One of the joys of earning your living doing literature is your degree of familiarity with the surreal. Often, you allow yourself the immodest indulgence of believing that you’ve seen it all, if not in real life, at least in the subliminal universe of the text. When you have laboured through The Decameron; rootled every nook and cranny of Hades with significant authors in the Greek and the Roman traditions; accompanied Don Quixote on his perambulations; traversed Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Macondo; dared the deadly presence, albeit textually, of D.O. Fagunwa’s anjoonu iberu and ojola ibinu; exchanged pleasantries with Amos Tutuola’s Television-Handed Ghostess; and roamed the oneiric world of Ben Okri’s Azaro, you can be forgiven for mistaking yourself for that intrepid hunter in the Yoruba proverb who has ventured so deep into the forest as to be unfazed by fantastic tales of the existence of hunchbacked squirrels (abuke okere). Whereas such creatures exist only in the imagination of his less gifted peers, our adventurous hunter can always gloat about habitual encounters with hunchbacked squirrels during solitary hunting expeditions to parts of the forest no other hunter has ever forded.

If Nigeria is his turf, our hunter losses his precious claims to the privilege of exclusivity. Here, hunchbacked squirrels are no oddity. Every politician in our nation-space keeps a private zoo that is home to such rodents. In the case of Ibrahim Mantu, immediate past Deputy Senate President, member plenipotentiary of Olusegun Obasanjo’s machiavellian kitchen cabinet, and obviously still a PDP Chieftain, the squirrel is not only hunchbacked, it is pregnant and has two heads!

Mantu’s monster-rodent scurried out of its lair in a report published in the March 3, 2008 edition of The Sun newspaper: “We’re all guilty of rigging – Mantu”. The title was no attention-grabber. I almost didn’t read the piece. Routine admissions of electoral criminality by Nigerian politicians have lost the gloss of the extraordinary, that flavour of the unusual that could capture one’s attention. Afterall, in Obasanjo’s Nigeria, politicians strolled casually to Aso Rock to grumble about having been out-rigged by opponents in a collective orgy of rigging. Part of Obasanjo’s job description as an Elder Statesman was to fish out errant politicians who stood afoul of the code of honour among thieves by rigging in manners too brazen, even by the purulent standards of the PDP. When Chris Uba and Chris Ngige took their case of electoral heist to Obasanjo’s throne of judgement, he reminded both men that they were both thieves and told them to resolve things amicably.

I was about clicking on a more serious news item when a statement attributed to Mantu eventually grabbed my attention. Hear him: “As a Nigerian, I am proud of this country even though everybody is ashamed because of this bad image we create for ourselves. We the political class have destroyed the image of the country, even the good ones among us are ashamed to be called Nigerians”. At this point, I decided to subject myself to the agony of reading the entire piece. As I read, I kept shaking and scratching my head like Mobolaji Aluko, the Howard Professor who is permanently shaking and scratching that part of his anatomy as Nigeria assails him with an endless confetti of irrationalities and illogicalities. I have always told friends around here that should the good Professor ever need to visit the nearest Boseley hair restoration clinic in Washington, he should send the bill to the Nigerian government!

But I digress. We still have to deal with Mantu’s hunchbacked squirrel as revealed in this unbelievable phrase: “… even the good ones among us”. The good ones? Among us? Mantu? No, you’re not dreaming. Ibrahim Mantu has undertaken a panoramic sweep of Nigeria’s political landscape and determined that he is one of the “good ones” who, apparently, are immensely embarrassed by the gale of political proxenetism that jokers of his ilk have foisted on Nigeria. Part of the tragedy of that failed state lies in the transience of national memory on the one hand and the sewage proclivities of the space of public discourse on the other hand.

If there is one thing the Nigerian political class has learnt to take to the bank, it is the fugacity of our memory. This explains why it is possible for any half-illiterate oaf to loot the state blind and return to national reckoning a few months later with new chieftaincy titles, new national awards conferred by the federal government and, of course, a new sense of importance as a nebulous “stakeholder” in national affairs. In some cases, the path to socio-political whitewashing and reinsertion can be elaborately and painstakingly schemed as Ibrahim Babangida’s funny efforts since 1993 amply demonstrate. Whatever the tactic, the discredited subject always banks on Nigeria’s legendary short memory and the sewage we mistake for a useful space of public critical interventionism.

How do these two factors account for Ibrahim Mantu’s latest sortie? In counting himself among the “good ones”, our subject must have reassured himself that Nigerians have by now forgotten his ignoble role in Obasanjo’s treasonous third term gamble. He must be cozy in the belief that the allegations of looting and embezzlement that characterized his sojourn in the Senate are now comfortably under the carpet: the N90 million he supposedly “ate” (it is more imaginative to put it in Nigerian English) as rent and furniture allowance; the N22 million he allegedly “ate” as Chairman of the Joint Committee for Constitution Review, JCCR, and so many other unmentionable tales of greed and theft. I have written elsewhere about the infinite capacity of our politicians for creativity and Mantu is no exception. When “eating” in Abuja became too boring, Mantu donned his thinking cap and fashioned out more daring ways of eating. As Amirul Hajj (Leader of delegation) for the 2005 pilgrimage season to Mecca, Mantu was probed – the probe went the way of Nigerian probes - for the disappearance of a hefty bunch of American dollars meant for the business of Allah! Yes, Mantu open sesamed his way into Allah’s domain and stole from Him! In Mecca of all places! The only reason Mantu still has his hands is that the Big Man in Nigeria is above the law, secular or sharia. Had Mantu been an ordinary Nigerian, the sharia enforcers of Northern Nigeria would have waited for him at the airport and chopped off his hands for stealing from Allah.

