By Prof. Wole Soyinka
Our ‘fellow Nigerians’ are truly difficult to understand. Why is there such a fuss over the designation of the famous Ali-Mun-Go as a worthy ambassador for the Nigerian nation. Next to George Bush, the individual who has done the most to raise the profile of Iraq in world consciousness is a certain military man known as Chemical Ali. Nigeria is about to contest that preeminence with the exportation of our own home-bred militrician, Garrison Ali. Enough of that. Let us toast Nigeria’s latent window on the world. Surely, Garrison Ali’s suitability as a national export commodity cannot be in dispute. However, let us ensure that he is exported to a nation that can best appreciate his qualities and fully exploit his unique talents. Yugoslavia for instance but – I forget, Yugoslavia is not quite the same since Milesovic was bundled out to enjoy the niceties of international law. He is also dead, which complicates matters even further. Then there is Romania but, again, do excuse my lapse of memory – Nicolaie Caescescu and his wife met a rather gory end, and now Romanians are wondering what to do with his monuments to vainglory and sadism. Romanians – ingrates one and all – are even boasting of their giant strides towards democracy. Hoxha’s Albania is also a thing of the past. What of Cambodia then? Again, we run against insurmountable blocks, such as the demise of the genocidal maniac, Pol Pot. Maybe we should try nearer home – Zimbabwe for instance – maybe that kind of accreditation is what the present regime has in mind.
Garrison Ali, may we remind the world of reason, earned his title by urging the populace of the state of Oyo, home of the nation’s premier university, to submit their necks to the yoke of a self-declared thug and political enforcer Lamidi Adedibu, whom he named the Garrison Commander of the state. No fault of Ali of course, Adedibu was already anointed by Ali’s boss, the then Nigerian President, who threw the gates of his home wide open to the triumphal entry of the King of Thugs on a white steed, with full retinue, shortly after the latter had virtually sacked the elected House of Representatives. Garrison Ali therefore did no more than proclaim what was already decreed from the top. When Garrison Ali presents his credentials as ambassador, there will be Adedibu on a white horse ushering him into the White House – or whatever is the local equivalents wherever he is posted. Garrison Ali, I have stated over and over again, was one of the Triumvirate who masterminded the recent electoral rape of the Nigerian nation. He was Chairman of the ruling PDP and, to use the familiar expression, he ‘delivered’. Now come the rewards of delivering – is it really just to deny him his dues? Nigerians are truly exasperating ingrates. There are still nations in the world which deliver electoral approval of 150 per cent of the population. Garrison Ali, his predecessors and current collaborators merely affirm the Nigerian preeminence in such matters – if anything, we have the original mathemagicians who can confound cold statistics and turn numerical realities into expendable fallacies Don’t take my word for it – follow the revelations that are made daily at the electoral tribunals.
One projection from this avoidable distraction is of course predictable: all who oppose Ali’s nomination will be labeled ingrates, hypocrites, frustrated opportunists and worse, including the present presidential incumbent. In Yar’Adua’s case, I suspect that his crime would be the very act of his putting Ali’s name forward in the first place. Now, why do I include Yar’adua among the colony of the damned? It’s simple – Yar’adua is trying to distance himself from one of the architects of his own becoming by keeping him occupied beyond Nigerian borders. Absence may make the heart grow fonder but distance reduces its blood pressure. The further the godfather, the lesser the stress on governance. It’s a shrewd move, and we should sympathise with Yar’Adua. However, we do have a responsibility to ensure that such moves are not carried out to the detriment of Nigeria’s image abroad. The posting of Garrison Ali to any nation excepting those belonging to the club earlier indicated as worthy recipients of his talents should therefore be regarded as an invitation to Nigerians domiciled in such a nation to pursue means of expressing their repudiation of the gospellers of garrison politics. Ali’s pariah status should be made permanent on the radar of the international community.
With that stated, I am obliged to warn all committed democrats to unfurl their umbrellas in anticipation of the squall of toxic sprays that will be discharged from the nation’s notorious party hacks and desperate jobbers, hungry for lucrative attention from the coven of godfathers. Their sole occupation all life has been nothing but political mendicancy. Their operational mode has grown more impudent in recent times, their fantasies more putrid, their libelous concoctions devoid of even the sheerest pretence to morality or truth, as they superimpose their own characters, their preternaturally corrupt nature and venal careers on others, without scruple, without restraint and without the slightest fear of a day of reckoning, here or in the hereafter. Urged on by a ravenous desire for preferment, they offer us the human equivalent of scrofulous canines whose hysterical whelps are designed to drown out the genuine alarms of imminent danger. Beyond the danger of contamination for potential recruits, always the feeble-minded, by their rabid slavering, there is really nothing to alarm or distract those fully armed in the democratic pursuit. Mangy mongrels will always snap at the heels of Truth.
Prof. Wole Soyinka is a Nobel Laureate and Social Activist
