Cowboy Movies

1.

An inglorious after taste

Stale fibres stuck between the molars

Evading the toothpicks of time

It lingers

I regurgitate a childhood

Wasted on cowboy movies

In innocence the sharp shooters were hailed

As bullets pierced through the land owners

Killers on fancy horses

Looking charming in hats

2.

The story line wildly doctored

Bespoke for the aggressor

Nameless red Indians aplenty

They chanted and danced in dust

They kissed their own footprints

While I clapped for the cowboys

We played with plastic horsemen

Silver guns and matching hats

Bang bang at land owners

Wish I knew we were next

3.

Resources are scarce on the planet

And compassion is nowhere

Big guns big victory

Big pens write big history

Grabbed land named Nigeria

Colonised all like Malaria

New rules, new dispensation

That first name must be English

New laws were to come

And a local army was trained

4.

Monkey no born goat

Cowboy born cowboys

International oppressors

Breed local oppressors

Fight breaks out in districts

With guns and bullets from abroad

We import the best machines

To kill one another

Palm oil, crude oil, cow oil

The fight just dey go on

5.

I regret those cowboy pictures

Those gifts in my chewing gum

Erase from my mind the Hollywood,

The bad and the ulgy.

The Acidulent seven

Reincarnated as herdsmen

The cowboys and the red Indians

Were movies, were mirrors

I should never applauded the scenes

Where the land owner gets shot

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

05/07/2019

The Hunt for 6 Pack

Behind every great fortune lies a great crime said French novelist, Honore de Balzac. Well, anything you can do, I can do better (Annie Get Your Gun-Betty Hutton and Howard Keel), and so try this for size- Underneath every great belly lays a great six pack. Babawilly; Nigerian something.
With my ground breaking quotation out of the way, let’s proceed with the real deal Holyfield. Where is my six pack? Who moved it? I wondered for a while till inspiration struck by way of the scripture – seek and ye shall find. Sometimes things declared missing were there all along, so just to be sure my six pack did not emigrate to David Beckham’s abdomen I started my search with a private Ultrasound scan as I would have been too embarrassed to tell my GP what I was searching for. I paid my cash and got my proof. They gave me a print out which showed that my Rectus Abdominis muscle was resting in peace. (Too much peace if you asked me).
Now that I was fully reassured that the muscle was there, my next stop was the gym. I took my belly straight to the gym and demanded an instant meeting with my trainer. I felt detached from my belly and I got that feeling parents get when they march their child to school for a meeting with the teacher asking why exorbitant school fees have not translated into an Albert Einstein level of mathematical abilities.
He looks at me without a word while I lambasted him for his lack of effort and talent. I told him how I paid him good money and was always at the gym on time yet when the Premiership foot games I watch come to an end, I am reminded of my abdominal muscular inadequacies when the players exchange shirts.
“Well Dr Orik… Oriun… is it ok if I just call you Wilson?”
“Call me what you what, just give me a six pack”.
“Well your records of attendance are not bad. One hundred and eighteen gym sessions in 2014. And I understand you do a fair bit of running”.
“I do”.
“You started the 2014 very well. Twelve sessions in January, fifteen in February and fourteen in March. You dropped off to an average of eight sessions a month till August but attended just once in September. What happened then?”
“I cannot remember. Oh, perhaps I was building up my street running towards the half Marathon in October”. Then my brain kicked into gear.
“Oh! How could I forget, we had a baby”.
“Aww. Boy or Girl?”
“Boy. Please don’t distract me. I am looking for my six pack, I need answers”.
“Didn’t you turn 50 last year?”
“I did”.
I shifted nervously in my chair wondering if he was about to tell me I was past my prime. Ageist nonsense! Up-start. Just because he uses steroids he feels he can insult me? (That is my ‘sour grapes’ escape mechanism. Everybody more muscular than me is either on steroids or much younger than me. ‘Wait till you get to my age’ is another good phrase.
“I only wanted to wish you a happy birthday,” he said.
He weighed me and measures the fat on my arms and belly and took notes. I did not like the way he grabbed my abdominal fat and made a silly face when it was his fault that it was there in the first place. If he did his job well my wife would have been cracking palm kernels on my abs. Unfortunately my abdomen doubles up as the baby’s bouncy castle.
“How are you carbs?”
“I eat bread and rice daily. Pounded yam nights are frequent also”.
“I understand you Africans cook with saturated oils”.
“Cook with? We empty the whole bottle of palm oil in the pot. We are Nigerians you know, we love our flavour”.
“Dr Wilson, would you consider cutting out the carbs and your oily soups?”
I laughed a bit then proceeded to search my brain for a parable.
“Have you heard about Fela?”
“Yes, I am a fan,” he said
“Then you would be familiar with this phrase, -No agreement today, no agreement tomorrow”.
We both laughed. The carbs and oil stay.
“Liposuction?”
“No!”
“Ok, talking about Fela, he had a diet similar to yours. How come he had a six pack throughout his life? Well I never met him but the shirtless pictures told a story”.
“I do not know,” I responded. I thought of the tours, the rehearsals, the imprisonment, the arson attack on Kalakuta and the police beatings; enough to keep ones weight down and muscular tone up.
“Perhaps I should take to playing the Saxophone. That could improve my lung function and make me run better,” I replied.
“Do you have the time?”
“No”.
“It looks like the money is on the diet mate”.
I reluctantly agreed.
Nutrition has got to change if I am ever going to see the six pack again. Till then I have my Ultrasound scan picture to look at.

