Assume yourself in 2015, you’ve just finished celebrating the new year, you’ve just moved two months into the year, you’ve set your goals, you’ve made plans to reach new heights and you’ve decided that this is the right year to select the right presidential candidate for Nigeria. You’re temporarily excited about the last mission—to vote –because you know it comes with a lot of suspense, drama and actions like a TV series that never seems to end.
Your hopes are high. You’ve told your family and friends that this is it. This is the time to make your voice heard. You’ve even advised your work colleagues that it is important that they don’t allow their votes go to sleep. Your preaching would make them think you’re mad. They might ask: “How can he say we should go and vote”? They might even go as far as asking whether you’ve been struck with the blindness that impaired king Odewale’s eye? You, positively, say no to their answers.
You’re one of those who journey around social media, dropping positive comments about the need to vote, the need for us to elect the change we want to see. Everyone knows you as Mr. Man-Political-Preacher, the one who roams the corridors of power everyday, the one who is close to all party heads, the one who knows the history of every candidate, the man who can, in his sleep, reel off the name of every important event in Nigeria’s history. You know who would want to soil our collective consciousness with bags of rice and boxes of Indomie Instant Noodles.
You’ve been like this since 1999. You even saw the presidents before they saw themselves on the seat. You are the all seeing and the all knowing. You are just who you are, a poor electorate, but passionate about the future. 2015 is the year of no going back. You’ve seen it.
However, the country in 2015 might not be a land for such visions. Our man, Mr. Man-Political-Preacher, might have forgotten the issues on ground. He just wants to think of the positives, which is not a bad thing. But when a man’s house is on fire, he needs to look for ways to quench it before going to tell his neighbour how to paint his house.
The game was played, and is, probably still played today. It was sweetest when played in the cool of the evening. The children gather and sing “there is fire on the mountain” and a response follows “run!run!run!” Another retort: “A big, big, fire!” Another response: “Run! Run!” There was no fire in the literal sense. The intense running from this imaginary fire, however, has the power to make you sweat, you begin to imagine it, different versions of the fire begin to colour your mind but at the end, it is just illusions. After all, it is just a game children play.
In 2015, this game would be played with real fire or, better still, there is real fire on the mountain. In this situation, there is no need to run. We are trapped inside, it seems. The fire had been building up; we’ve been stoking the flames with our inaction. Deep inside now, we can only wail! Wail until nothing/something happens.
How did we get here?
Enter 2015.
2015 is dressed in an àgbàdá sewn by different tailors. Yesterday, she was at Kaduna where a tailor was knitting designs around her neck and then suddenly, made a mistake. The tailor screamed “bá chào!”, saying that the material was not good. He managed, however, to continue knitting until he finished the job. He looked at his work and sent it to Maiduguri where another tailor who was known across Nigeria as someone who knew how to smoothen rough clothes.
As a matter of fact, the song “smooth operator” was composed out of his actions. 2015 got into his hands and the unimaginable happened. He burnt her! Smooth Operator was ironing her when some men ran into his house with fire. They came into his house with the intention to steal the books that had taught him how to iron so smoothly. He saw the culprits as they marched into his mansion but thought they could never find anything because he hid the manual well. To Smooth Operator’s surprise, they came out with the hidden book and that’s when he started chasing after the thieves. It was too late. Too late.
The men took the book and also scattered his surroundings.
Smooth Operator chased them but never saw their backs. When he returned to his ironing board, he saw 2015 filled with smoke and realized that the knitted area was burnt. He wanted to send it back to Kaduna but he knew that he would attract the wrath of his friend. He decided to send it to his tailor friend in Abuja.
The tailor in Abuja is one of a kind. A very special tailor. This tailor can sew different kinds of clothes. It was said that he could make female dresses for men only. He knew how to make hats for different occasion. Also, as rumour would have it, he knew how to make hats that sober up drunkards. The only problem this tailor had was this: he couldn’t operate the machine with shoes. His talent comes out best when he is shoeless. When he removes his shoe, his thinking becomes tall. Then he brings his acrobatic skills to the forefront.
And so, 2015 landed on his laps. He examined the dress and saw the hole that his tailor friend had done to it. “Ha!” He screamed. He scratched his head for five seconds then bit his nail for another six seconds thinking about what to do. Then he looked around in his workshop and saw his puppy called DO. DO was always around this tailor. The tailors showed DO this big hole on 2015. DO barked and barked. The tailor nodded his head. Only this tailor understood DO’s barking. The tailor looked at the area that was affected by the burning and removed his scissors then cut it off. He placed the burnt part in DO’s mouth and DO proceeded to put in the bin. Then the tailor proceeded to put the knitting at the middle of the àgbàdá. DO nodded in agreement.
A visiting tailor came in and when he saw where the knitting was being placed he said, “This can’t be.”
“What do you mean” Abuja tailor asked.
The visiting tailor drew 2015 out of the machine and Abuja tailor held on to 2015 too. There was a big argument about where to place the knitting and why Abuja tailor would cut off the burning part. They argued and cursed over 2015. They argued and argued until they finally divided 2015. The visiting tailor took one side of 2015 and Abuja tailor took the other side.
