Busuyi Mekusi

Writers, across the major established genres, are supposedly prophets. This ascription is fallout of the creative capacity of writers to interrogate familiar experiences, rustle them painstakingly, garnish them artistically and aesthetically, as well as lace them with the magical and extraordinary, in order to presage into the future. Experiences so reprocessed could be personal or collective, but they have a way of speaking to, and about situations outside to them, either partly or wholly.

To this end, a story artistically told is a present to be foretold! Human experiences could be fatally or pleasantly the same at the base, leading some to  argue that the narrations of human past are merely recorded, rehearsed and recast by others in the future. No doubt, the depressing stories of Nigeria in the turn of the century would be too wild for coming generation to relate to, when compared to the recordings of the great feats attained by other nations, in the same dispensation.

It is not outlandish for contents of literary texts to find correlating and corresponding interface with real-life situations of people and generation. It is given the foregoing that one is held down by the imperative of reading Nigeria’s recent experiences in the context of the artistic satire in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The 1954 novel narrates the story of a group of young boys who get marooned all alone on a deserted island.

Responding to their instincts, they emplace rules for systematic organisation and interaction, devoid of inputs from adults’ supervising impulse. With the passage of time, the boys degenerate into violence and brutality. The text seems to suggest that the attitudinal recession and descent to chaos are suggestive that the human nature is fundamentally savage, particularly as exhibited in the wanton loss of lives and properties in Nigeria, while the political class continues to dance on the graves of the dead, in quest of political placement in 2023.

Akin to the isolation and circumscription of the Golding’s boys on the island, the Nigeria state has been pooh-poohed by some as a marriage of inconvenience, resulting from the amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorates. Power at the centre remains an example of the conch that the boys discovered on the island, which is a symbol of authority and instrument of mobilisation.

Similar to the political shenanigans that have come to define the Nigeria political system Ralph, in the text, is chosen as the leader, but without unanimity, as the choir boys, led by Jack Merridew, do not vote for him. Jack’s desire for leadership leads to his staging a coup against Ralph, but he has to break away from the group to establish his own shelter when the insurrection fails. With some boys, like Roger sneaking off to join him, Jack and his cohorts begin to exhibit savagery tendencies while the group led by Ralph, supported by Piggy and Simon, continues to maintain semblance of order.

The irresponsible attitude of Jack and his allies plays out evidently when they abandon their assigned role of maintaining the fire, which is meant to attract attention of would-be rescuers, for hunting expedition. Painfully enough, the fire dies out, with a boat travelling past the island during the same period. This unacceptable behaviour is not unexpected because the initial burst of organisation and order does not last, as the boys refuse to do any work, but would rather play and sleep.

As evidence of the capacity of human to use elements in his environment to meet his needs, and solve resolve his challenges, or better still the necessity that births inventions, the boys in Lord of the Flies use the glasses of Piggy to produce a fire on the island. The sacredness of human life is ruptured in the novel when Simon gets killed by the group after they mistake him for a beast or ghost and when Piggy dies, as one of the boys in Jack’s tribe throws a boulder on him.

Some analysts have opined that these killings are blameable not just on the reckless boys in the text, but the innate barbarian instincts of the boys, based on Golding’s recognition of the two innate human instincts as barbarianism and civilisation. One interventionist believes that Golden uses the death of Simon in the novel to “represent the boy’s completion of their degeneration from civilisation to social breakdown”. A remarkable challenge faced by the boys on the island is the monster/beast they believe could haunt and hurt them. Jack and his renegades decide to make a ritual to satisfy the monster by impaling the head of a pig on a sharpened stick as a sacrifice. It is the swarm of flies that this pig head gathers that Simon hallucinates about as ‘Lord of the Flies’, where the book-title comes from.

The savageries in this novel have been substantially complied with by Nigeria and Nigerians. The commonplace debauchery ongoing across the country got uniquely but negatively rebranded few days ago when the news of the killing of the member of the Anambra House of Assembly, Okechukwu Okoye, representing Aguta II constituency, by ‘unknown gunmen’, broke.

Just like the instinct of the barbaric Golding’s boys, the head of the murdered politician was said to have been staked at a park in Amichi community. While the sustained killings in southeast Nigeria have been blamed on Indigenous People of Biafra (IPO) and Eastern Security Network (ESN), the former has consistently denied involvement of the proscribed group in the merciless killings carried out in the region, but rather fingering politicians.

Amidst these claims and counter claims, government facilities continued to be targeted for arson, while an ethnic colouration was added to the debasement recently when a woman pregnant for 9 months, Harira Jubril, an indigene of Adamawa State, and her four children were murdered in Orumba North LGA of Anambra. Statistics of other killings in various parts of the country reminds us of failed human struggle and efforts to uphold the rules, leaving instead palpable savagery.

Similar to the experiences of Golding’s boys, political divisions are still rife in the country, as ethnicity remains a bargaining instrument for power. Political and economic drivers appointed to superintend over the country have abandoned their responsibilities, just like the boys abandoned their stoking duty of the fire, and dampening the possibility of rescuing a depressed naira that slides against foreign currencies without caution. The old organised and bonded relationships that existed across ethnic groups in the country have given way to disorderliness, suspicion and chaos. Most youths are no longer ready to work, but committed to ‘catching fun or cruise’ with hard drugs, mindless sexual escapades, like the sex-for-dying Ibadan teenage lovers, run guns, scam when possible and perform rituals to ward off the monster of poverty, etc.

With 2023 up for grab, the political space is heavily monetised, causing galloping inflation in the economy. Party delegates are temporary ‘kings’, and unsuccessful politicians are writing books of lamentation, fainting on the political field, and divorcing old parties, for marriages to new ones. Bye and large, the interest of commoners takes the back seat in all the considerations.

Unlike Golding’s unprotected boys, a community leader in Birnin Gwari LGA of Kaduna State, Zubar Abbdurra’uf, has told the world, in a clear disappearance of elected and delegated authorities, that Ansaru terrorists have allegedly taken over some communities and are protecting the residents from attacks by armed bandits in the area, as well as indoctrinating them, with the people happy about the development. As the clock ticks for the countdown of the 7-day ultimatum given by the abductors of the victims of the Kaduna train attack, after which they would be killed, one would hope that the threat would not be executed, as the government is expected to return from its holiday and kiss the dust, if necessary, in a veiled demonstration of stooping to conquer.

Notwithstanding that the Texas school shooting and killing reminiscent the barbarism hidden in civilisation, the island of Nigeria urgently requires a rescuer to stop the reigns of lord of the flies, monsters, beasts and vampires that are making abominable sacrifices by impaling human heads on stakes. Unlike the case of Golding’s boys, it, no doubt, does not require a British naval officer to discover our savagery, and wonder how a former colony could fall into such a state of misdemeanour and savagery.

That Pastor Chibuzor Chinyere comfortably relocated the parents and siblings of Deborah Samuel from the ‘island’ of Sokoto to Port Harcourt is commendable; showing how tithe and offering could ‘speak’, but our island could be significantly improved, if we allow technological elements like Piggy’s glasses guide us. Our savagery must end, as barbarism is tamed!