‘MAY WE NEVER SEE IT AGAIN’ by TOLA ADENIYI
Call it the harvest of locusts, of vultures, of famine, of pestilence, of horrors, of calamities, of abominations and of death; you will be dead right.
It was the village of Nayagi-Soso, a village as large as the size of Nigeria, very large and richly blessed. The village was an amalgamation of several separate and distinct villages with distinct traditions and cultures. It was the village of ancient warriors, of wise men and philosophers. It was a village of famed sculptors and craftsmen, of weavers and carvers. It was, as the story goes, a village of uncommon blessings. Nayagi-Soso, the proud village of hardworking men and women, it was also blessed with mineral wealth.
Nayagi-Soso was the envy of her neighbours in her hey days. Millions of villagers from other shores came to Nayagi-Soso to seek fortune and prosperity. It was a land flowing with milk and honey and all was well.
Some pink-skinned marauders came from some god-forsaken place and ransacked the village of Nayagi-Soso. These marauders were an unusual race. They were like albinos, but were worse than albinos. They actually had the skin of lepers. Their noses were as long as fishing pole. And they spoke through their noses. They were very clever, cunning and cruel. Very cruel and full of tricks. They brought fat books and taught the people of Nayagi-Soso to destroy their religion, their traditions and their cultures. For well over 100 years they made idiots and servants of the Nayagi-Sosoans. And by the time these lepers left, Nayagi-Soso was left with only the books while their treasures and treasury were gone.
But even from the ashes left by the plundering lepers arose men and women of stature, of vision, of patriotism and commitment. In no time they established good governments in their regions because their village had been carved out into regions by the colonising lepers for ease of administration.
Nayagi-Soso once again stood tall and strong on her feet.
Another set of marauders, this time home-grown, came with boots and all, and darkness fell on individual freedom. In fairness to them the jack-boot tribe provided Nayagi-Soso an incredible list of achievements especially in the area of solid infrastructure: airports, highways, stadia, ultra-modern centres for arts and culture and stable government.
It was after all these that vultures and locusts took control of the village. All sorts of calamities descended on the hitherto thriving village of Nayagi-Soso. Manufacturing establishments started closing shop. Many industries collapsed. Education collapsed. Health care became history. All farm lands were deserted. Villagers had no food to eat unless they imported from far away villages. Universities became ghost institutions. Hundreds of thousands of young women with promising future turned to prostitution for survival. Prostitution in fact became the major export of the Village to the outside world! The village became a laughing stock.
Abominations descended heavily on the village. Incest in high places became the order of the day. Armed robberies, kidnapping, reckless rape, ritual killings, assassinations became commonplace.
Pregnant women were dying in their thousands because of lack of medical care. All sorts of diseases became plagues in the land.
Then came the master of it all. Something that never happened in the centuries-old history of Nayagi-Soso gripped the land: suicide bombing! The story goes like this; Trouble was sleeping peacefully in a remote corner of the village. Trouble was invited by politicians to help them [politicians] win elections by killing off their opponents. Trouble was armed to the teeth and fought to the death. Thereafter, Trouble asked for his share of the booty being lavishly enjoyed by their political masters. Political masters turned their back on Trouble. Trouble, now wide awake and heavily armed, started bombarding the homestead of the ‘ungrateful’ politicians. Hell was let loose and fire started flying from the skies. The entire village of Nayagi-Soso was petrified.
The leaders of Nayagi-Soso did not have any answer to the threat and dangers posed by Trouble. Rather than address the terrible challenges confronting the village, the political leadership of the village were dinning, wining and dancing while their Rome was burning!
The very apex of the leadership in that era, according to the story, was very docile, grossly inept and incompetent and lacked both capacity and capability to handle the magnitude of problems in the land. On the other hand majority of people working with him were outright rogues and robbers.
They simply refused to go and yield ground for better managers and more patriotic and selfless leaders to resolve the nightmare facing the village.
Villagers cried to their gods. They prayed for divine intervention. And it was indeed a village of 1000 religions. Villagers professed religions without being religious. Some of them went about with a bale of cloth bound round their heads; heavy loads, enough to make agbada. Others wore gowns with horrible contradictory colours like masquerades in imitation of the foreign masters who brainwashed them into worshipping their foreign gods. And yet they were godless. And some of them even joined in looting the village treasury.
The vultures and locusts continued the plundering of the village’s common patrimony. The Village was stolen silly while the populace were down on their flat bellies. The suffering became unbearable. The agony was relentless. Sorrow enveloped the land.
The hapless and hopeless and seriously traumatised people of Nayagi-Soso consulted their oracles. The oracles admonished them to make sacrifices and beg the Almighty God for forgiveness so that the clueless leader that was the bane of their predicament would be removed.
The oracles charged the people to go about in unison and in full force crying; MAY WE NEVER SEE IT AGAIN!
And all the villagers, old and young, men and women, the employed and the jobless obeyed the oracles and started crying; May we never see it again!
Lead Prayer Warrior: This clueless leadership
Villagers : May we never see it again!
Lead Prayer Warrior: This cabal of locusts
Villagers : May we never see it again!
Lead Prayer Warrior: This cult of plunderers
Villagers : May we never see it again!
Lead Prayer Warrior: This culture of impudence and impunity
Villagers : May we never see it again!
Lead Prayer Warrior: This culture of greed and unaccountability
Villagers : May we never see it again!
Lead Prayer Warrior: This kind of useless government
Villagers : May we never see it again!
At the count of seven, the heavens opened up, roaring thunder tore through the skies, and all the ravaging locusts became dust.
A new leader emerged. A new dawn!
End of story.
It is well!
Happy New Year!!!
The pen is the tongue of the hand,the silent utterer of words for the eyes…Henry Beecher