Friday, November 20, 2009              

Between Olumo and Aso: Can culture humanise power?
By Wole Soyinka

THE man whose birthday we are celebrating today held passionate political views which he fearlessly expressed right to the very end of his days - both publicly and privately. He died, like many of us are increasingly certain of doing, politically disillusioned. He began with a firm, uncompromising belief in that aggregation of geographical bits and pieces called Nigeria, an amalgam of autonomous entities of human habitations with their own histories and productive traditions, their tested ethical practices and world-views. He ended with a conviction that all the constituent slabs of real estate would have been better off as they were before the adventurism of Lord Lugard.

It was not so much that Sobo Soweminmo, who happens to be a cousin, stopped believing in the soundness, or viability of the Nigerian enterprise, it was simply that he gradually came to recognise that far too many others, permanently entrenched in the interstices of Power, did not hold the same idea of the nation as he did and, to add insult to injury, that such others deliberately exploited his own passion for, and commitment to the single nation idea to undermine the very basis of his vision. To buttress that claim, let me remind you that, soon after the north-led counter-coup of 1966, Sobo and his colleagues in the public advocacy group, The Committee of Ten, a group of middle-class intellectuals and businessmen, swung their association fully behind the regime of General - then Colonel - Yakubu Gowon.

Their driving motivation was to provide a civic platform in support of the resolve of that regime to keep the nation unified. The Biafran act of secession was a complete anathema to them - that much I can assert, using Sobo as a barometer, since it was with him that Iclosely interacted. Another member of that committee with whom I remained close was Tayo Akpata, a comrade from the early post-independence days of the famous National Strike of 1964, when Ibadan, where I then happened to be a teacher, took over from Lagos as the hotbed of support activism. That act of solidarity with the Union Strike gave birth to the June Committee, briefly mentioned my memoirs IBADAN- The Penkelemess Years.

Sobo was not part of that committee. The Committee of Ten was a different breed, perhaps with only Tayo Akpata as the continuity. Central to that latter group, which was fixated on the vision of the Nigerian project as immutable was Sobo, additionally committed to the place of the Yoruba as a crucial building-block in the creation of an enlightened, unified entity.

Equity, or justice, either in reality or in perception, cannot be discounted as critical factor in human allegiances and that, quite simply, was the explanation for my cousin's change of political trajectory. He felt cheated, exploited, and disrespected. He had become a total convert to the principle of securing the autonomy of that part with which he could thoroughly identify and ensure his peace of mind - his immediate Yoruba constituency - a portion that he also felt was far ahead of, far more sophisticated than its companion constituent pieces, both politically and culturally. That part had become the centre of Sobo's concerns, indeed, of his existence.

It is that sector that has instigated my theme for this address - at least as a launching metaphor. In prosecuting that theme, I must of course lay the foundation for my cooption of the two rocks - Olumo and Aso - chosen as symbolic representations of the provinces of Culture and Politics. Let me hasten to assure you that I do not imply the totality of culture by invoking the former, Olumo Rock, any more than I restrict politics, or the power game, or indeed any particular zone of power by the latter, Aso Rock. It is all a question of relativity.

So kindly indulge me and let Aso Rock stand for power and the politics of power, including their modes of human conduct, while Olumo Rock signify Culture writ large which, Sobo Sowemimo believed, could boast of no worthier protagonist than the Egba, the Yoruba, and the black race, in that order of eligibility. For the purposes of this lecture, I join with him in that totally unapologetic ethnic chauvinism.

Now, culture of course wears many faces, but I can simplify things by singling out the two major aspects that sum up the totality: culture either humanizes or dehumanizes. Many people consider culture as being always on the positive side - that is, humanizes. Alas, this is not always so. Culture can also dehumanize. I would like also that we bear in mind that there is also culture with a small 'c' and with a capital C. Up till now, we have been talking of culture with the capital 'C'. that is, Culture as the synthesis of the various ways in which Man reproduces and enhances his existence - beyond the merely utilitarian. What this means is that, if we began with man's most basic necessity, food, Culture means not merely what you grow and what you eat, but the numerous activities that involve those basics - planting and harvesting - including the rituals and ceremonials that accompany the labour of re-producing one's existence, all the way to consumption habits.

