State of the Nation.

State of the Nation.

Dramatic Characters

Priye: A Niger-Delta pro-militant aristocrat

Nemu: A Niger-Delta student

Cicili:  Another Niger Delta Student

Cascara: Inventor of Thought

Malam: A Northern Nigerian aristocrat

Haras: An alien attendant to Malam.

Bagel: A Philosopher of Ulimi.

Kima: Another Philosopher of Ulimi. 

Some School Children

Scene1. At a Sea Shore where pelicans prey.

Enter Priye, groaning.

  Priye: How gall-bitter are all the creeds of truth! How near to tears one is as bitterness is consumed and felt. I do not know; yet I do know that true waterloo, like the great landslide, heap-on-heap, shall burry the dogs who bark without causes. In our land; oh, in the north, it is the earthquake. No, it is not. The earthquake, natural, does not discriminate, does not sectionalize its woe. In the north, it is the thief that comes unnoticed, coming to do damages at unknown intervals. He yanks the cord of havoc and village are no more. Are all these not human souls dying? Are they beasts, not persons? Is the country sane? (Ah, ah ah; oh, oh, oh). My Nemu, oh, Nemu. Come, Nemu. Nemu, do you weep, too? This weeping of ours will not solve anything. Are all the people starting to see the state of the nation in my glass? Shall the nation continue in lawlessness, in nihilism, when those we mandate to rule are in place? Hear, you pelicans, hear. Do not presume insulation to yourselves from these tumults. Do not accuse my pointing fingers; laud them. They are your friends. Oh, oh, ah, ah. 

Nemu: I weep because you weep; though I do not know why you weep. I cry because I know you are even-minded; and you couldn’t have wept without being down-pressed in any way. May I seek to know the state of my Priye’s mind, why he thus weeps?

Priye: The elders say “When the rabbit comes out during the day, it is to herald a misfortune.” They also say “The cock do not know at 7 pm to 10 pm unless death knocks.” I have borne, Nemu, I have borne enough. What I bear are enough to make me burst. I have borne much, though I smile while my people die. This is because the world as a social environment cannot be swept clean of human frailties. Can you hear the noise? Some people are coming. Let them come, let them come in. How weary and rude are the realities of our country and its governance? That must be Cascara; always alone. Come here, “Man-Alone.”

Cascara: Good day, Sirs. I did not mean to come into this issue. But I overheard your view concerning the state of the nation as it relates to the rule of the land, the rule of law. That how our people are governed is good is no lie. But that the governance is carried out within the confines of inhumanity is also true. I met Cicili: she is of the opinion that we the indigenes of Himi village should prepare ourselves for confederation, not federalism. Look at these! Contrariety of nature! Pelicans, do you sleep under your roof while your neighbour’s  is on fire?  

   Priye: You have spoken well, Cascara. But federalism? Anyway, I am glad that my weak expression of grief over the state of the nation has produced a heap of concern from other thinkers. O Yes. Really, something needs to be done before it is too late.

Cascara: And it is getting late already. Let us go and intimate our great thinkers, the philosophers. How I wish we had people like Malam, Cicili and others as we meet!

Priye: Oh, let us move. Cascara … Cascara! Really, no sane person would sleep while a nearby roof is on fire.

Exeunt

Scene 2: Near a water reservoir.

Enter Priye, followed by Malam, few yards behind, Cascara and some School Children.

Priye: Good day to you, Malam. You are here to hear my feeling over the state of the nation under the yoke of people like …; people who in one hand bear the word of God, and in the other, bear the sword of evil. It is a contradiction out of grips with the ordinary; in a situation where the need to do good and the doing good conflict each other in fierce ado.

Malam: Could you, please, come straight to the point Priye, to the issue in issue? As for my single self, when it comes to saying the truth, especially as it relates to humanity, I am always very blunt.

Cascara: I do think that is good. Yes, there is much reasoning in what Malam has just said.  Hkra-hkra, kra, kra. This throat has swallowed much. It is full of phlegm. When one sees the truth, one must say it, not dilly-dallying, not minding the consequences.

Priye: hkru-hkru, hra, hra. I am sorry. Weeping this much, my voice is cracked. I do not know what people feel about this nation, but I sincerely feel the system in which we live is out of joint. As a political guide, it is ineffective. As an economic aggregate, it is inadequate. As a system of justice dispersal, it is unjust. As a reminder of hitherto moral upringing, it is obsolete. As anything, it tends towards nihilism.