3.02.2015

Babawilly

Wilson Orhiunu

Hindrances to exercise (Ladies edition)

Exercise is linked to everything a woman wants. A relaxed mind, strong bones, toned muscles and good old fashioned nice ‘body shape’.

There is also a lower rate of heart disease and diabetes among those who exercise regularly. Menopausal symptoms are also ameliorated with exercise while anxiety, mild depression and stress are relieved by exercise.  Since women are generally go getters, why have they not all embraced an active lifestyle? Some do and some don’t. Speaking to a few people who don’t, a pertain emerges.

Self- image

With advancing age, depending on the culture where a lady finds herself, she starts to live out a pre-ordained image. After the age of forty some women change their walking style especially if they have children. In Nigeria she loses her name and is called Mama – (insert name of first child). The loss of identity always seems to be followed by a loss of fitness.

Since women are expected to look after the children, who in turn grow up expecting to be looked after for life, a mother’s world becomes one long arduous task of being the care giver to children who never seem to grow up. Some women take up residency in the kitchen in their twenties and are still there in their sixties. When you see yourself as a cook and cleaner that works all day and is on call all night, it is hard to see yourself as an athletic mum.

Standing in the kitchen is hard but it is not exercise. You can grow fat doing very hard things.

Life nowadays is all about CHANGE. Change your self -image and your body soon follows.

Repeat this affirmation after me, ‘I am as fit as Serena Willams’.

He loves me the way I am

Na so! (Yeah right). Moving on…

What will people say?

Someone asked me this question, ‘What will people say if they see a fat woman trudging down the street with all her moving parts flapping in the wind?’

She was a big lady and had told herself that an obese person walking was a better sight to behold than a running obese person. Now who cares what the people think?

My sista, juss tek wrapper tie yuasef like body-magic abeg. (Wear a well fitted sports bra and you would be okay). People will always talk.

Women are more sensitive to comments about their bodies than men. Call a woman a poor woman and the offence taken is small. Call her fat and it is war. Men are the ones who struggle with cruel comments about their financial status. Call a man obese and he is not as bothered. He might even smile as he remembers the juicy food and drinks that created his big belly. I digress.

Stroke and heart attack is not my portion

Sorry but Aunty your portion of eba and oily soups are larger than the prayers and faith you are professing. Large ladies cut their cloth according to their size but forget to adjust their faith to their portion sizes.

Why drink sugary drinks all day and pray against diabetes?

Exercise is hard and requires effort, while eating fried foods come naturally to us all. Discipline is needed and there is no prayer for discipline. You exercise discipline.

Which one is bind and loose the fat in the food again?

By the way Elijah the Prophet; a man of faith,  ran for miles and overtook a chariot.

I don’t like being sweaty in public

Ah! Aunty I saw you at the wedding last week rolling your waist as you were being sprayed Dollars. You were sweating buckets. Excuses, excuses.