If all you do is quench your thirst when thirsty, there is nothing cultural about it. If however, even before drinking, you splash a little water on the ground or give thanks to unseen forces for the gift of water, you are already in the realm of Culture. If, while at home, you drink from the nearest receptacle, there is nothing cultural about that, but if you belong to a people who have evolved the habit of using a different receptacle for palm wine from that of water, we are definitely getting Cultural. The ornamentation, if any, on your drinking calabash, is also a cultural signifier, so is your insistence that you take a sip of the wine before handing it to your guest, or you first serve your guest.

To move straight from one extreme to the other - from life affirming to life surrender - you always have a choice, indeed, several choices in fact for disposal: you may simply abandon your departed just where they drew their last breath, shove them into the nearest convenient hole, or perhaps even eat them while their flesh is still warm, maybe in the conviction that their life force passes into you and your descendants, and/or in affirmation that Nature hates wastage.

You can also inter the body with the same swiftness like a good moslem, but with all due solemnity and spiritual invocation. Or else hold elaborate ceremonies with which we have become accustomed in these parts - wake-keeping, seventh day outing observance, forty-day general outing with aso ebi and an apala band, then the day for the symbolic turning over of the body etc. etc. All these belong to the province of Cultural choices - capital 'C'.

Now, culture with a small 'c', and for that, I seize the opportunity of moving into the arena of politics, so we can see right away where the two may interface. Two examples: One, let me take your minds back to the Sanni Abacha era. You may recall a certain incident, when a church service was in progress to send off a departed political figure who had led others in determined resistance to the all-conquering Sanni Abacha. I believe it was in Akure. One of Abacha's highly placed associates stormed into the church with soldiers, nearly assaulted the preacher who was delivering a eulogy, snatched the microphone from his hand and proceeded to deliver a tirade against the preacher and all who had assembled to honour the memory of that departed leader.

Now there, you saw the operations of Culture on a dual level - both on the level of a minor 'c' key, and the capital 'C'. In other words, one could say, in general terms, that that General acted in an uncultured manner. You do not, because of your position, snatch the microphone in a place of worship and take over the functions of the officiating priest. Such conduct smacks of a lack of decorum - in plain terms, uncultured behavior. Now, imagine a Yoruba acculturated individual - capital 'C' - who felt obliged to respond to that church assault. He or she might say, 'iwo a l'agba nle ni?'- if the assaulted individual were older than the assailant or - 'e o n'ibi owo nibi ti o ti wa?' The former translates as - have you no elders in your home? The second - have you no places of reverence where you were raised? Both imply that this is a culture where both age and faith are venerated. Another option would be - 'ti won ba ran ni n'se eru, aa fi t'omo je - If we are sent on a slave's errand, we execute it like a free born. All such responses emerge from a recognized Cultural nexus that would be understood in that environment, but on which no value can be placed in other environments, such as a society where places for religious worship are also used as poultry sheds, and elders even assisted into the land of the ancestors with the taunt - isn't it about time you joined your ancestors?

About two years ago, an ex-president, invited to the funeral of a business mogul, similarly marched up to the pulpit following the sermon from the pulpit, appropriated the microphone and proceeded to respond to the preacher's homily in the most aggressive language. Prior to that, right here in Abeokuta, he pulled out a gun in his own church to settle an argument. The late Chief Simeon Adebo was so distraught, so agitated by this event that he sent for me, simply to discuss it. Somehow, that grand old man felt that, as a writer, I had an explanation for all forms of human aberrations. His widow is very much alive, thank goodness - check with her - and other surviving witnesses, if you find it difficult to believe. Such episodes belong to the negative realm of culture - minor 'c' - that is, uncultured or uncouth behaviour, but with claims on the capital 'C' grouping, since there also is something they have been trained to believe constitutes Military Culture - capital 'c' - in reality, no more than a pseudo-Culture. It is far more accurate to speak of a military tradition but, let us grant, for purposes of this exploration, that it does belong to the province of Culture. Thus, even in a democracy, as long as you have an army that has tasted political power, you can be subjected to more than one prevalent culture. My appropriation of these two rocks as representatives of two warring values thus takes its validation from this reality - a negative Culture that relates to Power, and breeds uncultured behaviour, and the other, a positive, Humanizing Culture, a barbarian Culture versus civilizing Culture. That latter is what l have designated the Olumo culture, and the former, the notorious Culture that has infected much of the African continent - insensate Power.