Malam: In what respects are all these so, Priye? Into what spiraling danger you will lead me expecting me to explain this myself. I do not know, Priye. I want to go.

Priye: Do, Malam. When today at sunset we meet, we shall know how to explain the riddle.

Malam:  I have understood the issue; and I have discovered. But till then, let me say this. What lies behind six is not only seven as our elders say. What a boy can see, climbing the mountain is always less than what the adult can see, sitting down.

Priye: I hope you do not intend to say you are older than I am. They say facial appearance cannot be used to determine who is older; but I can feel, even if blind, that you owe me some ten to fifteen years. Appearance can mislead like a glass of shame, killing the covenant of eldership. Respect for elders is crucial, Malam.

Malam: I do not mean to say I am older than you are. The elder say “Who cannot hear may see more clearly than who does. I am not older than you; I am only abler in analysis of the state of the polity. And I am serious about this.

Priye: Till then. Then you will tell me how abler you are. But my noble Malam, do not forget that a boy who tries to shake the tree stump, only tries to shake his own head. The truth lies somewhere already – irremovably. We shall know this when next we meet. Excuse me!

Cascara: How broad does wisdom smile in Himi! Others must consume wisdom, not only we. Let our school children do with us. Let then hear the voice of wisdom, too. We may quit, yes.

All: quit.

Exeunt

Scene 3. By the river side.

Enter Cascara and Cicili.

Cascara: Is this day not the day set aside for Priye and Malam to explain what they know about the deplorable state of the nation?

Cicili: It is, Cascara, it is. But I also learned that in the process they will apportion blame to the north and south of this nation in a motion called “Preamble to The State of the Nation,” and consequent upon that, apportion blames for the nauseating state of the nation in an exercise called “Sate of the nation.” Who are here coming? Come in, please. Oh, Priye, blessing. Oh, Malam, peace. How are you, Boy Haras? We are your guests; do you come in late? Come in and sit down, children, make no noise.

Malam: It is the day, is it not, Priye?

Priye: Do not ask me. Ask yourself, but not me. Our elders say “When a father and his son find themselves in a law court, the son needs not refer to the father as Daddy, nor the father, the son as Son.”

Malam: It is meeting to demarcate spheres of academic influences, not military, not law suit. It is a debate over the state of the nation as historians, philosophers, economists and indeed, as theologians. It is not meeting to quarrel.

Nemu: I singularly feel the atmosphere under which we thrive is tensed. What must be done? Cicili, a word with. We shall disperse, to meet here same hour tomorrow. Till then, noble Cicili, go once again to the contestants and tell them how friendly this march needs to be. Tell them, especially Priye, the contest is for the masses to know the state of the nation better through who argues better. It shall be an intellectual battle, not physical.

Cicili: Dispersal: let us disperse. But before then, let it be hinted the meeting is tomorrow: same time. Priye, you will see me before then; and your good self, Malam, you will see me too. Not only two of you; but all that are interested in this issue, those in whose minds the need to better understand this nation as it journeys to infinity is dire. The day is far done, the weather, dull. “Crash, crash, boom, boom.” A storm is coming.  Thank you, thunder. Our motion for accelerated dispersal is granted. No tarrying.

Scene Four. Same.  Enter Cicili, glancing afar.

Cicili: What a fuller house to be! Welcome, Cicili, Nemu, Priye, Malam, Cascara, Kima and school children. Enter, Nemu, Bagel and Kima, following? Welcome, Nemu. We were afraid you were not coming, Nemu. We are happy to see you, only we do not know your tail. May we know, Nemu?

Nemu: They are here, filled with issue we have. Pointing will do the job better. Look at who I point. This is Bagel, a Kanuri-related man, full of Islamic philosophy. This is Kima, an Ijaw free thinker, like Bagel, here poised to upgrade things in real terms. They are here with songs to pacify, songs to send one away thinking, not fighting. We all know the rest, I hope.

Cicili: Respectable Bagel. May we beg to see the message you bear? Perhaps, it will do us good, relating to why we are here. May we see, Kima?

Kima: You have been told. We radiate peace in face of palpable conflicts. Life is not more than this. Peace and development. Peace, peace. After all … a song says….

I am in a trip, God, this is a trip.

Oh, yes, oh God, it is a trip.

Here there is no chance to praise you.

No, not  a chance to praise you.