I am not a small girl

Ah! Aunty, why state the obvious? We can never confuse you for a small girl!

You are a big girl in every sense of the word. But things can Change. First of all cut your age  (at least in your mind).

Next thing is to join a gym.

Now some ladies belonging to some cultures or Faiths  and would not like to share a gym with men. That is ok. A group of women can also press for a ladies hour in their local gym. Better still why not build a ladies gym. There are so many women societies in Nigeria that troupe in to social functions in matching attires. Their societies should have a fitness and health faction within their organisations. Rolling waist at parties is not exercise unless you can roll for thirty minutes daily vigorously.

Where there are no fit and healthy ladies as public role models then the ladies emulate the fat ‘women of timber and calibre’ who eat large portions and lament the health problems without doing anything about it. Well, if you find no role model, then be the role model. Being fit is not the preserve of the ‘small girls’.

 I have better things to do

Ha! Aunty. Bottled groundnut, Gala and four part Nollywood movies are better than exercise? Ok o.

Why not get the gym manager to put Nollywood in front of your exercise bike and you can cycle while watching the people in the film open the gates (People are always opening gates in Naija films).

I will wait till the fat is plenty and do my Lipo-suction

Dollar is now expensive. It is cheaper to reduce the Eba from that Everest format to the new and improved Zuma Rock format. Daily walks and stretches will add to producing the new you.

It is the children

They are all in University, so you cannot blame the pregnancies for today’s bulging belly.

Being the madam that calls a house help on the phone to come and get you a glass of water is the height of laziness. The madam syndrome is making many to balloon up. They just sit in one spot and send drivers, laundry men and ‘special assistants’ on endless errands. Any surprise that the staff members are all slim and madam is bloated. Next thing madam says the special assistant is trying to snatch her husband. No, it is the husband who cannot lift madam that is trying to snatch the lighter special assistant. Daz all.

Hindrances to exercise - Male Edition

Hindrances to exercise (Male Edition)

Exercise has many proven benefits to the body and soul. The risks of dying from cardiovascular disease are diminished and many diseases are kept at bay by regular exercise. Obesity (yes it is a disease) and its complications such as Diabetes, Heart disease and joint pains can be eradicated with a structured exercise programme.

However, like all ‘universally accepted to be good’ things e.g. making money, dressing well or speaking well for that matter, it is always easier said than done.

During a trip to Nigeria, I noticed that friends, who are mainly over forty years of age, had all sprouted ‘pot bellies’ to go with their receding hair lines. The only fit men I seemed to see were the young students, the street vendors who ran after cars all day and the brick layers who displayed astounding muscular anatomy as they went about their duties bare chested. I was so impressed I considered doing two weeks of brick laying and labouring at a Lagos building site to help me re-acquire my six- pack that went missing twenty five years ago.

But (there is always a but) I could not bear to have calloused hands and feet seeing that people who shake my hands comment about how soft they feel.

All men have excuses on why they do not have the aerobic fitness of street vendors and the beautiful chests and abdomens of labourers. Let us dive in.

I am not a labourer!

Many men especially the educated ones work with their brains usually sitting in a chair and sipping tea with sugar all day long. This lifestyle in which the body does no activity makes excess fuel to be stored in the abdomen.

Everyone looks down on a labourer but the body was built for labour and not for sitting down. A sedentary life style will cause muscles to weaken and bone strength to diminish.

What is the purpose of working hard for money and committing nutritional suicide with the proceeds? Eat well, exercise hard and postpone that befitting burial! We may not all have the opportunity to lift bags of Dangote cement all day long but we can lift weights in the gym after office hours.

Do you know my age?

Well if you do not like the age you have cut it! Men generally, as they get older start to be called daddy by their wives (If they are Nigerian). Nothing slows your muscles down like being called daddy. To hide the bald patch and big stomach, the ever intelligent Nigerian culture has devised ‘fila’ (hat) and ‘agbada’ (voluminous robes) which are better than lipo suction in making a rotund man look fetching. Dressed like a daddy, you get fed like a daddy; five planets of pounded yam and twelve pieces of beef with a bottle of Guinness to wash it down.

