A long time ago, when the harmattan still remembered how to bite, a thunderous blinding lightning and thunder flashed across the sky. It was followed by chilling bellow. Who could that be or were the ancestors descending on an angry ladder. It was the voice of Trump the Thunderer, the one whose voice could not be ignored whether you love it or not. Trump the Thunderer was the ruler of faraway golden empire called Merikaland. Holding a huge trumpet, he stood on his shining hill and shouted:
“It is finally judgement day and I shall send fire to destroy all the terrorists in Nigeria!”
The echo of his words crossed farmlands, seas and deserts until it reached the ears of king and people of Naijaland, a place where everyone carried a radio in their tongue and a drum in their arms. There was always something going on, something to be told and retold.
The Gathering at the Village Square
The people quickly gathered at the village square. The men abandoned their pepper soup bowls and concubines. The women dropped their baskets of plantain, wrapped and re-wrapped their wrappers. Children and young adults left their chores and games. They all gathered under the old mango tree where arguments grew faster than fruits.
The Elder of the Talking Stick asked.
Soon, the talking stick arrived with the leaders of the market square. In Naijaland, the talking stick was a sign that it was time for serious talk time. Not that all the talks were serious all of the time, though.
“Did you hear the Oyinbo giant? He says he will kill our terrorists.”
Immediately, the market square divided like oil and water.
The first group, the Thunder worshippers, shouted,
“Let him come! Our leaders fear only white thunder. Maybe this foreign fire will cleanse the land!”
“Since our leaders are behaving like all is well, let the white warriors come and bail us out.”
“The Thunder has bigger guns and he will not look at anybody’s face.”
The second group, the Countrymen, retorted,
“Is our country his backyard? Even a stranger must knock before entering a compound! Today it’s terrorists, tomorrow it may be us!”
Then came the third group — the A-don-care, who love the taste of every soup. They nodded to both sides and said, “We only want peace, whether it comes from heaven or Washington.”
“If after the thunder and lightning, there is rain, what is wrong with the arrangement?”
Then came the Spirit of the Land.
That night, as lightning danced across the sky, the Spirit of the Baobab rose from its roots and sighed:
“Ah, children of Naija, you quarrel over every thunder, but forget that the rain falls on both the just and the unjust. Did you not once cheer when outsiders armed your soldiers? Did you not also weep when the same guns turned on your villages? The fire that promises to burn your enemies may not stop at your neighbour’s fence. Indeed, the fire will become a fiery furnace and engulf the village. Or hasn’t anyone told you that fire, does not respect even the one that kindled it?”
The Morning After
By dawn, the people were still arguing — on radios, in buses, in WhatsApp groups, even in dreams.
The Thunderers still shouted “Let the fire fall!”
The Countrymen still cried “No foreign flames!”
And the a-don-care fellows still sipped tea and said, “We are watching.”
But the Spirit of the Baobab chuckled softly and whispered to the wind:
“A nation that quarrels over every thunder will one day forget to repair its leaking roof.”
May the rain fall — not from Thunderer’s heaven, but from Naija’s own sky to drench everyone equally. It is the only rain that will not sweep away both the good and the bad.
Moral of the story?
When strangers quarrel about your home, you must first ask yourself who left the door open.
It is okay to speak English, test our rich diction against President Trump’s warning. It is our thing. Once a problem pops up, we dive for our book of rhetorics.
How dare Trump?
This is a sovereign nation, as sovereign as the United States of America.
Trump has no right to threaten Nigeria.
The National Assembly and the Presidency must respond promptly in strongly-worded statement.
All of that have been followed by copious references to the Nigerian constitution, United Nation treaties and agreements and other self-righteous grandstanding. I guess all of them are part of the fight or diplomacy banters. But noise of any kind, whether by motor park conductors calling passengers or the ones by politicians claiming they have been insulted or disrespected, can or will not make a dent when there is real trouble. And Trump and his warning of war is a real and present danger. We can deny it all we want, even assure ourselves that ‘nothing will happen’, we know deep down in our mind that an American warning is different from a Donald Trump warning. One can be reasoned with, the other cannot.
*Egbemode ([email protected])
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