Father, save me in this trip,

Father, save me to move round the clock

In praise of you.

Heaven is my home owned by you.

Only look me through in this worldly trip.

What can I do in this world?

Oh God, God, earthly trip is hard.

Oh yes, this trip is hard.

I am in a trip, God, in a trip.

Oh God, it is a trip.

Cicili: Oh, my God. “The world is a trip” too hard, really, trip which to end well, must be managed by God himself; trip in which God needs to grant man the chance to look on him for safety.

Bagel: Yes, Kima. But really, is it a matter of God granting man the chance to see him for safety? The world is not hard; it is we, humans, who imbue it with hardness. This they do by accusing others of hardness when they themselves mess up everything about softness. Men are foolish; yet they call others foolish. I hold Soyinka strong: “The world is populated with fools.” Hear this song.     

This drum of foolishness that humans drum,

Emitting hardness like crystal alum,

They themselves must dance to it – and well.

The mother of Oweiba, having killed Oweiba,

Holds her head, running, weeping tears like well.

She shouldn’t ever have cried,

Too sober, her “honest” heart too dried.

Okay, hearts that shed blood must weep blood

And on top of their own blood pool, brood.

As, anywhere, there is no true pact –

No compact, no peace – in fact,

 The mother of Oweiba, having killed Oweiba,

Holds her head, weeps over, and ever.

    

Cicili: I do hope I shall learn much poetic philosophy today. Bagel and Kima, both are the two sides of the same coin, my God?

Cascara: You are in the right, Cici, Kima spoke of the harshness of the world; Bagel agrees, but added that harshness does not inhere in life, but that humans, as dwellers in life, bestow human reality with harshness by being short-witted.

Bagel: You are in order, Kima, I take my leave, and you?

Kima: Let us go.

All: Lets go.

Scene 5. The assembly hall of the community college. 

Enter Priye, Cascara, Cicili, Nemu, Bagel, Malam and Haras.

Cascara: You made a good arrangement with the principal? I mean … over the school hall.

Priye: No, I did not. It is Cicili that met the principal. Thank you, Cicili.

All: Cicili, Cicili, thank you, Cicili.

Cicili: … as God would have it. Thank God for everything. And thanks to God, still, this is exactly the same house and content.

Priye: Without any time to waste, I want to say that the state of the nation, characterized by killing, kidnapping, raping and destruction, is caused and perpetrated by the northern elements of the country, the faction of Islamic thought called Boko Haram. They are the attacker from who the nation groans so much. One needs not say over 2000 people have so far lost their lives in their claims to Islamic piety in which they lapse into Islamic impiety. Cicili has observed well: these are the people here when we met last. I need not to have introduced the issue.

Nemu: Yes. Yes.

Priye: The members of this sect of Muslims, claiming to be pious and in their impious piety mess up everything about piety do many things to undo peace. In their never-ending bid to sweep Islam clean of westernism – anything that the white men do – this religious sect dichotomize the nation without seeming to know that their activities produce dichotomy.

Malam: Can I come in here, please? The house, please.

Cicili: Yes, you may.

Malam: There is no hiding the truth that over 10, 000 lives have been lost to the Boko Haram movement since the beginning of the insurgence; and that property over billions of Naira, too. Ah, this computation could even be less than real; I also agree. But may I ask if those people killed by the members of the Boko Haram are Northerners of Southerners, generally speaking?

Priye: They are mainly northerners, with far lesser southerners. In January this year, they killed over thirty students (boys and girls) as they made their way to a Government Secondary School in Bornu State in the North. In January, still, they abducted over 200 girls from a single girl’s college in the bid to satisfy their conjugal drives. In February, they number of those killed and maimed amounted to over 600 people. The average for the other months of the year (2014) is up to 100, with an alarming number of villages, hamlets and buildings burnt down as the Order tries to attract the attention of the Government to heed their impossible call that Nigeria must have nothing doing with western Education. Even today up to 30 students (boys and girls) have been reported abducted!

Malam: All right. This enumeration, taken further, will yet undo us as the more it lingers, the more it is true. Yet, the more it reveals the fact that Priye as a Nigerian national has no knowledge of the socio-polity. As the elders say “The two wise men who eat at a table, must ultimately discover bones as remnants at the bottom of the pot. Does he, the house, agree what the members of Boko Haram do are bad? Good. But don’t we think the chalk board where they read the menu must be worse, and so, must be culpable for the culpability of the atrocious Boko Harams?