Let us contemplate, for a while longer, this sometimes Janus face of Culture, an often permissive field of activity, easily appropriated, in the most hypocritical fashion, even by enemies of the humanistic conduct. Clinging to the skirts of culture with soiled hands, they stain the vestments of Culture, all the while pretending to pay obeisance to its traditions. How else may one describe the recent peregrinations of a public official who is fast gaining notoriety as an aspirant for a yet unremarked, natural endowment of either of those symbolic rocks - that endowment being - permanence - permanence as a defiance of that famous traditional wisdom expressed as: No Condition is Permanent. One prominent attribute of rocks is that they look as if they cannot be moved. They loom out as permanent extrusions on the landscape, eternal, but - only barring dynamite. The individual under reference probably considers himself the Rock of Ages. What we all know about him however, is that he is the reigning antithesis to a democratic culture who he recently paid a visit to what I have described elsewhere as the Inspirational Shrine of Democratic Culture, this being none other than the home of the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo. I referred to this event in passing during a recent lecture in Lagos but did not really go into details. This is an opportunity to examine the cultural significations entailed in that visit, and its contradictions. The august visitor is reported to have declared:

"My visit to Ikene and the home of Chief Obafemi Awolowo is quite symbolic, because this is one great leader who had shown how things should be done in this country.

Thus spoke Maurice Iwu. He went on to laud Obafemi Awolowo as having laid good foundation for the development of Western Nigeria and the whole country by his contributions to national development, adding "it is now evident that we need to recognise contributions of our heroes past to the development of this country. We need to show respect for our heroes past."

Indeed, can anyone deny that Maurice Iwu acted as a man of Culture in paying a courtesy visiting to the home of a 'great leader'? In keeping with universal Cultural usage, Maurice Iwu also paid homage at Awolowo's grave, where he prayed that his labour for a great Nigeria would not be in vain. How Awolowo's body was responding to this untoward visit, we can only conjecture, but the mind of the living may be forgiven for fastening on the expression of a body turning in its grave.

What we do know for certain, is that Mrs. Dideolu Awolowo matched Iwu culture for culture. She received Maurice Iwu with accustomed Yoruba courtesies, only permitting herself to remark, and I quote: I am so happy you are here. I never thought you could visit Ikenne, not to talk of Awolowo's house," and she directed that Iwu and his entourage be taken on a tour of the house.

Now, I wonder if, like me, you are asking yourself why Mrs. Awolowo thought that Maurice Iwu could not visit Ikenne. Why was that? Could the shrewd Mrs. Awolowo believe that Iwu would be so wrapped up in his duties that he would be unable to afford the time to visit, as befitted a cultured man? Or, could the true interpretation be that she was really saying: "I never thought you would dare show your face here"? Obafemi Awolowo, even in Maurice Iwu's reckoning, was a lifelong quester for a democratic culture, for its unvarnished establishment on earth. Awolowo's home is thus a shrine for true pilgrims committed to that democratic vision. By contrast, what has Maurice Iwu proved himself to be? A chip off the old Aso block, many will agree.