Two groups of people have a way to a man’s heart. The cardiologists who go in via the femoral artery during angiograms (investigations of the coronary arteries) and the wives who serve fatty foods that travel through the stomach and ultimately get to the heart where they block the coronary arteries.

Daddy, madam is simply plotting a homicide via Ogbono rich in poly-saturated fatty acids and your only escape from a certain heart attack is to exercise like a farmer who does not own a tractor but just a hoe.

Men gather and start to talk about ‘we need to be careful at our age’. Run from such groups. Watch football matches, see young men running for the ball and affiliate yourself mentally with them. Fifty is the new twenty five

I do not have time

Uncle! Haba! No time for a thirty minute daily work-out? But that your small girl-friend on West street, you see her thrice weekly. (Should I really be writing this?). And then there are the Barcelona FC games and the English Premiership games that consume eight hours of your time weekly. May I remind you ‘Uncle’ that you watch these games drinking beer and pepper soup?

Ironically, you are getting unfit while watching young men get fitter and richer.

Please make the time to benefit your body.

I am too ill to exercise

What people usually mean is that they are too ill to do a particular type of exercise.

The one with knee pains may not be able to run but can swim or lift weights while seated.

No one is asking the dying to exercise for obvious reasons but exercise is actually more important to people who have chronic conditions like Hypertension, Diabetes or a previous stroke. Consult your Doctor before embarking of any exercise program if you have a medical condition

I live in a dangerous area and I cannot go running

That is true for some areas. Some streets have no places for pedestrians to walk on talk less of runners.

I suppose that was why skipping was invented. There are so many exercises that can be done at home and a quick YouTube search will provide you with something that is do able

I cannot share the gym with small boys

Uncle I have already told you to cut your age. You are a small boy!

Some older men are embarrassed to turn up in gyms due to that feeling of intimidation you get when you walk in with your tight T shirt and find out you are the oldest and least fit person in the gym.

Not knowing how to work the equipment can also be embarrassing. I suppose that is why you should have a gym induction. Also go to the gym when it is less busy which gives you time to learn to operate the equipment without every eye gazing at your big fat stomach and tiny legs.

MISSING. FEARED ALIVE

By Dr Wilson Orhiunu

(Babawilly)

Babawill2000@gmail.com

 2009

‘In the abundance of water the fool is thirsty’ said Peter. He said that anytime he heard of a fuel shortage in Nigeria, African’s largest oil exporter. 

‘Look, I didn’t ring you with my precious credit to hear Majek Fashek quotations you hear’ said Mama.

‘Bob Marley Mama’ said Peter.

‘I don’t care. Do you know I have walked into the street for a better reception? This phone cannot pick signals in the house. Now answer me. What are we going to do about Uncle T?’ said Mama.

Peter looked at his watch. Something had told him not to answer the phone. He wished he hadn’t. ‘Have you been to the police?’ he asked.

‘You have been abroad too long my dear. I say people have been burnt to death like Suya forgotten on the grill, totally unrecognisable and you are talking of Majek Fashek  and police. Ehen, before I forget. I heard Uncle T’s small wife has gone to see the lawyer early this morning’ said Mama.

‘Why now?’ asked Peter.

‘Why now he asks. The Will of course’ replied Mama.

‘Mama, we never see dead bodi and she don dey find Will?’ asked Peter.

‘Search me’ said Mama.

‘Mama, I really must go. Surgery starts in 15 minutes’

‘You have operation to do?’

‘No, a clinic session’

‘If na clinic call am clinic. Which one be Surgery again?’

‘Mama, I will call you later. I must go. Love you’ said Peter

‘If you love me, marry and give me grandchildren before I die’ replied Mama.

Peter switched off the phone and resumed his car journey to work.

The first patient was Jim. He smelt of alcohol. Peter recognised stains on his jacket from last month’s consultation.

‘It’s the knee Doctor Makara. Killing me’ said Jim. He pulled up the right trouser leg to reveal what looked like a snakes and ladders board game without the ladders.

