This is about politicians and their needless noise.
In the early days, when the boundary between the living and the ancestral was thin as smoke, masquerades descended only at festivals. They came with thunder in their feet and secrets in their costumes, feared not because they were guttural in their voices, but because they did not need to shout.
Among them were masquerades who never danced wildly, never chased children, never raised their whips, never boasted of power. Yet, when they passed, even elders lowered their voices.
It was said they drank palmwine.
But no one ever saw them lift a gourd or a cup.
At night, when the drums had slept and the moon rested on the iroko tree, the masquerades gathered in the sacred grove. There, old palmwine tapped at dawn was poured into calabashes. Each masquerade tilted its head slightly, just enough. The wine slipped beneath the mask—unseen, unspilled. No mask was wet. No secret showed. They drank slowly, patiently, as spirits do.
The younger masquerades wondered and whispered: “How do they drink and remain spirits?”
An elder masker heard them and answered: “They do not drink to be seen. They drink to dominate.”
One season, a new masquerade arrived—loud, restless, drunk on applause. In the marketplace, it lifted its mask high, gulped palmwine before the crowd, and laughed.
The children laughed too; they clapped.
The elders did not. A taboo had been broken. And it was a mortal sin—unforgivable.
By the next festival, the masquerade’s costume had lost its beauty. Aso re ti pon; aso re ti ya. Its mask had become ragged. Its footsteps lost their thunder. When it came out again, no one stepped aside. Dogs barked at it. Children mocked it. It had drunk openly and lost the silence that made it feared.
The quiet masquerades remained.
They drank when no eyes watched. They spoke only through the drum. They never explained themselves. And so, the people continued to believe.
Till today, elders say: “The masquerade that survives is not the one that hides thirst, but the one that hides the cup.”
And that is why true masquerades still drink their palmwine quietly—keeping the mask, keeping the myth, keeping the power that noise cannot buy.
If government really wants to do something, it will do it. The civil servants have the knowledge, the experience, and the reach to get things done.
Did you see or hear the APC hold a press conference or organise a summit on how all the governors of the PDP would move their beds to APC? Did you hear a gong or town crier summoning anybody to a village square meeting on how the PDP masquerade would be unmasked and stripped? No. The party knew its target and went right to the roots of the tree with the right armour. The tree did not suspect. PDP stalwarts were shocked to the bones.
Unlike in the days of the Ebora Owu, when EFCC officials flooded a state PDP wanted by fire and force, there were no striped EFCC jackets. DSS did not lay siege to anybody’s compound. Armoured vehicles did not line any street. The only move that looked like an impeachment did not even culminate in one. The APC masquerade chewed silently and drank its palmwine without its mask shifting or shaking. Eégún s’enu jeje mu’ti—that is how the Yoruba describe the APC moves. The opposition governors continue to register at their wards to become APC members.
It is like the sacrifices placed at road junctions, what politicians do. Only the diviner and his client know the ingredients in the calabash and what they want to achieve. The rest of us only know when the akalamagbo bird has done the job and the mothers of the night have accepted the sacrifice. That is what APC did. It made its moves while the opposition was sleeping. It did all the heavy lifting when nobody was looking. It deployed a strategy different from the one used by the ruling party in the past. It achieved its aim and got what it wanted. Every other thing happening now is pouring water on the back of a calabash.
So, is Funke here to pat the APC on the back and rub PDP’s nose in the mud? No. Yes, I am worried about both parties, but this piece is strictly about needless noise and empty noises. Nigerians, Africans—we talk too much and do so little.
Opo oro kò k’agbon; afefe´ ni n gbé lo.
A million words will not fill a basket; it is the wind that blows them all away.
There is something to be learnt from the APC’s quiet move on the opposition parties. It was steady, behind closed doors. There were no statements. So why is it difficult for officials of government, especially federal government agencies, to borrow as many leaves as they can from APC’s ways, after all, they are APC members? Why can’t ministers, permanent secretaries and directors-general do what they are paid to do and announce the results later? Why do they come to the media first, announce the big thing they want to do, and after that the big deals become no deals? Yes, they make front pages the following morning and become talking points on morning television shows. The media benefits from it. We get easy headlines and juicy talking points that attract viewers and followers. But none of that helps the minister or the D-G.
This is also about our children, their exams, and miracle centres. Just last Sunday, the Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Education, announced a nationwide ban on the admission and transfer of students into Senior Secondary School Three in both public and private secondary schools across Nigeria. The new policy is aimed at curbing examination malpractices in our secondary schools, including the use of special centres where miracle results are “produced”. Laudable decision, long overdue. I was happy. Then suddenly, the implication of the statement hit me.
The ministry has tipped off the proprietors of the special centres and their corrupt clients. I am sure the ministry knows that these proprietors have registered and unregistered unions. By now, they would have put together ways and means to tackle this policy, which they would have concluded was targeted at putting them out of business. It is, really. If the FG stops the inflow of intakes or candidates into special centres, their taps would dry up. But that won’t happen. I can almost categorically say nothing will change. The special centres will continue to operate and thrive in good health. Why? The Ministry of Education spoke too soon. It deliberately put the cart before the horse. For a policy designed to take off in the 2026/2027 academic session, why are we making this statement now, knowing the FG is going after a mafia?
Yes, it is important to let parents know well ahead of time, but isn’t that the whole point of school administration via Parents-Teachers Associations and similar platforms? Couldn’t this have been done more neatly through the ministries of education in each state? If the Federal Ministry of Education had gone after the miracle centres, hauled their proprietors to court, and arranged speedy arraignments and trials, there would have been a good chance of shutting down the corrupt centres. If principals had been directed to hold PTA meetings to inform parents and students that there would no longer be transfer into SS3, the real stakeholders would have been properly briefed.
Not that I totally agree with the policy in its entirety. What if I am transferred from Oyo State to Akwa Ibom and my daughter is in SS3? Should I leave her behind in Ibadan—with whom?
Anyway, back to the premature announcement angle.
This is not the first time the business of special centres is being threatened, unsuccessfully. Those proprietors know their ways around the ministries of education. By now, they would have held a dozen survival meetings. And they won’t announce their strategies. Only their regulators do that. And so, once again, they will survive and carry on with their miracle business. They know what to do. They have partners in crime that they diligently service. They also almost always get results, which is why they are miracle centres. It is only government agencies that wake an armed, war-tested general first before attempting to disarm him. Who does that? Once again, the Federal Ministry of Education has kicked from the penalty box into the throwing area.
Back to the Alajebanu masquerade who drank and was seen. In later years, the elders began to say without calling names that kingdoms too had their masquerades. Some ruled like spirits, acting quietly, letting results speak, never lifting the mask of power before the crowd. Others, drunk on praise, exposed themselves daily in the marketplace, explaining every move, shouting their strength, drinking palmwine in public to prove they were men and not myths. But the people noticed that the louder a masquerade spoke of power, the faster belief drained from it. For authority, like masqueradehood, survives on restraint. Once the mask is lifted too often, the mystery dies…
My conclusion: there is something beyond politics to be learnt from APC and how it has disarmed the opposition. Do not announce your strategy with a loudspeaker. You cannot kill a tree by removing its leaves; you go for the roots. You cannot go after the special centres by alerting them nine months ahead of the time of trouble. If APC had done that, PDP and LP would have survived the onslaught. If government really wants to do something, it will do it. The civil servants have the knowledge, the experience, and the reach to get things done. I know them. I was once among them.
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