Priye: The socio-political Barrister has spoken; and he has spoken well. The cause of the misdeed of the Boko Haram must be held culpable for all they do, including all that they have not done. Since what they do is bad and they do not condemn this, what they do not do is worse than what they have done. I think the chalkboard where the Bokos copy is failure by Government to meet their evil force-to-force early enough.

Cicili: I think this encounter will cure the ills of this nation by helping to bring out the truth in us. In face of political and ideological battle, there is always a point where all truths meet and merge; that point knocks “Ka, ka, ka.” It is sure to come in when we meet again. We must leave; for here, I hear a wail, “Boko Haram, Boko Haram.” We must leave here. We must leave here. Here, here, the day is red.

All:    We must leave.

Exeunt

Scene 6. A tennis court.

Enter Priye, Cicili, Malam and Haras, Bagel, Kima, Cascara, Nemu, Cascara, behind Cascara and some school children.

Cicili: As we are here, I thank God. That finger was not meant to accuse, but to identify you, please. Thanks for coming as fixed. This is the day set aside by the concerned citizens of Ulimi to determine through an intellectual battle, which part of the nation is responsible for its woe, North or South. But before then, to be able to arrive at a sound judgment, north-south culpability in view, it is imperative to pass through the ideological vagaries of the north and the south as per the two foreign religions: Islam and Christianity. Is it not true, albeit sectionalistically speaking, that these two foreign religions cause our conflicts?

Bagel: I have my opinion, but my lords would speak: Priye and Malam.

Priye: Yes. Islam per se, the major religion of the north and its specifications, is by itself a cause of north-south dichotomy, and so, of conflicts. For instance, the Bible holds that Jesus, the Son of God, is God. I hope we all know this. References abound in the bible testifying the sonship and divinity of Jesus as well as the inseparability of these. But the Muslim north, arguing to the contrary, says many things uncanny about the doctrine to the anger of Christians. It also strongly obeys the Quran, Sura 47:4 of the Quran that all Muslims must strike off the heads of non-Muslims until they have massacred them and bind fast the bond. And when it is remembered that the Quran is mainly a detachment from the bible whose major tenet is peace and tolerance (Luke. 6:29), the anger can become a conflagration. So, what shall we do as Christians?

Kima: May one know, at this conjuncture, which religion is older in Nigeria, Islam or Christianity? Am I not in order?

Priye: Islam is older in Nigeria, though Christianity is much older lobally. Muslim say Jesus is not the son of God (Sura 21:26). They deny the divinity of Mary (Sura 5:73). Islam denied the metaphorical use of the “Son of God.” (43:57). Sura 21:26 denies the divinity of Jesus. The Quranic counter-position in reference to Jesus is clear enough; and this is a cause of conflicts as Christians will not allow Muslims to overturn the bible, the panacea of the Quran.  With respect to the all-guiding motif of God, Islamic doctrine does not agree that Jesus is divine. Jesus was a human being sent by God even before Islam, like Nathan, Moses, Joshua, Isaiah etc, a prophet particularly loved by Allah because of is extra obedience. Thus, Islam, tapping resources from Christianity, attacks Christianity (Sura 5:72, 166; 9:88-89). 

Malam: All that Priye has said we have heard – in fact, I do not think he has anything left to say in course of  his supposed supremacy of Islam that we do not know. “Jesus is not superior to the earlier prophets,” Jesus is not God,” Marianism is not reasonable,” “God has no son, not even Jesus,” and the like. Are there more? Hasn’t Christianity its strong arguments – also?
Consider the following biblical references, for example, as witnesses to the divinity of the sonship and divinity of Jesus: Matt.16:16, Jon 1:1-2, Mark 1:1, Jon 1:1-18, Jon 14:8-10, Jon 21:28;   8:10,  etc.  By Christian teaching, that this same Jesus, who is the Son of God, is also God himself (Heb. 8:10), John 1:1), John 1:18), is a thing of neither, nor, with nothing in between.        

Kima: Don’t we feel it is erroneous to suppose that Islam and Christianity, one is superior to the other? Both are religions; and as such, if both are seen as systems of belief capable of transforming character when fully understood and practically adopted, one will see why their adherents quarrel. To really determine which is better, going by arguments and counter-arguments, is quixotic, a vanishing will-o-the–wisp, an escaping, receding horizon. Bagel?