Mrs. Awolowo is a dignified, well-bred lady of a school of courteous dealing that is fast disappearing. Her language was cultured. By contrast, Maurice Iwu was once bold enough to attempt to lecture me that, as an elder, I should be more restrained in my language. The culture of restraint is indeed one that is considered appropriate for an elder. Maurice Iwu has conveniently forgotten however that he also sang the praises of the departed Awolowo as a courageous leader, one who "did not mind the consequence of saying the truth, no matter whose ox is gored." I know an expression for the kind of character who lavishes praise only when the object of approbation is no longer capable of doing that for which he or she has earned such praises - this once however, I shall take Iwu's unsolicited advice, and restrain myself.

On the subject of what constitutes elderly culture however, I have a duty to educate the Chairman of the Electoral Commission. Firstly, I am no believer in the culture of automatic respect for elders. That respect has to be earned, and Maurice Iwu is at liberty to question the conduct of any elder of his choice. There are elders and elders.

There are publicly advertised Elders such as the PDP Elder James Ibori, a twice, possibly thrice convicted felon here and abroad, yet conferred with the tile of Elder of the ruling party of our own Nigerian nation. There are elders such as Mrs. Dideolu Awolowo, a model of Yoruba hospitality and exquisite traditional manners. There are church Elders, among them self-appointed elders of their own parish, like two Elders who diligently served that man of God, General Sanni Abacha, despite being urged by another Elder, the late Chief Michael Ajasin, to quit. Then there are abrasive, contumacious, totally irrational Elders. There are senile elders.

There are elders weighed down with visions of the possible, of wasted, untapped resources, disillusioned Elders from all corners of the nation who constantly ask what has been the meaning of their lives, since they appear to have lived leaving nothing but a hollow bequest to the new generation. There are Elders who have fanned the flames of the Niger Delta inferno, some highly principled , others political and business opportunists. For the latter elders, they are at ease breeding a race of Frankensteins, now indiscriminately unleashed on the Nigerian polity. They exist side by side, inhabiting the same space, as the former, torchbearers of a lofty commitment, self-sacrificing.

There are elders who qualify as the Wasted Generation, and there are Elders who have contributed to the accuracy of that designation, who, even till today, glory in their derailment of the march into the democratic kingdom through the insupportable, cynical electoral mathematics of a 12 2/3rd, the like of which remains unknown to any other part of the world. These are the elders who, like their spring chicken, the sprightly Maurice Iwu, a non-elder, successfully set this nation atop a smouldering powder keg.

Those last are the same elders who, having led this nation up the garden path over the Bakassi Islands all the way to the International Court at the Hague, deluding the government with fancy opinion, and pursuing a fruitless national, jingoistic engagement. Then, having lost, they tried to incite the nation weasel out of our international commitment by encouraging a defiance of the judgment of that court, for no other reason than a continuation of a lucrative brief for their legal chambers - no, do not cite me. Refer to the public testaments of yet another elder, M.D. Yusuf, who was the nation's Principal Security Officer, a member of the inner workings of government at the time. Yes, these are facts in the public domain. Indeed, like the contents of the basket of guinea-fowl eggs between Maiduguri and Lagos, there are well preserved eggs, survival of an arduous journey, and there are rotten eggs.

There is also one Elder, this speaker, who has refused to take his seat among the Council of Ogun State Elders since that designation makes no distinction between the eggs in the basket. So let it be with Elders.

Maurice Iwu should count himself extremely lucky. Language can be both a restraining trap or a liberating tool, and not simply for the user. Maurice Iwu should learn the self-liberating language of remorse and apology, go down on his knees and give thanks that, whatever else I am, I am not a cursing elder. If I chose to emulate Iwu's own Elder, the late Ogbuefi Nnamdi Azikiwe, Zik of Africa, who was then far more of an elder at a time than I lay claims to be even today - despite my white hairs - I would myself have pronounced The Word on him in the manner of that departed nationalist, who invoked all known gods, ancestors and shrines to deliver judgment on a former senate president who had trampled on cultural norms and referred to him as a 'ranting ant'. I leave Maurice Iwu to look back, and determine for himself whether or not Azikiwe's invocation on that individual was answered, and how swiftly, with a prophetic directness that turned many unbelievers into devotees of the listening and interventional powers of the unseen. All options remain open however.

