Acting Blasé in the Power Tussle by a Cast of Thousand in a Cozen, Snobbish Milleu -By Jimi Bickersteth

It’s going to rain, this early Sunday afternoon as I stood staring through the window in the forecourt and the garden in the background. My face was set to the window, already streaked with rain, it was raining hard by the time I settled down at the balcony.

I sat thinking of what to write about in this pissing rain amidst:
a. the political/security apprehension in the land,
b. the hunt for delegates in a political climate and political equations that had become so unreal and also unsettling?

The rain as if on cue stopped, giving way for a bright sun. Well, let’s consider the nation’s politics in view of the political parties primaries and the 2023s, but in an aphrosim that is tempered and tendered in the formalities of reality, relevance and need of all the reactions a person may have to it. Presently, I can think of none worse than a stifled yawn.

Of course, when in the search for power and control an election of this nature happened, everyone had given their views, had expressed surprise, distress, in voices that were not exactly lowered, but they lost volume. Yes! It was pretty hard to tell anyone about something without letting slip one’s own point of view, even though, one’s point of view may, probably, be wrong, but then, there it is, and it is there.

Talk about impact. Impact in this unpredictable season and meeting the people where they were, not where they ought to be. By the people, I mean, the several millions of angry young men and women, loose-living hookers, naked victims of demonism, Yahoo plus and grieving parents in a national conflagration of vague living. For whom the nation’s politicians orchestrates the pointlessness of their existence with impish delight in shocking the people. Thus, the politicians and the people, all of who captured and presented a tempramental theatrics of a generation going through the motions of a vicarious season, seen through the lens of sentiments, and it is affecting emotions.

By now twilight had purpled the sky and deepened the shadows around the house when I finally sauntered into the living room. I entered and shut the door of the living room behind me. A gust of wind rattled the windows as if to protest its exclusion.

I went motionless, my gaze looked on the TV, at the battle of the vice president’s attempts at wooing delegates for the primaries that had been scheduled for later this month, it was a struggle. Instantly, I remembered all that had passed between the politicians, all the passionate, compelling and disturbing reasons with which they had loved one another and fought against that love.

The dreams of becoming the president come 27th May, 2023 and inherent power distribution and tussle is precipitating and reviving the old highways, longings and hunger, and I felt a sense incompleteness in the nation for the Southeast, and it has become so strong that the nation cannot seem to ignore. The hunger was making the politicians thinner, giving a gauntlet to their cheeks and hardening their features, toughened by some imaginary harsh demands of rights, equity and equality, in voices that were like velvet sheathing steel.

I must state here that a man’s pride be it Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba is a fragile thing and beyond politics and political science and permutations. Sometimes it is the only protection a man has. But it can be easily wounded; men may appear insensitive – invisible ever – but aren’t. Only two things I know that could beat it – a bottle of good whiskey or a beautiful woman. A man could get drunk and behave so, on wine, woman and pride. So, if the people don’t laugh at what they have become, then they must cry at the dire situation they found themselves in.

I was writing this piece under the taste of the chill tang of air-conditioning I switched on whenever PHCN power was available. Its steady hum pitched at a note that always seemed just about to break off, but never did. The television was beaming a high drama still in the moon to the audience.

Looking out through the window I saw a beautiful and unusually laid out landscape and the view of an automobile cementery – a vast wasteland littered with carcasses of taxis, trucks, cars, buses and military vehicles, all in various stages of decomposition. A picture of the PMB’s Nigeria.

Through the shimmering heat and shortening shadows in the vastness of space the dark night presented, the only colours came from the slalom of slogan and political parties posters which were uniformly green and red. Around the street corner, I noticed an armoured car with its hatch shut. I saw army and police trucks with men’s eyes button-black with hatred on red alert. All in an attempt to curtail and control power.

One can’t broker the topic, ‘Power’ today without a mention of its cast, the people, the political parties and its electoral umpire, INEC. In the last election, the INEC was seen as an obscene, life-size, plastic model, naked and bald. It reminds one of a porpoise, benign and playful, in the puddle of its own connivance, which had surreptitiously promoted a delicate politics of an intricate Byzantine nature, which the nation found difficult to
explain – now it was purely academic. Yet, the onus to carry out a successful, free, fair and credible elections hung on INEC’s neck under a head resting like an invalid’s in a nest of cushions – and it became a moral peccadillo.

The personae trumped by the nation’s political exigencies were deft and maliciously calculative as in chess games, where one has to move according to certain rules and calculations, not precluding the assumption that human beings are moral individuals.

Today, looking back at the political characters that emerged in the nation’s landscape since 1999, it showed politicians that emerged as clumsily complicated individuals with comedy and tragedy standing side by side, grim tense scene followed by a lively amusing one. This generation of politicians that was fast becoming something of an enigma, getting to figure it out was like peeling an onion – there’s always another skin underneath, and at the end of it, all you’ve got was tears in your eyes.