Bagel: Kima, we do not know what Islam and Christianity are. We do not want to know, either. We are free thinkers. As such, I know religion must lead to conflicts, if the adherents are not tolerant. Let us go into History, though I apologize for the digression. When Jerusalem was conquered and occupied by the Seljuk Turks Muslims, there was no Crusade as the former allowed the Christians to visit the city and perform their Christian rites. But there came crusades when from the Seljuk Turks Jerusalem was conquered and occupied by the not intolerant Ottoman Turks who would not allow the Christians to visit the city. Such a position is also the cause of the Crimean War (1854-1856).

Cascara: I enjoy you, Bagel. These points and counter-points will yet undo us. And we have to remember these children, always in our midst, are poised in their juvenility, to judge us, to take us as we take ourselves. If we continue swimming without getting ashore, posterity shall laugh at us.

Cicili: Cascara, Cascara, oh, Cascara! What a telepathy! Now, the day is fast spent; and we are all hungry, speakers and listeners. The issues are long-drawn, as long-drawn as those before them. But their weights are heavy, so heavy upon our minds that we kind of run out of strengths. We are hungry, are we not?

Cascara: Cicili, the house, I am too feeble to say “Yes.” Ah, are you all following me? Haras come forward; lead the way to where you ate yesterday.

Exeunt.

Scene 7. Under an apple tree close to a restaurant.

Enter Cicili, Priye, meeting Malam and Haras, Cascara, Nemu, Cascara, behind Cascara, some school children

Cicili: I am most happy that we are all present and punctual, only Bagel and his friend. To begin with, we thank God the ideological battle between Priye for the South and Malam for the North is nearing an end. What is more? Both contestants agree the fault lies in the cause, not just the perpetration. Or is that not where we stopped? Meanwhile, let us forget the religion-versus-religion insertion we had at the Tennis Court.

    

Cascara: Then, we start where we stopped. Malam agreed the fault is in the cause, a position also posited by Malam, explaining how.

Malam: Cicili, Cascara, the house. Really, the problem is not simply with the members of Boko Haram who go about the Sahel of Nigeria killing and destroying. It lies in the root cause of the said killing and destroying. The girl who does not know how to cook in her matrimonial home is not necessarily blamed, but her mother who failed to make her know. What we have in hand is the ideological marriage concerning the present killing in Nigeria. “The present killings” – because the present killing – is an off-shoot of some unpleasant past situations, past killings, whose calamitous culmination is the present killings….

Cicili: Now, Malam, Priye has succeeded in convincing all that the problem of the bad actions of the members of Boko Haram is not simply the actions, but the cause of same. Now, what we are poised to hear (and from you) is how the action of the Boko Haram members is caused in the South. Or do we learn more, Priye? We know “This wood is too long.” cannot spoil a carpentry work, but “This wood is too short.”

Priye: Honest Cicili, we all know the northern and the southern parts of Nigeria are almost equally divided between Islam and Christianity. This division is already a cause of conflicts between the north and the south. This is because the intent of Islam is to make the world a theocracy, the rule of a man on earth having the mandate of God to rule; where secularism and the sacred are separated; in a system of governance covering the life of man, a system expressed in blind obedience to Sharia law and confrontational with unbelievers. But Christians are better because while they are against vice and immorality, they do not advocate a Christian theocracy for all of society. These show that while Islam is a head- cutting mechanism, Christianity is a head-joining one. We all know this; and if we do, then I mean… I mean… The house,. I mean….

Malam: Cascara, Cicili, Nemu, the house. Is this how the lawlessness in the nation is caused by the North? Are there are no Muslims in the south and Christians in the north? And since it is being considered that there are more Muslims in the south-west than Christians, is the south west (Lagos, Ibadan, Shagamu etc) also joint propagators of lawlessness? For he says “Islam is the problem.” The house …?

Priye: That is just by the way, noble Malam. How the evils of the country are caused by the north is in the escapade of the Boko Haram movement and the fact that when they started killing in the first day, their acts were treated with care-free abandon by Government. So, initial carelessness graduated into a long-term, boomeranging and holocaust duality: North and south. Bagel, the philosopher, here comes. Welcome, great Bagel. Noble, Kima, be esteemed.

Bagel: You are well-seated. We do obeisance.