We may yet consider invoking our ancestral intercessors - now reinforced by the revered presences of two democratic titans -Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe - to deliver judgment on those who pervert the route of justice in this nation.

This Elder's position and disgust have been over abundantly endorsed by findings at various levels of the electoral tribunals, and of the nation's judiciary. I also do my homework, and meticulously. It was on the strength of this labour of elderly masochism that I had no hesitation - among other aspects of my volunteer labour of internal and global enlightenment - in testifying before the Congressional hearing of the United States government, a stance that, as it happens, has been further vindicated in a number of states, including Edo, whose electorate celebrated the first anniversary of its vindication only a few days ago. It was Edo State that I selected as my main illustrative example -with detailed figures - of the shenanigans of the electoral commission, predictably earning myself - as usual - a sustained campaign of frenzied, but largely illiterate abuse from the state-run media.

Iwu may also take note of the display of the culture of generosity -indeed, bordering on perverse sanitization - displayed by Adam Oshiomole in his wrapping up speech during those celebrations in Benin, only a few days ago.

This is a good moment however to caution, in general, that there is always some danger in the effort to show magnanimity to an unrepentant adversary. Oshiomole, perhaps fuelled by the euphoria of the occasion, teetered and tumbled into that pitfall, since it led to his following 'Senate President' David Mark in a serious misrepresentation of the position of those who have called for the removal Maurice Iwu from office. Let me use this occasion to state, quite clearly, that the charge of 'trivialising', of a 'lack of holism' or lack of analytical approach in this near universal call for the removal of the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, is a clearly avoidable misrepresentation of the facts. The same voices that call for Iwu's removal are the same voices that demand the urgent implementation of the UWAIS report whose contents have been abundantly subjected to analysis in the media.

To suggest that the anti-Iwu voices have claimed that Iwu's removal is the central issue for electoral reform is a gross distortion, a gratuitous imposition on numerous public pronouncements, both before and during the Benin celebrations. Worse still, it panders to the rehabilitation campaign of the man. I do not wish to cast a shadow on that victory celebration, but the re-branding of a failed public servant should not be undertaken at the expense of those who insist on competence and probity in the performance of such paid officials. Perhaps this subject should be re-visited some other time, and in detail, for purposes of accuracy and instruction. Suffice it for now to quote the concluding part of my Benin address: "If you all make the mistake of contesting the next election under rules to which you, your people and mine have never given assent, you are lost, even before the first vote is cast. Those rules, and the operators of those rules, Maurice Iwu foremost, must be changed."

This nation has been plunged into a political and moral recession that will take years, even decades, perhaps generations to reverse, making a mockery of the best visionary proclamations. A treasonable cabal, located in the ruling party, has undone the hard-earned reprieve, such as it was, that this nation obtained in June 1973, never mind that even that opportunity was wasted. Any nation that forgets or condones the enormity of these crimes against herself deserves to perish. The gangrene that toxic teeth have set on course within the body politic has eaten deep, and moves to destroy the nation, unless such a nation rescues itself by drastic processes of repudiation and excommunication. Elections constitute only one portal, admittedly, but it is fundamental one to the attainment of a democratic kingdom. The gatekeeper of that portal holds a vital key, and as such, must be above reproach.

Aso Rock - let us continue to stress - is not just a static symbol of Power, but is meant to signify an essence that percolates power and governance, affects its agencies and satellites throughout the land, including, alas, here in Ogun state. Traversing our state these days, a visitor cannot but remark a phenomenon that triggers off memory of that phase of Abacha's desperation for self-perpetuation, one that resulted in the sprouting of sycophantic excrescences on the landscape and airways of the most stomach-churning kind, the unbridled praise-singing that seeks to conjure up universal appropriation even from trees, rocks, hills and valleys - extending even to infants! At least, Sanni Abacha had a purpose, however sinister and warped. To what end is the present inundation of such fulsome choruses in Ogun State? Is governance no longer supposed to be by performance and example? Or have we settled for a culture of governance by billboards?