The Constitutional matters with critical bearing on the Rule of Law and the time hallowed doctrine of Separation of Powers that has over time made for stability in sustainable democracies the world over had on the Abuja air a cold reminder of reality, and as the blue moon was rising after the rains, its sky was beautifully clear as harbingers preceding still the Fates and prologue to the omen coming on here and showing our compatriots that the air is invulnerable and our vain blows malicious mockery. I wondered at what the biblical prophet Ezekiel called …”Things men do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery”.

My expression became indulgent. Upset! No, of course not. Every political process’s got some drawback. I have been around long enough to know there’s no such thing as a perfect one. In a nation where politicians in the quest for
Power – Absolute Power such as the 1999 Constitution guaranteed, were always as desperate like a Cobra that hadn’t eaten in a month – mesmerizing, but deadly. But there are nations and men who know how to keep their imperfections from interfering, or whose imperfections don’t seem at all obvious.

One was seductively fascinated, though, as everyone else was, of Ultimate power over people and situations. The big failing and albatross was the lack of subtlety, that has been the nation’s lot and a history of politicians who consciously brushed aside Duty and professional conduct. Notorious heritage! May be it is in our DNA’s and it probably explained our background and what and where we were as a nation.

Its seldom talked about. Yes, but for some reasons, the nation’s politicians intense, passionate relationship figured they had to climb to the top over the bodies of other people. They spared no one whom they saw as entrée as were all weapons – a tool to feed their obsession, get what they want trying to act blasé – in the power tussle, whose pursuit was half the fun.

The 2019 elections results in a mellow splendour was fast shaping up a fascinating scenario. Who knows what that of 2023 would come up with. That, reminded me of the Middle Ages – not mine, Europe’s, and that era of politics of urbanity and s3x, with the ‘Not too young to run’ people, hinting pretty broadlike the young version of the nation’s old politicians. The material evidence were still very fragmentary, unsubstantiated, yet, were there.

The evening wore on and over the sounds of crickets and frogs in the soft Abuja night, it was like going to the edge of the known world. Suddenly the television screen blanked, the public power supply went down, and there was eerie silence, twenty-three years of democracy, no stable power. I sat still, listening to the night sounds, contended with the lies and rumours on social media which depicted the nation with a heart and soul as corrupted, and wondering, whether the nation would get things right with this politicians wild and impetuous and whose hearts were always in wrong places. With the glaring failure in their scorecards, one didn’t feel much charity for any of them.

In the misery the nation was lying prostrate and spread-eagle on the ground like a pinwheel on a stick. The people’s hearts rocked in their chest at the grandmother of subterfuge, suspense at the coming party primaries. A balance of dismay and incredulity.

Meanwhile, the nation was now primed under the boughs of the sycamore of elections, waiting for the results was like keeping a vigil for the dead. Everybody had begun to fear the worst. Even though it was past midnight on Monday, the air was warm, thick and sultry, the silence in the Abuja dark night accentuate the noise of the crickets at the vast wilderness the night presented. What was in our genes that had us created twisted, and with some of the meanest streaks! Something was messing up with our wisdom and craftiness. In looks of complicity and amusement, our collective amnesia and desperation had practically turned a commodious nation into a Chinese laundry.

The nation’s politicians with their fat face florid, and enjoying the pinnacle of the republic’s power while always fishing for compliments. A class that perpetually want to stay relevant and if possible bequeath to their offsprings. A rich and insecure lot who with the combination of their lies and enough portraits of ‘Dr Nnamdi Azikwe’ to the bargain with righteous indignation too outrageous to be taken seriously.

The battle for the soul of the nation had been pitted into two distinct struggling camps, one seen as pro-poor and the other on the side of the grande bourgeoisie. With the way things were going and with the desperate straits the nation was in, the norm and a nostrum put forward by the Mafias as a cure for the nation’s afflictions was not likely to pull much weight. One could see them protesting the characters, the situations and circumstances rather than live it. What a strange non-sequitur.

The weeks to the primaries witnessed scenes that got on everyone’s emotions and on the nation’s without a philosophy, profound and composed serenity to curious uncertainty. And with the way and manners with which the two ‘big’ political parties got the people on the end of the stick and some politicians evil machinations got everyone one way or another behaving as a horrible lewd whore, selling ourselves, our conscience and probably the nation’s future. Everything on tenterhooks and the nation became insecured.

The price in view and the stock in trust was the nation’s commonwealth, with the politicians as the sole trustees, which may preclude them from carrying out their obligations. What they were indeed struggling for was a life estate, exclusive use of the commonwealth, the oil blocs, and the nation’s nest eggs for a lifetime.

One would have expected the people to with a blend of irritations and contrition tried to be as bold as their politicians, though, shaking imperceptibly at their money and everyone had their turn at the trough. It would be an understatement to say that the politicians appearance and motives and an acquisceing populace were deceiving showing apparently they aren’t even men and women of integrity.

Abuja was bathed in a layer of light rain of the early afternoon as we drove up to Asokoro. In spite of its misgivings, early signs of recovery from the trough of recession and immense modest proportions, one was scared of its ten times more expensive than Lagos status and outlook. Looking back across the road to the Three Arms Square where Aso Rock, the, Grand Prix, laid obscured to the point where its top was nearly invisible.