Our public sphere is a septic tank. Anybody with a mouth can pour filth into it in the name of public discourse as Ibrahim Mantu has so brilliantly demonstrated. Things are made more dramatic in our space of national discourse because the said space is devoid of any sense of the hyperbolic, the paradoxical, and most importantly, the oxymoronic. This explains why Ibrahim Babangida gives routine lectures on democracy and good governance, completely oblivious of the fact that his name and democracy constitute a formidable oxymoron. But this is only part of the story. It gets more interesting. We have a Shehu Shagari World Institute for Leadership and Good Governance. Orji Uzor Kalu, former governor of Abia State, runs a Leadership Series in his newspaper. Even our subject, Ibrahim Mantu, once recruited a hagiographer, Michael Obi, who published a biography, Ibrahim Mantu: Lesson in Tolerance and announced gleefully that proceeds from the book’s launch would be used to set up an Ibrahim Mantu Foundation for Good Governance and Ethics!

The worst decision Sani Abacha made was to die. Had he not made that dumb move, he probably would be in the democracy lecture circuitry in Nigeria today. But don’t count him out just yet. It is infinitely possible for us to wake up tomorrow to the elaborate launching of a Kano-based Sani Abacha Centre for Human Rights and Good Governance with every Governor, every Senator, every Representative, and every soul in Aso Rock in attendance. This is Nigeria. It is possible.

Robot  Villager

# 1 One of the joys of earning your living doing literature is your degree of familiarity with the s...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 04.03.2008 00:23

Ofunwa Villager  Villager

# 2 Pius Adesanmi, wherever you go i will go. I wil simply join any organisation you belong to without question even though i don't know you personally. That is just how magnificient and wonderful you are. To use the famous Obasanjo and his mentor Adedibus' phrase, You are my leader. Posted by Ofunwa Villager| 04.03.2008 05:19

TsuliyanDodo  Villager

# 3 "As Amirul Hajj (Leader of delegation) for the 2005 pilgrimage season to Mecca, Mantu was probed – the probe went the way of Nigerian probes - for the disappearance of a hefty bunch of American dollars meant for the business of Allah! Yes, Mantu open sesamed his way into Allah’s domain and stole from Him! In Mecca of all places! The only reason Mantu still has his hands is that the Big Man in Nigeria is above the law, secular or sharia. Had Mantu been an ordinary Nigerian, the sharia enforcers of Northern Nigeria would have waited for him at the airport and chopped off his hands for stealing from Allah." DURING THE TIME THIS CLOWN SERVED AS "AMIRUL HAJJ", HIS AIDES BROUGHT SACKS OF MILLIONS OF NAIRA TO DUMP IN THE THIEF'S DIAMOND BANK ACCOUNT ON A DAILY BASIS. YES, MY NEIGHBOR WORKS WITH DIAMOND BANK. HE WAS AMAZED THAT MANTU COULD STEAL SO BRAZENLY FROM ALLAH'S BUSINESS! Posted by TsuliyanDodo| 04.03.2008 05:49

10Kobo  Villager

# 4 Forget, stealing from Allah is child's play after-all Allah is quite a distance away but what about stealing from Nigerians, right under our nose! He who does not respect man, cannot respect God: In God's image, man was made :D When OBJ, that illiterate Army bricklayer who stole us blind, can build a University, International Library, not to talk of Refineries dotting the West African coastline, and apparently "god was in constant dialogue with him" throughout this period, l suspect someone out there is suggesting that Baba Iyabo and Baba God are collaborators or co-cospirators! God forbid, tufiakwa. Good piece. 10Kobo Posted by 10Kobo| 04.03.2008 07:18

Oghre  Villager

# 5 Amazing writeup, waow!!! don't see many like this these days. Beautiful and eloquent. The world of Nigeria is what it is, and our mindset helps .... make it flourish Congratulations are in order for this thought-provoking piece of wisdom It is still a typical Nigerian moaning spree with no suggestive solutions thou. Mantu stays as a result more pls. Ben Posted by Oghre| 04.03.2008 08:26

datuouwadaberechi  Villager

# 6 i must say that this article is so needful and wholesome and soooooooooooooooo funny. i cried tears as i read. really well written and spot-on!! great work. and so right!! Posted by datuouwadaberechi| 04.03.2008 17:45

uchebush  Villager

# 7 Thanks for a very great piece. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Well done! Uche Ohia Posted by uchebush| 06.03.2008 10:54

mushu  Villager

# 8 Your articles are just great. Keep 'em coming bro. Posted by mushu| 16.05.2008 14:59