Priye: Sit down, Bagel. You have come at a good hour to help us digest the points and counter-points. The best time to treat the problem of crisis is at its start, to stop it meeting its finish. That is nipping crises in the bud. Even now, what is the government doing? Is it not some isolated pockets of ramshackle, ineffectual, able-to-do-self-harm injections and withdrawals into the rings of Boko philosophy, a most contradictory phenomenon? Saying that Nigeria has no need of westernism is most contradictory for thousands of reason: “The world is a social environment where all must interact,” is one of these. The weapons of war used by both sides and the modern telephone system upon which the survivals of the war strategies rest are another point helping the point.

Bagel: The village says Nemu and I are the philosophers. Are you not better thinkers than we professionals are, your good self and honest Malam’s?

Malam: I shall write, but a short literature; and no more. In 1997, starting from April 9, the Ijaw, forming themselves into an ethno-ideological bloc, Ijaw National Congress (INC), started a chain of invasions on Isekiri, killing, maiming and kidnapping. From the said 1997 to 1994 – when Isekiri realized there was no government to protect Ijaw imperialism, and so, counter-attacked – over 200 villages were razed, over 300 people, killed; and property worth over 100 billion, looted! That is not all (though I promised being brief). In course of the marauding activities of the INC many foreign skills were also killed or kidnapped. Within the labyrinth of the crisis, the INC also staged an attack on the Ilaje Yoruba, this time, on a greater scale than that on the Isekiri Yoruba. The greater intensity of the Ijaw attack on Ilaje was due to the fact that they pounced on Isekiri unprovoked without resistance and legal repercussions.

Cascara: This story is getting more and more pathetic by the minute. I am not blocking your progress, Malam. If I do, I do so with a horde of children and bags of money waiting for you. But didn’t Isekiri seek to know why it was so attacked? And the Ilaje, what did they do?

Malam: A peace-loving people … Amen, first! Amen! …

Cascara: A drop of honey accidentally found in the mouth must be swallowed, not spitted out. Collect your blessing, my brother.

All:  Kua, kua, ha, ha, ha. None, Cascara, none.

 Malam: Your laugh naturally came to ease the tension in my mind: I am annoyed. Any people must naturally seek to know why a friend with whom he/she ate and drank, some hours previous, would start killing and burning in the way the INC did. Enquiries proved that these were avenging the slavery and mastership exercised by Isekiri on the Niger Delta in the pre-colonial days. As Isekiri ran from pillar to post, leaving their property behind, Government busied itself doing nothing. One said to the world (after over 200 people were killed, and 20 villages burnt down, “It is a lie, there is no way.” As for the Ilaje, knowing Government connivance from the Isekiri situation, and the futile peace-keeping and peace-making activities of Government, pushed to the walls of Aiyetoro, reacted with critical tenacity that halted the pace of Ijaw incursion. But before now, more than 1000 houses and over 200 billion Naira worth of property had been burnt down or looted!

Cascara: More children and wealth, once more, Malam. What was government doing, at least, the respective governors?

Malam: Amen, also! Are we still talking of the Governor who exclaimed “All is well” as Isekiri was on fire? Are we still talking of a Governor who provided over 40 boats for Ijaw attack at the Warri NPA? Are we talking of a Governor who manifested as sponsoring the invasion of Koko, April 11, 2013? What shall we say of a system in which the only safe place where the Ijaw armed men could enter Koko town to kill, burn and loot was via the “protecting” army barracks? Are we talking of the governor of Ondo State who acted most commercially as the killing went on?        

Bagel: Does it therefore mean Government enjoyed the invasions?

Nemu: Yes. That is what I wanted to ask. A government that folds it hand while a fraction of the people procure weapons for itself and kill another is a sham, you know.

Malam: A Daniel, you are, Nemu; a Daniel you will always be. The validity of your Daniel-ship lies in the fact that when a governor of Isekiri extraction, Uduaghan, later came to power since 2007, the unstoppable wars between/among Ijaw, Isekiri and Urhobo became stoppable. The wars of Ijaw (supported by Urhobo) which started, April, 1997, through 2006, has now stopped. However, whether it will return as he leaves office, next year, one cannot say. Does this not show how political consideration and economic particularism on the part of Government over a given status quo can be bad? Definitely, the Ijaw-Urhobo aggregate is more than five times the size of Isekiri…

Nemu: Can we hear? Cicili. Cascara. Can we hear? I heard a sound higher than the hustle bustle of the commuters. Is it war? Boko Haram maneuvering news again?