‘Those varicose veins look bigger today. You really should have them treated’

‘No Doctor. I will take them to my grave. Can’t have no Surgeon messing with my legs. Not unless she’s a pretty blonde’. He laughed heartily and Peter slowly leant back in his chair to dodge the foul stream of alcoholic breath mixed with last night’s curry. Jim never failed to mention his grave at each consultation. He came almost very month since his wife died two years ago. Peter felt Jim was actually trying to commit suicide using protracted means. The frequent visits to the psychiatrist had changed nothing.

In the end they settled on pain -killers for the knee and a pair of compression stockings for the leg veins. By now the room stank. Jim taking off his shoes always had that effect on any room.

At the door Jim reached for the knob smiled and pulled it open. His face lit up. ‘Dr Mukaro, why do your country men not use petrol stations like everyone else?’. He winked as he spoke.

‘The same reason you don’t use soap’ thought Peter.

‘You heard then?’ Peter spoke out loud.

‘Some one turned the channel over to CNN last night at the pub’. ‘Didn’t touch a drop though. Of alcohol I mean’.

‘Oil pipeline vandalization they call it’ said Peter

‘I can understand stealing petrol but why smoke cigarettes at the scene?’

Peter knew where he was going. ‘What do you expect from dumb Africans?’ said Peter.

‘I didn’t mean it that way’ said Jim apologetically.

‘Only pulling your leg. Just don’t drink any Cider with those Co-codamol tablets’.

‘No problem. I will wash them down with Whiskey. See you’ joked Jim before finally leaving.

Peter rushed to open the windows and propped the door open with a chair. He didn’t so much as mind the smell as he did the next patient thinking the aroma was all down to him.

Jim always had something to say. Last month he had gone on about an e –mail from Nigeria he had received. His bank account was soon to be graced with two million Dollars, that is if he helped off set some administrative charges with a tidy sum of twenty thousand Dollars.

‘I am not a financial adviser’ was Peter’s reply to Jim. They got on well however.

Next in the black chair was Tom looking very happy with himself.

‘She loves me’ he announced.

‘I see’

‘Oh yes. I have got love off the NHS. Could you now prescribe me some money?’

‘The National Health Service is strapped for cash as it is. What do you need money for anyway?’

‘We are doing what lovers do. Going out every night. All down to the pipes being open again. I think the inventor of Viagra should be knighted’ said Tom.

Pipes. That word triggered thoughts in Peter’s head. Pipelines, arteries and veins. Conveying goodies from one point to another. Then they leak or maybe get blocked. Bang!

Tom left with his repeat prescription waving in his left hand.

‘Thanks Dr Mokori’ said Tom. Peter had long since given up on correcting his name. There were so many versions.

The morning Surgery continued uneventfully till the last patient. Fiona. She walked in with a face like thunder and sat down heavily. The last patient had scabies. He imagined them climbing into Fiona’s clothes. He hated that black chair. He once suggested that all patients stood during consultations to reduce cross infections. All his partners thought the idea was a good joke.

‘Are you trying to kill me or what?’ asked Fiona.

‘Fiona, what are you talking about?’

‘You have turned Tom into a brute. I have not slept in ages. I demand you stop poisoning him right away’

‘Ah. Does he know how you feel?’

‘No’.

‘Then I suggest you discuss this with him. Patient confidentially exists and I cannot go into his medical treatment with you’ Peter said picking his words slowly.

Fiona walked out looking dissatisfied.

The practice nurse put her head through the door.

‘Sign this script please. Fiona complained to me in the corridor. Something about the Viagra you gave to her husband’

‘People are dying all over the world and she worries about four little pills’ Peter remonstrated.

The mail was brought in along with some little tasks needing to be done that morning. Among them was a request for time off work for Mrs Richmond. A post-it attached to her notes read –2 weeks for bereavement please. ‘So Mr Richmond has finally died’ thought Peter. He remembered what his grand father always said when he got to the obituary pages of his Daily Times; where there is life there is death.

Three home visits later he decided to ring his mother. He dialled the pin number on his international calling card and was told by a distant voice that he had 4 minutes remaining.

‘Mum, how are things?’

‘The family is getting hysterical. Your Uncle T is dead. When are you coming home?’

