By Busuyi Mekusi
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African philosophical sayings are as resourceful as those found in other cultures, if not more. They are equally profound to users and listeners, who mutually share an understanding of both the physical and metaphorical meanings therein. However, for instance, the Indomie and coconut generations found in Nigeria and South Africa respectively have substantially lost touch with the enrichments inhered in such cultural coding.
Little wonder, the basic socio-cultural nuances used in predominant African societies have been buried by contagious and contentious western orientations that induce liability from western cultural reliability. As I have argued in the past, whereas no culture could insulate itself from being influenced by others, the propensity of supplanting African traditional tropes with western propositions is enslaving and defeating.
One of the proverbs with which the Yoruba showcase their socio-cultural richness is that of the tsetse fly on the scrotum. It is a saying that transcends the facial meaning of depicting that a fly finds its way to the private area where the scrotum is ordinarily found, but is used to metaphorically indicate that an affair requires a cautionary approach. This is achieved from the interpretation of the expected response to a fly perching on any sensitive part of the body.
Impulsively, any intruding fly is usually greeted with a big slap, with the intention to smash the intruder as mercilessly as possible. The troubling propensity of a tiny intruder like mosquito could, however, get the person doing the slapping to deal self a painful blow. An unrepentant mosquito could help one murder sleep through its cacophonous buzzing!
The tsetse fly is believed to be a kind of fly found in Africa that could; bite humans and animals, suck their blood, and is capable of spreading sleeping sickness, considered to be a serious disease. For the proverb of the tsetse fly, the symbolism conveyed by the fragile and sensitive nature of the scrotum calls for a careful approach that would not cause the person a negative sensation or painful reactions that would extend to the abdomen. Undoubtedly, in the past few days, the tsetse fly has perched on the scrotum of Nigerians, and getting rid of it requires absolute caution. Tsetse are ordinarily similar to other large flies, such as the housefly, but could be distinguished by four elements, which include two observable anatomical characteristics of folding its wings completely when resting, with one wing placed directly on top of the other over the abdomen.
2023, being a political transitional year in Nigeria, has been ‘magically’ viewed by some as having the memorialising properties of previous transitional years like 1983, 1993, and 2003. 1983 witnessed the collapse of the Shehu Shagari government and the Second Republic, while 1993 was tumultuously defined by the political imbroglio that followed the annulment of the presidential election that was considered the freest in the country, and generally-believed and acknowledged to have been won by Late M.K.O. Abiola.
2003 was not very largely eventful but for the acrimonious relationship between the then President, Olusegun Obasanjo, and his Vice, Abubakar Atiku, with the latter that was considered a more politically savvy person close to contesting the presidency with his principal. To date, there is no love lost between Obasanjo and Atiku, with the former using his autobiography, My Watch, to scathingly characterise his former Vice. Obasanjo’s testimonials of Atiku remains an albatross, as he seeks the seat of the president once again.
PMB’s administration has been tortuous the past seven years and more. The successes recorded by the regime have been subsumed by the the debilitation of killer herders, bandits, terrorists, ethnic militias, and economic downturn, etc. PMB got distanced from the citizens as he spent a couple of times attending to his health for an undisclosed ailment in the UK. Some detractors sold the dummy to Nigerians that PMB had died and was cloned and infused to a personality called ‘Jubril of Sudan’.
This mythical theory in a post-modern era got entrenched because of the protracted ‘numbness’ of Buhari until he had some national discourses with Nigerians. Curiously, he, at a later time, confessed that he was troubled by the fact that some Nigerians could fabricate such an unfounded narrative. One of the instructive things PMB said during his media chats was that somebody should not think he could sit in Lagos and determine the next president of Nigeria, with some watchers seeing it as a veiled reference to Bola Tinubu.
The presidential primary of the ruling APC was intriguing, between a purported endorsement of PMB of the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, to the participation of the incumbent Vice President and old-time ally of Tinubu, Yemi Osinbajo. The sagacity of Tinubu got him the ticket, and he has creatively staged so many performances on political stages, in line with the dictates of tragic-comedy.
One of the highlights of the APC presidential primary at the Eagle’s Square was the national questions asked by aspirants of south-east extraction, if the party could not convey a national discourse, who queried whether the non-micro-zoning of the party’s ticket had anything to do with justice, fairness and inclusion. People from Biafra old enclave are still being treated with suspicion, so much that they hold that the emergence of any leader from that area would end Nigeria.
Southern Nigeria remains politically vulnerable, as any politician from the nucleus would have to rely on the cerebrated voting strength of the ‘endangered’ north. It is largely because of this permutation that Tinubu, a liberal Muslim, picked another Muslim, Shettima, as a ruling mate. As the ruling APC tried to retain the support of Nigerians, the major opposition candidate of the PDP altered the amorphous rotational representation that should have embolden it, and Wike and his allies have wickedly buffeted the party. In all the hankering, the interest of common Nigerians have been negotiated on the altar of selfishness. With the tagging of the new monetary policy of the CBN as ‘COVID-23’ by Governor Ganduje of Kano, the budding year has been filled with various negatively indelible activities.
This is as acute fuel shortage has, for some time, impeded easy movements of citizens, and crippled their businesses. Just like fuel, naira notes meant to have been swapped for new ones got locked up in bank vaults, with distressed customers thronging banks and at times assaulting them and their facilities. The controversial Governor, who was once nicknamed ‘Gandu-dollar’, have joined others like El’Rufai to openly lampoon their fading champion, PMB, for what they considered as a badly-timed introduction of new naira notes.
As the APC’s ‘Fuji House of Commotion’ continues, commoners who could not easily conduct trades are at war with one another. Some were said to have resorted to trade-by-barter, to circumvent the restriction of currency limitation. Bankers in commercial banks now see themselves as endangered species that must answer for the faults of the CBN. Fakers of new naira notes are also having a field day, playing on the limited knowledge of ordinary Nigerians that could hardly distinguish a fake currency from the original.
As that aspect of the ambition of the CBN seems to be failing, we look forward to seeing whether the notion of preventing vote-buying through the initiative would not end a mere ruse, after all. To ensure a complete circle of national idiocy, universities and inter-university centres have been shut down on the directive of the Minister of Education, thereby locking up common-sense in our debilitated Ivory Tower.
As Nigerians go into national elections, their provocation, through various convolution of political configuration, may make the preying on ordinary Nigerians possible. Evident in the horizon are: the claim by APC of internal sabotage and possibility of ethnic conspiracy; Biafra memories and the mistrust of likely balkanisation; the likelihood of a Fulani in Atiku succeeding another in Buhari, etc.
Hungry angry frustrated Nigerians are divided within and without, steeped in needless emotional political outbursts. Members of the political class have manufactured wools with which they covered the eyes of ordinary Nigerians, so that they could kill the tsetse fly on the scrotum with a sledge-hammer, and provoke a painful wriggling that would take their attention away from the mindless abuses of their oppressors.
As Nigerians go to the polls, one hopes they would not hit the tsetse fly so hard, that our endangered scrotum would be spared of avoidable hurting blows. Relying on another Yoruba proverb, may we not enjoy the scratching of the infected itching part of our body, leading to a gaping hole that gets to the bone. With your vote, you either make or mar your citizenship, and you may have to thank another government for sending you on forced exile, just as some affected by Japa syndrome are thankful to PMB. We need, manifestly, free, fair and credible elections!