2015 in Nigeria can also be a type of music—a mixture of garage, rock and afrobeats. The sounds don’t serenade. It is pure noise placed under the rubric of music. The people will dance to it. They will come out in thousands. They know this kind of music. They know how to dance to it. They will follow the tune. They would breakdance to it. From Sapele to Sango, from Benin to Borno, from Gusau to Gombe, the music would blare its ugliness and people would applaud. When the music stops, some members of the public will run to court and tell the judge that their ear drums have gone burst because of the kind of music 2015 is.
2015 will be a year where we will hear different gossips from different nations. The ones in the west are using their side eyes to watch as 2015 walks into our midst. From their safe distance, they can tell that 2015 is a woman to be feared in the shores of Nigeria. They want her to come quickly so that they can show other part of the world how that country has failed the year, how the year failed the country and even more, how they predicted the ugliness that’s now 2015. They predicted that the àgbàdá will turn to shreds. Who knows if they are preaching the truth? But why wait to know if they are saying the truth?
If you dance into 2015, be prepared for a cocktail of events. Be assured it might be poisonous or sweet-poisonous. It cannot be a nice mix. If 2015 is an alcoholic beverage it would maintain the bitter natures of your worst local hooch—dongoyaro mixed with monkey-tail.
2015 knows she is walking into the midst of a great play. This play has been written long before she arrived. She saw the playwrights hiding in farms, strolling in rocks and flying on wings of eagles whilst still writing her destination. She wishes she could pick out the ones with such powers and perhaps knock the pen out of their hands. If you ask her to announce these people who control her, she would gladly tell you about them. But, you won’t ask 2015, you can only imagine what she is preparing herself for. You pity her. You wish you could take her to your pastor or imams or herbalist for prayers but you abandoned her to follow her fate. If she had one wish, she would not want to come into existence in this country. 2014, her best friend, is naked and has been able to show her what to expect. The warning from her best friend is simple “Beware the Ides of March!” The fact that she can refer her best friend to the dark years of Roman history is scary.
In this marathon that has become the chase to the political echelons in the Nigeria scheme of things, 2015 weeps. She can see the machinations. Different tailors spring up. They all say the same thing. They claim that if they are allowed on the sewing machine they would be able to amend the tears caused by the tailor whose dog is DO. They claim that they would make sure that you never hear about the evils of backwardness. 2015 laughs at them.
She was only a child when her brother 1999 witnessed a change that changed the country for the better and later, turned out to be tragic. 1999 is still around. Guiding the sister right. Telling her how not to be surprised by what she would see, and how to play with these tailors, how to understand the cries of the people and how to behave when the unexpected happens.
Where will you be when she walks in? What will you say to her when she comes and sit in your house? Would you control her or would you allow her to be controlled on your behalf?
Her best friend told her that there would be a lot of sharing of bags and bloods. Her best friend told her that she should, like a soldier, walk around in armoured clothing with a shield to protect her from the unknown. She also warned that the tailors from the other side of town might be against her. “Take it easy” she has told her sister. “Take it easy”.
2015 is taking it easy. She is listening to Confusion Break Bone by Fela Anikulapo kuti. She likes that man too much. She misses the man. She can tell that there are witches and wizards flying in the air looking for the next prey from the confusion. She knows that the confusion is what makes tailors happy. It was her friend, 2014, that told her that “look, go there and maintain your champion! Just don’t pay any attention to them.” As Fela shouts “double wahala for dead body and the owner of dead body”, 2015 nods her head. She can see what Fela is trying to tell her. She crosses her legs and sits and ruminates. Fear climbs into her. Despair grabs her hair and she begins to knit the happenings in her mind.
As Fela’s voice died into the back of her mind, she heard 2014 complaining about a particular madness that just hit her. 2014 shouted loudly “these tailors are fighting to get into another tailor’s compound.” 2015 pays no attention. She is focused on the unknown.
Going by history, there are two things that happen in this kind of time that would visit 2015: first, blows will be exchanged and second, people will escape from her. That’s how it has always been. She thought of her siblings and how they coped. She pitied them then. Now, it’s her turn. What to do plagues her mind. There is absolutely no running away. It must be done.
You know she will arrive. You can see her fear. You can tell that she doesn’t want to be in your midst. What do you do to save her from those tears? When you go to your church, would you kindly offer a word of prayer to 2015 in Nigeria? She is scared of coming. When you go into your mosque, would you offer a word of prayer to 2015 in Nigeria? She is tired of coming. You, you that pray to the Ifà priest daily, do make sacrifices on her behalf.
When they bring that bag of rice and beans, what would you do? When these boxes of Indomie Instant Noodle, loaded in a truck, hit your streets, what would you do? When those potbellied tailors come to ask you to leave the garments of 2015 in their hands, what would you do?
Again, assume yourself in 2015, what do you see? Who do you see on the throne? Who do you want to be there? But 2015 sees no one ready to lead her right. Cast your imagination in the belly of that year. What do you see? New light? Or, a continuation of darkness? If what you see in the picture is grimy, you know what to do. If what you smell is fetid, you know what to do? If the sun in that year begins to lick your flesh with dangerous lashes of rays, begin to look for a shade in your reasoning. If at all there is no solution, if it is what it is, if you’ve searched deep in your mind and concluded that you will just follow what is thrown at you, then you have no right to complain later.
Nigeria in 2015 is near you. Imagine it. Feel it. See it. Breathe it. What would it be? Listen to her fear. Save her. Save her.
Twitter: @moshoke
Email: moshoke@yahoo.com
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