‘How do you know?’ asked Peter

‘You better come home o! You know your father has died and left me with all this trouble. Now his younger brother has decided to go’. He could hear his mum crying.

‘Mama calm down. Have you seen a body?’ asked Peter

‘No. But many have confirmed they saw him scooping fuel from the vandalised pipelines. Hold on’

Peter fixed his eyes on his watch. Two minutes later his mum spoke.

‘I had to leave there. You know his wife. She has already been to the life insurance people o! Uncle T’s life was insured for 20 million Naira. All going to her. A friend rang to tell me she was smiling when she walked out of the place. Now she is in the house rolling on floor and shedding crocodile tears.’

‘And what of the Will’

‘All  the houses to her. She has really hit Bonanza. We are due to set out for the hospitals and mortuaries now’

‘Alright mama. We will talk later’.

‘Is that all you will say? I thought you were close to your Uncle. Has your heart grown cold?’

‘Mama, I cannot start crying at work now. Remember, no body has been found’.

Peter struggled to shake the image off his mind. Petrol haemorrhaging from pipes which had been forcibly violated. It had happened so many times before. In search of quick profit they go in the early hours with tankers and steal.

‘No burglar repairs the broken window on his way out’. Those were the exact words used by Tony in defence of the oil pipeline vampires. It was two years ago and that statement left an indelible mark in Peter’s memory. At the time Tony made no secret of his second job in the illegal fuel business. Tony called it the redistribution of wealth. Tony White was an old class mate who suddenly became a ‘Lagos Big boy’ due to his frequent business trips to the Niger Delta.

‘A hungry man cannot sit and starve. He will do what must be done. By whatever means. Those pipelines have run through the communities for years without any problems. Why now? Hunger is the answer. Not greed. Not the devil despite the 666 kilometres of crude oil pipelines. Not lawlessness. It is pure hunger’ said Tony.

Tony was in fine form that day. His wife was celebrating her forty second birthday with a lavish party at their Lekki ‘high brow’ residence. Wine glass in one hand and a cigar in the other Tony went around boasting. He did not spare Peter who was then on a two week holiday in Lagos.

‘Peter, when will you come home and help build the nation? Are you not tired of that your fish and chips existence?’

Peter had mumbled something and walked off. Tony was shot dead four months later. A deal had gone wrong.

Back at home that night he rang his mum for an update. This time he was fully armed with a new international calling card promising fifty minutes of talk time.

‘What your mother has seen today eh!’ she exclaimed.

‘Mama calm down’

‘I went from mortuary to mortuary. Hospital to hospital’ Mama lamented.

‘Doh Mama’

‘In the end, that Uncle T’s wife choose a burnt out skull as her husband. I almost slapped her. She is so desperate for a body’

‘Mama, are you not being a bit harsh?’

‘Peter, call back in 20 minutes. Our Pastor just walked in’

As soon as she hung up Peter dialled a familiar number.

‘Uncle T. Been trying you all day’

‘Accra sweet o. My phone has been off’

‘Big trouble! Lagos is hot’

‘What this time?’

‘Explosion at the leaking pipeline near your house’

‘I was there. Na God save me. A narrow escape.  Not had the TV on since I arrived here with this babe’

‘Na woman go kill you o. Where is your car?’

‘After I scooped fuel, I dropped it for servicing and went straight to the airport with Uche’ replied Uncle T.

‘Your wife thinks you died in the explosion’

‘But I told her I was coming to Accra for a course. Leaking brain. Na so dem be for their family. Hope you didn’t tell them anything’. There was a bit of apprehension in Uncle T’s voice.

‘You owe me. But tell me, a big shot like you scooping fuel. Why?’

‘Fuel scarcity my brother. I couldn’t resist free fuel’

‘Please ring home and let the crying stop’ replied Peter.

 After the call Peter sat staring into space for a few minutes then sighed heavily.

‘In the abundance of water the fool is thirsty’ he said out loud. He sat staring for a while before the thought hit him. There are no thirsty fools there.  Just victims; victims of circumstance.