The grand prize invisible and the feelings as though mother nature was peering directly into the nation’s soul. The nation waited amidst bated breath and excited anticipation, of empires threatened, crumbling and new ones springing up. The 2023 drama had the politicians balls on the griddle and the reasons hazy, but without prejudice or bias, there was enough to make politicians involvement and responsibility clear.

In the throes of the scramble, the politicians at the marketplace of ideas could only advance their hunger for power but not much common sense. Their carriage was that of most entrepreneurs who have reached a point where they are ready for harvesting. At the hunt for delegates, they were routing for power to the extent that they were removing the melting blocks on which the nation’s unity and nationhood stood. The people could not lapse into the patois of their origin and oneness. It became like a preparation for war. All the politicians, all kind of a pair, actually with lots of polish on the surface – but there was dust from the chicken yard between their toes.

The presidential primaries showed there were wide differences between us as a people that we were less willing to admit; but rather wish, to skirt the border of propriety. Lots of pretensions that were making us less human, and in fact, phony sometimes. In the nation’s politics money was the end, it was the means.

The politicians and their friends cornered the oil blocs while the rest of us were sitting on nothing but red clay. Yet, that, little trick of fate would not deter us, even with our brains and guile, from noise making or making noise, over nothing.

In retrospect, the nation’s politics was bizarre for all the wrong reasons. The jealousies and resentment drove a wedge between the people. Those symbiotic things that make sense only at some deep level that nobody understands, not even the politicians. There evidently was perverseness in relationships across the Niger, and politicians managed to bring out the worst in the people and in themselves, instead of everyone’s best. Always goading the nation on the path of life as consisting of either eating or shitting.

One’s mind turned to the future. Looming ahead was the first hurdle – perhaps, the most difficult of all, the results of the primaries and the post-primary partum. I stared at the television screen, sensing that May ending was going to be the most pivotal of the nation’s future. Though the room was warm, I felt a chill ran over my skin, and every hair on my body seemed on end. In spite of myself, I was nervous and wished the political parties, the natural front and centre would handle this right.

The nation was unsure, uncertain, throwing surrounding pines into unnatural relief. This presidential primaries, became a big prime factor that could cast shadows of doubt further on the credibility of the slogan “one Nigeria.” Meanwhile, the sun was dropping toward the end of the Abuja horizon, and everything stood still. The expectation was heating the system. It was war. War, Power, Money. In this clime, elections were always tug of war, a war with no suit of armour, no ammunition except verbal missiles and the occasional fireworks from thugs and miscreants.

The two major contenders, the incumbent vice president who felt he had a foot in the door and nobody was going to keep it out; and a Tinubu who intends to step into PMB’s shoes, while the delay and horse trading lasted, eyed each other like two alley cats, each waiting for the other to pounce and strike, and a nation whose last hope was the truth, left waiting.

Tinubu appeared marketable with his effervescent cult-following and a political party status.
The vice-president, heady with the phony assurances and the power of money he thought he had at his finger tips, started counting his eggs. With his mind rife and reeling at what the outcome of the primaries was going to be. There are things that do need to be said, but that’s best done in private. His main backers put a leash around his neck to be on his side, in a, ‘you had to destroy him to get him’ style. He’d pay, one way or another.

Talking about the Jagaban Adamawa, the object of his dream since the Adeboye’s ‘vision’ days and his image, the ‘ruthless’ advisors brought out the little boy in him, the insolent servant whom the ‘cabal’ had gravely tainted as evil and also grieviously accused of lying and labelled as patently dishonest and unreliable. Now, trying to erase all those positively ugly references was not an easy task, because, the people’s experience of life with politicians had not left them with a trusting disposition.

Now the world was on its head – Old Glory on the street was upside down. In the nation, there are a lot of potential political investors, who’ve got the money and the wherewithal. And as serious actors, they look at roles for their dramatic potential, not their image. Democracy and the presidency is not a casting couch interview to become president of Africa’s largest. Take politics away, the people all love Ceasar – when he’s Ceasar.

The people have taken the politicians behaviours for granted, as much as the politicians have taken the nation for granted. It’s been a mistake on both parts. It is politics, and as they say, all politics is local. The politicians, most of who were worth more today than most people could earn in two or three lifetime.

Even as it took the only option available to it, the party could perpetuate the hoax. Life is strange. This was perhaps the last way on Earth they would have thought it would happen. What with the propaganda, money sprees, social media blitz9 et al. Thinking of the nation’s feeling, its peace and tranquility, progress and all. That’s another issue entirely. But this politicians with their sense of unusual prescience, uncanny obstinacy and pretensions that the nation needed its help, and therefore, could engaged in a game of the throne that was inimical to the nation’s peace. One would ask, do power, transient power and ambitions make the nation’s politicians invulnerable to such normal human concerns. It was sad, terribly so, that, the force that drove ambitions could suppressed their humanity.

The momentum of events should allow all the knave Gambits live up to the nation’s expectations even as they bring it out of the dark ages and its yet to be seen if its politics is into the 21st century era of political thought.
Here’s hoping that once, just once, we’d do what was right.

#Jimi Bickersteth
Jimi Bickersteth is a blogger and writer. He can be reached on Twitter@BickerstethJimi
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