 Cicili: I, too, hear. And I have learnt (sorry I forgot to tell you) … I have learnt they have pinpointed this village as a target. I think we call it a day to meet when the hour is opportune, when the red grows blue.

Bagel: Who dares to remain further can safely dare the dragon, instead.

Exeunt.

Scene 8. At the sea shore where pelicans prey. Enter Cicili, Cascara, Malam, Nemu, Priye, Bagel, Haras and School Children.

Cicili: We are all present as hitherto as we hope to end this debate today. We are all welcomed. The elder says: “The climber, when the time comes, must come down from the point where he started climbing up.” This is where we started this argument, here at this sea-shore – where pelicans prey.

Bagel: Ah! Ah! At times, one laughs when the issue is a no-laughing one. I want to believe we shall go home with some hefty, hefty pelicans! But that is by the way. I start from where Malam stopped. Really, if the Democracy is the game in town, will not the reigning governor – in bid to survive and reproduce – dance to the tone of those with the highest voting potentials?

Cascara: Survival, Reproduction! What …?

Bagel: Survival in Politicking is not being long-lived. It is the act of remaining in power/position. Reproduction is not biological procreation. It is having ones followers in power as one leaves.  

Malam: Thank you. It is why Dungs, the Crises Governor, as he was called when alive, would exclaim “All is well.” It is why Governor Fieghabor, an Ijaw by tribe, “procured” scores of war boats for the Warri onslaught, 2004. It is why Ibori, an Urhobo, did what he did. It was this, caused by the craves to avenge the Isekiri racial mastership over the Niger Delta in the pre-colonial period that made Ijaw-Urhobo combine fought against Warri. It was a vengeance-seeking experimental expedition connived at by successive governments to secure security funds from various sources, in addition.

Cicili: Then, Democracy as a system of governance is bad … then. If in the bid to excel democratically, rulers can degenerate to such a base degree as aforesaid, it means, we have much adjustment to make concerning democracy.

Malam: We know before now that Democracy, a game of majority opinion, is a dirty one. But we must also know that the dirtier the players, the dirtier the game.

Cascara: If all these happened in the same country and the Government, for one reason or the other was indifferent, then why are we praying for Government to deal with Boko Haram now?

Nemu: It means Government acts in respect of Boko Haram are bent and faulty….

Priye: And inclined, therefore?  Here comes Kima. Kima, you came at an hour most meet to hear and memorize the creed of Malam.

Malam: Too inclined; too faulty; most faulty, for some main reasons. One is its failure to correct the evil of Ijaw-Urhobo combine over Isekiri, thus allowing it to set in motion the wheel of lawlessness. Two is the continual declaration by Government that there was no war as the wars raged on. Three, do you know Government, to make Ijaws stop fighting, had to give them Amnesty, a payment and education to bombers and killers to appease them! Now, almost every Ijaw youth is enjoying this amnesty in one way or the other: sit-at-home salaries, training/education abroad etc? All these happened in the same country where the Islamic group is. Following the Chaos Determinism of Edward Lorenz, cannot an action, the size of a mustard seed, taking place in Koko, cause actions of inestimable size, in Sokoto? Is the taste bud of the north insensitive to the juice of “Amnesty?” If stopping lawlessness through amnesty-giving is our cherished methodology, then where is the Boko Haram’s, ladies and gentlemen?  

Kima: And following the Structural Functionalism of Talcott Parson, the whole world, in general, and the nation, in particular, is a single socio-politico-economic mix in which each part is to the other related such that nothing happens to one without some effects on the other parts. I did not know all you have discussed. But I only know (and too well) that Deterministic Chaos of Lorenz tallies with the Structural Functionalism of Talcott parson, Emile Durkheim etc. All things cause effects on all things.

Cicili: May I say the issue in the north today, as an off-shot from the Ijaw-Isekiri-Urhobo relations (The Warri Crises) or/and the Ijaw-Ilaje encounter (Ijaw Ilaje Invasions), is lawlessness learnt from a portion of the south by a portion of the north? Could this be why Education says Environment modifies?

Kima: We must be truth-inclined and leaned towards objectivity. Following Priye, following Malam, I think the ill-behaviour of the members of Boko Haram as we see it today, is a child of the ill-behaviour of the INC, capped by government inhuman manifestations, interpreting from the said Chaos Determinism and Structural Functionalism.