                                                           THE END

 

Kola Nut Love

Image from DoveMed.Com

She is blessed

By the ancestors

Two big Kola Nuts

On her chest

They speak to me

We bring Kola

We bring life

She cuts away my sadness

With a tongue like a knife

Two gifts so smooth that move

With each dainty step towards me

She sits on two sacred Kola Nuts

Soft cushions for my hands

This Kola keeps me alert

Chased the sleep like a masquerade

I nibble when it is full moon

I savour the taste in the light breeze

She brought Kola, She brought life

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

12/02/19

Skido for Governor

Skido had done well for himself. He was the biggest importer of electric cables, Solar panels and electric generators. He gained national notoriety last year when he offered the Federal Government of Nigeria £3 Billion to buy the Kainji Dam. The back lash was immense.  Some said his ‘few coins’ had gotten into his head, while others asked why he didn’t kuku buy the River Niger and all the fish and mammi waters resident in it?

Skido had always run away from elective office, but the death of his beloved niece changed him. She had travelled a few miles away to a basketball match and developed an Asthma attack while playing. He had visited the local clinic she was rushed to after she took ill and was moved to donate medical equipment to them after her funeral. Six months later he found out that the equipment was not being used because the elections were due in eighteen months and some ‘powers’ felt the donation was an indictment against the ruling party of the State. Skido was livid and took the Governor, the Chief of the Health Board and the Commissioner for health to Court. It was a case that dragged on like a fathom pregnancy. By the time the Judge instructed the health establishment to use the equipment, it had been vandalised by ‘unknown elements’.

Skido went into a depression, for he had hoped that by donating equipment to the hospital some lives could be saved that would help him cope better with the loss of his niece. She was the one who always cried whenever he was about to leave after his visits to his younger brother’s residence. It started when she was six months old and everyone joked she was his daughter. By the time she was four years of age she was asking to move to Uncle Skido’s house.

All the evil from hades was unleashed when a laboratory technician visited Skido unannounced to show him the results of a paternity test his younger brother Jim had come in for. Jim had been drinking on the day and told the staff that he suspected his brother was the father of the child. It took the intervention of some elders to quell the rift in the family and Skido stopped visiting his brother. By the time his niece was eight and had developed Asthma, Skido changed his mind and took responsibility for her care and she moved to his mansion. He even had a clinic built for her in one of the rooms as she had really bad chest infections and Asthma attacks during the Harmattan season.

Skido had a War Room where the strategic meetings were held. His Chief campaign officer was an experienced Mr Fix it and had given his personal guarantee that the State will fall into Skido’s hands. The budget was N9 Billion, an astronomical amount but this was a mandate for hire exercise and the politics was essentially a bidding war against the opposition. There was a problem in the camp however. The party chairman had agreed for a British journalist to do a documentary about a gubernatorial candidate. All the incumbents and contestants in other states refused (and paid to be exempted) and it fell to Skido. The word on the streets was that the National Party Chairman was partly committed to Nigeria and partly committed to Britain but fully committed to his pocket.

Mono-mono, (Yoruba word for lightning, was the name they all called the Chief Campaign Officer on account of his devastatingly speedy response to problems) had the journalist was in his pocket after six hours in town. Hospitality was organised to which the visitor availed himself. The next morning, lightning struck.

 ‘It seems you had a good night’ said Mono mono. He slid his I pad across the polished table and said ‘press play’.

‘You filmed me?!’ said the journalist with his head in his hands.  His wedding band reflected a ray of light that came in through a gap in the window.

Mono-mono had many principles and one of them was if you can’t bribe them, have something on them.

The whole team wondered why this journalist subsequently had all his questioned answered but nobody spoke up. They trusted their chief.

The party gubernatorial nomination conference was coming up soon and the meetings were getting longer and more heated. The journalist couldn’t keep up and had so many questions.

‘The incumbent Governor is incompetent and has failed woefully. Why do you need to campaign at all?’ he asked. He got made in Nigeria stares from all the faces which asked without uttering a word, ‘Is that a question?’

 The sitting governor belonged to the main opposition party in the state and Skido knew his work was cut out. It is never easy uprooting an iroko tree that had sent out roots to every palace, shrine, church, mosque and local government chairman in the State.

They all laughed at the Britico journalist.

