The Monster, the Cage of Lugard and the Wizard of Albion -By J. Ezike

Nigeria depicts the swirl of chaos and its face is nuzzled against all the great evils the world has to offer. But that is what makes Nigeria the Giant of Africa, isn’t?

The country reeks of organic evil so formidable that it makes Amadioha and Sango to ponder with clueless knowledge. Even the gods are terribly confused. The birth of this 1914 child must be the result of a threesome bush sex between Ekwensu, Bilisi and Shaidan. And so, an evil child is born and Africa finally has a Giant with enormous crave for blood.

This child with the Tragedy of Destiny has grown into a super monster.  Conjured by the Wizard of Albion who drank from 200 breasts and grew fat from their Bloods. But every child must assume the features of its progenitors. That is the law of creation, the biological principle of life. So why blame Nigeria for showing desert thirst for blood? Don’t you know that it needs blood to foster its growth? Don’t you know that without your blood, my blood and our bloods, it will die like the fated tree planted in the heart of an Evil Forest?

Therefore, as proud Nigerians, as believers in the philosophy of One Nigeria, we must save this monster. We must nurture it. We must give it the right to live. This monster is the only country we can call our own. But first, you, my friend, must offer your blood to save this monster. For mine lacks the fruity taste that endears my flesh to our dear monster. I believe you are generous. I sense your patriotism. It is inspirational. Your love for this monster is worthy of accolade and I am honored to have you as a mentor. My patriotism is inert and frail-figured and the scraggly features of my loyalty are emphasized by the infection of conscious living. I must have bitten the Forbidden Apple. And now my eyes are naturally phlegmatic, my thoughts rutted by the rebellion of Adam. Even the gods cannot hold me down now. Amadioha and Sango will bear me witness as I profess this promise to you. And the promise I am offering is that; the color of my loyalty is bound to strengthen like the shade of a young blue sky when in the demeanor of a sacrificial you prove your loyalty to this monster with your own blood as wine on its jaws and with your own corpse as trophy on its paws.

So, what are you waiting for my friend? Keep the echoes of your praise from the deaf ears of the monster; quit your spiral dance to pleasure its blind eyes. It is your blood that can make the monster giggle like the fated tree whirling in the wind of the Evil Forest. And if you lack the way to its jaws, worry not your head for I can show you the way. Let me be the wind that will lead you into its bloating belly. You do not have to thank me. It is my own way of appreciating your love for the monster.

In the far past, precisely 1929, our dear monster discovered its budding fangs. What a beautiful epiphany. So beautiful that it learnt the commanding skill on how to devour millions of thinking bones. And down the memory lanes are heaping skulls and shredded destinies cut short by our dear monster.

In 1945, when our dear monster grew additional fangs, another bazaar of honorless killings went berserk. The Wizard of Albion watched as the intimate romance of the three lands assumed another fetish round and left only blood and bones in the belly of our dear monster. The Wizard of Albion tied the Dream of Lugard to the stakes and perfected our beautiful marriage in the four walls of guns and bombs. O what a beautiful marriage, indeed. So beautiful that it made the land a plaster of bloody cake. And that road reeled more commercial horror that could shake Hollywood’s box office and load sweeping dollars in the pockets of the film-maker. And I am so proud to be a stakeholder of this valuable horror patented by our dear monster who made it possible for my young eyes to read blood histories.

How can I thank this monster? In short, I can never thank this monster enough. And you too my friend must rejoice in the rhythm of funereal songs. Let our tearful hallelujah spring up from our timeless wounds and pour its oceanic miseries on the cup of the political pastor with the Holiness of the pope. Let us contribute our Widow’s Might to protect his flesh with a fence of body guards and punctuate his wealth with our peanuts. And after that, we can return to our wretched homes and drink garri with kuli kuli and recite Psalm 91 and command the blood of Jesus and Holy Ghost Fire to defend our flesh from the Fulani Dream and hope that the Herdsmen will vanish like “Willy Willy” the Ghost.

Yes ooo, this union is till death do us part, till our Mouka Foams are replaced with Nigerian Caskets. All of us must enter one trouser and march to the beat of the National Anthem. After all, love is sacrifice. Therefore, we must continue to love our dear monster. But like I said, my blood is unflavored. It has a taste of rebellion. And our dear monster is repelled by the stew of demonstration. My bones are bathed in revolution and anger. It is unhealthy and can kill the monster. But you, my friend, posses blood rich in vitamins and patriotism. It is healthy and can feed the monster. So what are you waiting for? Prove to our dear monster how much you care.

