had
come to
the coffers of the long-suffering state newspaper. Don�t pretend that
you are
ignorant of the critical point being made. And the point being made is
that I
requested, with all humility, for your royal assistance to enable this
neglected parastatal grow beyond this
point. I begged
you to direct Chief Pigatin Sylva to budge
from his
indecisive standpoint, and do what concerned and loving fathers do to
children
in dire need. But, clearly, I was asking too much. You denied me.
Little wonder that the humble epistle
directed at
your attitude problems has grown to the humble size of this loaf of
bread in a
space of XII months. I am glad to inform you that Penguin Books and
Jonathan
Cape, to say nothing of ABC Collective, are showing great interest in
the
manuscript as recovered from the internet, with a view to bringing the
non-conformist temper of Jesus Christ to the full attention of every
spider
caught in the grip of the worldwideweb.
Look, if
you
think I am being a noisy gadfly, why don�t you simply send me to study
under
Muammar Ghaddafi? Send me to Tokyo. Send
me to the
Himalayan Islands. Send me to be with the Dalai Lama. Come to think of
it, send
me to the Vatican to stay beside Pope Benedict XVI. Send me to conduct
an
interview with Dan Brown. Send me to the Caribbean Islands to study for
the
next degree that will make Eden proud. I want to say a prayer before
the tombs
of Haile Sellasie
and
Marcus Garvey, to say nothing of Bob Marley.
Why
don�t you just send me far away from you, so that you and Sylva can do
what you
like with the fortunes of Bayelsa State,
to say
nothing of the oil wells of Nembe Kingdom.
That is, if the land and people of Bayelsa
allow you
at all. Isn�t that what you guys are after, to take absolute control
over the
proceeds from the oil wells? Isn�t that what Odumegwu
Ojukwu was after when he carved out the
Republic of
Biafra from the Federal Republic of Nigeria? How smart can you guys
get? How
clever have you been all my life?
But,
of course, you can�t send me anywhere. You can�t afford to part with
any coin
on my behalf. A brass farthing would be too much for you to forego as
far as my
interest is concerned. Both of you are that greedy. Whatever anybody
tells you,
your majesty, I am not a selfish man. I do not know how to hoard
knowledge. If
you send me out and I find a book in the Bahamas that I think would be
useful
to a geologist like you, what stops me from buying it for you? I
confess that
your nephew was the first Nembe man I know
to have
ever called me a friend, and actually write it down on paper. I am
reminded of
how Sylva returned from his very first trip to London and bought me two
fat
novels: A Suitable Boy by Vikram
Seth and The
Moor�s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie.
�For my
friend, Nengi Ilagha�
he
wrote, then signed with a flourish. Timipre Sylva. London.
Jan 3, �97. Today, I am proud to show my governor�s autograph on
the title
pages of these books to anyone who cares to see just how very friendly
his
signature looks.
When
I look back now, I simply tell myself he didn�t really mean it. How
friendly
has he been? He simply wanted to impress me with the fact of having
embarked
upon his maiden trip to London. And, frankly, I was impressed at that
time.
What could my friend have said if your majesty had succeeded in killing
me on
January XII this chosen year of our long-expected Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Joseph Christ? On the other hand, what would you say if this same
great
friend of mine were to kill me without notice?
Would
you have given a colourful oration at my
graveside,
in case my bullet-ridden body had been discovered at all? I have no
doubt at
all that you can be that generous. That would have been really nice of
you. I have
no doubt that you would have gone so far as to say how promising my
career was
as a poet who was denied his due by the folks at NLNG, and how you were
set and
ready to sponsor me to the best universities around the world, if not
for the
fact that I wrote stubborn epistles. And, deep inside, even as you
returned to
your seat, you would have been sniggering
your heart
out.
Even
so, I find it hard to believe that two authorities who ought to protect
me as a
treasured citizen of Glory Land practically looked the other way when
six
Nigerian soldiers forced me out of my car in broad daylight, stampeded
me into
their waiting truck, sandwiched me in between them, and clasped
handcuffs
around my wrists. Are you both still pretending that you did not hear
or read
anything to the effect that Pope Pen Constantine The First, Chief
Executive
Officer, Vineyard Press, Glory Land, escaped assassination at the hands
of six
Nigerian soldiers, all touting guns at yahoo, number-plate covered, on
the said
January XII, 2009? I dare say I am yet to receive any condolence
messages from
you, and I am appalled at your indifference to matters pertaining to
your
jurisdiction. Not that I look forward to any from you. I am alive. That
suits
Jehovah. I am alive. That�s okay for Adonai.
Anyway,
I suppose I might as well keep my humble ideas to my humble self. Let
us trade
gossip about other things. I have just dismissed the last case brought
before
me by Pentecost, and could do with a royal chat. If I cannot reason
with my
king and my governor, sitting across each other on the same breakfast
table,
why am I a responsible citizen? Come to that, if you don�t like the way
this
epistle is going, why don�t you just award me one of your numerous road
contracts? I am sure I can construct one kilometer of a tarred road for
far
less than one billion naira. If, as a master of the Living Word, I can
venture
into genetic engineering and discover the cure for HIV/AIDS, I might as
well be
a construction engineer working in concert with George Fente.