‘Skido has so many policies, and I have told him to forget them. The people don’t want words. They want cash. They all turn a blind eye to the amount of money you spend on the campaign trail. They expect you to recoup your investment when you get into State House’

‘They expect you to be corrupt?’ asked the journalist.

‘Well, you tell me. If they see us spending Billions and they don’t complain about it, then their silence speaks volumes. We delivered twelve new cars to various traditional rulers in the State yesterday. These are in communities where the schools need refurbishing. We pay, we get in. It is a bit like flying first class. You pay, and you eat well during the flight’.

‘This doesn’t sound right. I mean you are all meant to be public servants’.

Mono mono’s legendary temper stormed into the room.

‘Look, don’t go there! Do you know the public servants from England in my village behaved like royalty? My grandfather told me before his death how your people came in as colonial officers to work for Queen and Country but soon decided that reigning was what they preferred to do. The natives carried them when they didn’t feel like walking. The colonial masters served no one. A Master can only be looked after by servants. For years my people looked up to the Masters with the hungry eyes of aspiration. Guess what happened in 1960. There have been no public servants since independence. The people serve the leaders who think of themselves as either deities or royalty. Well Skido is different but my job is to win him the election. When he gets in he is on his own’.

The War room meetings went on. Publicity committee wanted more radio jingles in the late evenings because the afternoon ones were making no impact. The finance committee (otherwise called the Kolanut brigade for they spread sweet Kola nuts to the electorate) had been told that certain ‘stakeholders’ were asking for more money because the incumbent governor had just embarked on a new spending spree.

Skido sailed through his party nomination as favourable winds blew into his sails. The winds came at a price. He had to pay (compensate) all the delegates from the different wards in the state for taking out time to come in to vote for him. The voting progress was universally known to be tedious and the distance from the delegate’s seat to the ballot box needed some form of sweetening; Dollars were the enhancing sugars.

The next meeting was in the War Room exciting. Now that Skido had secured the party nomination, the real gubernatorial race was now on. This was the great State with the world’s highest paid political appointees and the world’s poorest paid workers. There was irony on every turn and in every meeting room.

‘How do people make up their minds who they support? I have been here for two months filming and still don’t know’ asked the British Journalist.

The war room erupted in laughter. ‘Do you support a football team in the UK?’ asked Mono mono

‘Yes; Exeter City’ answered the journalist tentatively. He knew there was a catch in there somewhere.

‘Would they win the Champion’s League?’

‘No, they are in the League Two. They would probably never gain promotion to the Premiership, so the Champion’s League is not even possible’

‘So why do you support a team that cannot be described as ‘Winners?’

‘My father supported them, it is a family tradition’

‘Ha! Idealism. Principles and family values. You see, our people just want a winner. They only support one who is likely to win. No principles, no values, just winning. It is all one big reality TV contest. That is why I tell Skido to change clothes and cars frequently and keep his policies and ideologies to himself’.

There is no hope, and the people want a distraction. That is why Tony my distant relative in the village supports Barcelona FC. They look like winners and he is desperate to be associated with victory’ said Mono -mono and he returned to his pile of papers signalling with his left hand for the meeting to re commence.

Talk soon drifted to one of the young hot heads in the New Democratic Party who had been causing quite a stir. Everyone knew he would never win but his speeches were compelling. He heaped scorn on ‘the old guard’ at any given opportunity.

‘Donate N50 Million to his campaign this evening’ instructed Mono-mono.

‘But why fund your opposition?’ asked the British Journalist.

‘That is politics my dear man. He attracts the young ones, many of whom don’t have voter’s cards. My main concern is that he may unleash that tongue of his on Skido.’

Skido never spoke in most meetings. He sat there like one who had been dragged in at gun point. He hated meetings.

Mono mono continued, ‘this radical from the NDP is the only one raising funds from the public. The general perception is that he is honest and broke. He will get a few votes and who knows, Skido might make him a commissioner or a special assistant. He would be an asset’.

Soon the signal was made for all to vacate the room except the chosen few. The retired Army General was on his way to give ‘security advice’. Skido felt they had too much ammunition as it is, but Mono mono and the General were pushing for the procurement of more guns. This election was not just a cash for mandate exercise; it was war.