Bagel:  Let me come in here, the house. Lord Kelvin says to be equal to the world in the age of Science through it is passing; we must learn to explain our thoughts in the language of Science. Taking the leap from here, we shall be scientific, legally scientific, as we learn to apportion blames concerning the state of the nation. I will express my view through the following scientific lenses. Or I forget, thank you, my Kima.

Quantum Determinism holds that in personal and locational dualistic relations, there are irrefutable tendencies for the actions of one person or locale to be determined by the actions of the other and – vice versa – producing a theoretical position called quantum determinism on Quantum Sea. Thus, owing to quantum determinism, the action of the Islamic extremist group and that of the Ijaw militants influence each other that the consequent reaction of each influenced each other that the result became determinate via the Nigerian geo-polity. The Quantum Sea is the plane on which the lines of operations of quantum activities are drawn consequent upon the implicate order. This Quantum Sea (QS) is Nigerian federation and its insidious federal government. This QS houses the Ijaw militants in the south and the Boko Haram boys in the north

The theory of the Implicate order states that there is a common order underlying all physical realities; and because of this common unity, all physical realities – persons, ideologies, actions and locations – are one, and nothing can be regarded as separate from the other/others. Because each part of the whole is related to each and all parts, and inseparable, for Bohm, the whole encompasses all things. This is the inseparability of all things, and so, of the north and south.

   

      Kima: Science rules the world; and since Science rules the world, all creations shall groan if scienceness is rejected. Non-locality – thank you, Bagel – is the idea that if two quantum systems (things) are in a quantum sea, their behaviours ally in a way, and within such a short time, that is more than the speed of light. Unable to be explained in terms of signals traveling between them, their speed is more than the speed of light. Thus, If two events occur, one after the other (like the Warri Crises and the Boko Haram problem), cause and effect would be the same and quite incapable of distinguish-ability. How do we relate the Warri killings to the Boko Haram marauding? The Ijaw, in a period of No-Government-nonsense, filled with riotous nationalism, waged wars of attrition without Government rebuttal; while the Islamic group, feeling loaded with better causes, and encouraged by the fact of the Ijaw having done so without Government frowns, feel too free to fight… to request for their “Amnesty.” As the Ijaws says it received the call from Egbesu to fight, Boko Haram also claims to have received the mandate from Allah to fight! I am not a Muslim! But, yet, I ask, the house, “Egbesu and Allah, who is superior?”

Cicili: Ooguduuu, oogidiii. The weight of these words in my consciousness is more than the Yorubic Ekiti Kiriji Parapo War of the late 19^th century. Science must rule the world. How apt! How brief! How clear. The full world opts for full science, I beg.

Cascara: Thank you, intellectual fighters; for indeed, it has been an intellectual battle. How do we sum the proceeding so far, Priye?

Priye: It is fantastic. It is scientifically fantastic, Cascara. Nothing happens really without its remote cause. The position of the ideological opponent, Malam, is concrete. On my own behalf and on behalves of the others here present, I appreciate him, or should I not. Our adage says “One must say it, if one’s mate’s child is more beautiful than one’s.

Bagel: Priye’s witticism must be the be-all and the end-all.  I pray we shall always be meeting in encounters governed by objectivity as the ones just concluded. Hmm, hmm. Can I sing well today?

Oh, myself, oh myself, I cry.

To keep the tears, I try and try.

The day the British caught Oba,

Was when they ran Eyen over.

In the gun boat into exile,

The Oba looked at Eyen awhile.

Is this the much discussed Eyen?

… of whom the white ones always yearn?

The Chief said, harshly, in return:

“You were first, it is my turn.

You, you, are you the Oba, too?”

Two query sticks for two to chew.

The Oba said “Were you wicked?”

Ah, it is why you were wanted.”

The chief said “So, you were not sought;

Good men like you could not be caught.”

Cicili: Let me quickly go home and jot down these lines, wrought from colonial history. I will not forget it. I always say philosophers are all historians.

All: Let us sing Bagel’s song to assuage the week-long encounter as we leave.

(Noise of moving tables and chairs is heard as they depart.)

 by

       Agharowu E. E. (Honsbira). Agharowu E.E. (Honsbira), Bachelor of Christian Religious Studies, Master of Theology, Cert. in Conflicts Analysis; Cert. Interfaith Conflict Resolution/Negotiation; Cert. Negotiation/Conflict Management.