Let us not protest. Let us be perpetually silent. Let us stew over our miseries and leave our war in the hands of Angel Michael. Let us live in the era of chronic zombies. Let our mumu and cowardice fetch us more days in the land of the living-dead and let those who seem to advertise grave courage take our deaths for us. Let us not shout Biafra. It is as synonymous as urging the wraths Ekwensu, Bilisi and Shaidan. Do not be surprised that if you shout Biafra! Army go do vigil for your backyard. DSS go give you special interview. Police go baptize you with teargas. Prison go be your new flat. And if you no take time, na for inside Nigerian Casket you go sleep. That is the beauty of our dear monster. At any moment, it can plug out your wire and squeeze out the memories of 1966-1970 that can remind you of its fang’s worth. Every whisper of war and the great butchery of that bloody age will exorcize the scenes of the decayed twentieth century genocide in your soul. It will pull down from the shelf of the haunting past the images of starved Biafran babies labeled for a slow agonizing death, the sacrifices of our women in the canteen of perverted sex, the barrage of child soldiers rotting in the wilderness of No-Return and the forgotten images of our gallant men buried in the bloating belly of our dear monster.

Python Dance part three is set to conjure the next series of death in Biafra land that will make our dear monster to dance inside its own skin. All of us, proud Nigerians and believers of One Nigeria, must rally together and support it with twenty cartons of Hero. It is a great development, a unique opportunity to feed our dear monster with blood. We must salute the formidable treachery of all the past and present Igbo Politicians who did well in donating the bloods of their sons and daughters to our dear monster. With hearts full of joy, we say “Daalu! Unu Eme Ala.” Amadioha is proud of your leadership in Alaigbo and promises to reward you in the nearest future.

My friend, you are incensed because Ekweremadu was a little blackened by the rage of a battered people in Nuremberg. You say Igbo have no sense. You say we have no respect for our leaders. Yes, you are right. I agree with you.  After all, you are the direct descendant of King Solomon. You are the wisest of all. Nobody knows better than you. I support your opinion with one cold bottle of stout and a bowl of Goat Pepper-soup. In short, you deserve a chieftaincy title for your comment. Maybe Aso Rock should elect you as Minister of Fulani Conscience. Oh no, better still, take the next available bus to Abuja, perhaps Ifesinachi Transport and when you have arrived at Ekweremadu’s royal mansion in Asokoro, kneel down, unzip his trouser, pull out his charcoaled penis and give him a powerful blow-job. I am sure the government contracts will rain down like manna from heaven.

My friend, you say we should respect our Igbo leaders who are the inescapable cause of our miseries, our tragedies and our predicaments. We must not make them fear us. We must protect them with silence and deodorized rhetoric. We must retain the “mumu-syndrome” of a typical Nigerian. You claim that the idea of revolution, of creating political pressure on the center of power, so that power will have to respond to the will of the people, is a bad idea. You disagree with the language of the Great Philosopher Karl Popper who said: “The question is not how do you get good people to rule? That’s the wrong question. The question is how do you make the power elites frightened of you.” You are angry because Brother Nnamdi, Brother Sowore, Brother Fani Kayode, Brother Tony, Brother Charly Boy, Brother J. Okechukwu and others are calling for a political revolution. You believe it is better to be Nigerianized, to be objectified, intimidated, funneled with fear and stuck in the realm of historical amnesia and rock-footed poverty. You disagree with the Great Rabbi Abraham Joshua who said: “Indifference to evil is more evil than evil itself.” You prefer we dangle our necks to the swords of our unfeeling, unsympathetic, unmoving, uncaring and unkind leaders, to be their humble and willing objects of sacrifice. You see no evil in the fact that millions of lives have been lost and destroyed in the glory of corruption and our collective poverty fastened on an iron-link chain. You see no evil in the woeful conditions of the Nigerian masses hobbled by criminal elitism. You disagree with the thoughtful language of the Late American President, Franklin D Roosevelt when he strongly suggested to his fellow Oligarchs in a 1930 letter: “If we do not create social reforms, we are gonnah have a revolution!” You believe that the political pressure inflicted on the American government by the angry American masses, which forced them to demand the American elites to give up some of their money or face the dire consequences of revolution and which by consequence created 50 million jobs, public programmes, social security and other concessions, was a bad idea, a bad movement by the American masses.  You disagree with the Great Che Guevera who said: “The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.” And you prefer to be on the side of the oppressor rather than the oppressed, on the side of the compromised and corrupt politicians rather than the aggrieved and impoverished masses. And you advise that we romance this ancient injustice rather than to make it grow fat on oblivion and disintegration. I agree with you. You are very very right. In short, you are the most intelligent adviser. I support your speech with ten bottles of Schnapps and alligator pepper. You have proven to be a noble defender of the defenseless. Posterity, I am sure, will be inspired by your crescent leadership. And I am certain that you agree also, that we must be “shameless” in our support for our dear monster. And turn by turn, every one of us must donate our bloods and bones to keep it breathing. And the vision of an Independence Referendum must be opposed with the formula of 1966-1970. I agree with you. And it is within this backdrop that I say let the war begin. Let the revolution be born. And if you run, your father! Nobody is escaping this cage of Lugard not even the corrupt billionaire politicians of Igbo land. And I am certain that the Wizard of Albion who had summoned this monster agrees strongly with me.