I might as well import my own fleet of trucks and pay-loaders and
bulldoze
every other vehicle out of the way in the manner of Azibapu
Eruani of the Azikel
fame.
You
and your nephew are choking me, your majesty, and that�s the raw truth.
You are
twisting my windpipe, and I am practically out of breath. You are not
extending
a helping hand at all to the state newspaper, and I feel righteous
anger
against you. This is not a matter of police, navy, army, airforce
or SSS. This is about being the keeper of your own newspaper.
Otherwise, the
least I can do is to tell the entire world that I hold both of you
culpable in
every material particular, as far as misgoverning Bayelsa
is concerned.
And,
for the sake of emphasis, let me state yet again that if anything
happens to my
fingernail, or if one hair falls off the head of one of my distant
relatives, Ama Gido
will not take it kindly
with you. Touch not my anointed, says the Lord, and do my prophets no
harm. Did
you see what Gido did to the Executive
Council Chambers
last year? No earthquake, no storm, no tsunami, and yet Ama
Gido collapsed the Executive Council
Chambers,
Government House, Yenagoa, just like that,
the same symbold of power where Diepreye Alamieyeseigha,
Goodluck Jonathan
and the military gentlemen before them, held forte. If that is not a
sign and a
wonder, give me another example.
Your
majesty, do not discount the fact that William Jefferson Clinton,
former
President of America, and champion of the crusade against HIV/AIDS,
takes my
opinion seriously. I have just posted an epistle to him, asking his
advice as
to whether or not I should study Divinity or Medicine in Arkansas. I
told him
that my uncle, Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa,
emeritus professor of history, is likely to recommend that I move to
Baltimore,
Boston, Harvard or Wisconsin. I await his reply in earnest.
For
your information, I want to read a course that will specifically train
me to
solve the problems of Bayelsa State, so
help me God.
You can be sure that I will do well to take elective courses on
resolving the
challenges facing the Niger Delta, and another for breaking the
political jinx
in Nigeria such that the face of a southerner can appear on the
national
currency, preferably mine. And may I live to see the day when a
President will
be imposed on this nation outside the constitutional provisions which
stipulate
that the Vice President takes over automatically from a President who
is too
ill to continue, or worse, dies in office before the expiration of his
tenure.
That will be the day Ama Gido
will come strong upon this stubborn nation!
Perhaps
I should settle for a degree in Divinity after all, something that will
get me
fully acquainted with all the disparate religions contesting for the
attention
of Adam and Eve. As the new Pastor of the world, it is only natural
that I
should acquaint myself afresh, and in considerable depth, with the
ancient
Mosaic scriptures and the synoptic gospels, to say nothing of the X
Commandments. As for location, I may jolly well settle for California
and make
friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger, or else Washington District of
Columbia, so
that I can be close to my personal friend from Kenya, Barack Obama,
especially
following my recent winsome presentation to the United Nations General
Assembly, UNESCO and WHO, revealing the final cure for six dreaded
diseases,
first of which is HIV/AIDS.
While
the glory of this discovery comes to Glory Land, allow me to remark
that it is
a grand shame that Dr Azibapu Eruani,
Commissioner for Health, and his ilk are still pretending that they did
not
read anything about the efficacy of perenina, ideru and meun in solution, as clearly
expressed in my inaugural
thesis to President Barack Hussein Obama, published in the XIIth
edition of WWW. How blind can these people get? How deaf can they be?
Or, are
they piqued and dumbfounded that, right under their medical noses, a
blessed
minstrel from the Niger Delta swamp is headed for worldwide glory?
As
for me, if I get an acknowledgement from Mingi
Madu, I�m cool. Let it be on record that
the Nembe Kingdom has contributed to the
worldwide pool of
human knowledge by advancing genetic science with an all-time verity.
The least
I expect is that my land and people will celebrate this landmark
achievement on
Eden soil, in grand style, before I proceed to Stockholm to pick up the
Nobel
Prize for Science, the first and only poet so to do. And if the Nobel
Committee
is wise enough, they should award me the Nobel Prize for Literature as
well, at
the same ceremony, if only in recognition of Pope Pen�s tireless
industry as
evident in the year-long odyssey, A
Calendar of Faith.
Or,
your majesty, what do you think? I do
have some more questions for you but, in the meantime, I have been
preoccupied
with a well-meaning bid to be more adept at constructing limericks that
just
might take my attention off these petty troubles, delivered in the best
tradition of Edward Lear. One of my most recent attempts, which you may
wish to
bring to the gubernatorial attention of your nephew, goes as follows:
SOME GOVERNORS follow the
wrong apostles
Bowing before the wrong
altars
Some helmsmen lead their own
footsteps
Into the grip of the
proverbial abyss
Sylva & gold have I none,
but this is what I think