What makes for harmony among peoples is leadership through inclusion, through openness, and through the finest traditions embedded in society. Beyond that, it should be the ambition of every state to enter into a competitive spirit of enlightenment with others and even set standards for democratic governance culture at the centre. Most important of all however, act as worthy models to successors, so that the citizenry can point out their example as the finest in the arts of governance that preceded them, and thus admonish any future untoward conduct of incoming power, challenging all such to raise their standard to the heights that had been scaled by their predecessors. Those heights are not the same as the heights of billboards with hyperbolic claims erected by jobbers and sycophants. Eyes will remain averted from them even where the wind does not topple them or the storm reduce them to tatters.

Culture hardly ever sets out deliberately to humanize Power, since Power breeds its own pseudo-culture. It is not the mission of Culture, which all too often sees it as a hopeless task. Since Culture is hardly ever left to a neutral existence however, it has a choice - either to submit supinely to the culture of Power or else evolve all kinds of strategies to settle for the compromise of simply educating, or enlightening - Power. When that fails, and the consequence is the crude domination and degradation of Culture by Power, the former has no choice but to proceed to an effort to discipline or control Power. I shall proceed right away to an instance where, no matter what we think of cultural observances, their very existence and the awareness they create, contribute to the effectiveness of denting or taming Power, even if this process affects only the minds, the psyche of the aggrieved. Culture remains a warehouse of mechanisms for the reinforcement of a people's will to resistance - and here is an instance:

We all know that in much of Yoruba culture, the body of a woman is held to be a secretive vessel of reverence. When a woman, or a group of women therefore decide to go on the street en masse, with their upper torsos bared, it is a deliberate flouting of a cultural usage, and it spells - Trouble ahead. That is an instance of the Cultural being co-opted, in an adverse mode, for a political agenda. We had an example of that quite recently in Ekiti State. The colonial regime also had a foretaste of it in Aba, in the early forties, I believe. And before Ekiti, a near legendary instance took place right in this ancient town, during the reign of Sanni Abacha. Egba women, seeing that their own son was about to be deprived of the fruits of his political endeavours, rose in the very early hours of one morning, having sent round notices that the populace should stay home. They processed from market to crossroads and other significant spots of Abeokuta to make sacrifices and appeal to the unseen forces of intervention. I did not see them, but I was informed that they wore white, were bare breasted and that they rent the dawn air with ancient chants of spiritual excommunication.

This was not something dreamt up overnight - those rites were exhumed from a traditional bank of cultural resistance modes. Abacha did not immediately collapse and die - I do not believe that such an instant result was expected - but he did quench some time after, and in such circumstances that many who knew about this event became quite passable convertites to the potency of traditional invocations! It goes beyond an act of chauvinism or sentiment therefore that one designates one's own historic landmark, such as Olumo, as - even metaphorically - the critical touchstone for assessing the cultural bearings of others. It is always risky - as earlier demonstrated - to choose one's own landmark, since others would only leap at the slightest contradiction to point out the hollowness of one's designation. Since I prefer not to fall into such an open trap, and yet insist on positing Olumo Rock - that is, its significations - as an instructive contrast to other rocks or landmarks, it can only mean that my designation is as much an act of faith as it is a case of selective history, a challenge to its potential, an attempt to recall those to whom Olumo is home to their finest values, bring them to a recognition of the need to refurbish and re-energize what is now merely symbol but also history - Olumo, we must remember, was a site of resistance. Others, hopefully, will do the same for their own revered spaces of history. The act of those women who stripped themselves naked in Ekiti to protest a perceived injustice is one thing. It is a self-sacrificial act. The same weapon of nudity deployed by Egba women in an even more metaphysical way, invoking unseen ancestral forces to right a wrong, and restore the rightful winner of a people's mandate to power, is yet another of the positive facets of cultural beliefs, practices and attributions. Call it superstitious some will, but the invocation of supernatural forces anywhere in any form, under any religion - Christian, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist - is as grounded in superstitious quicksand as any other. When you order a day or two of national prayers, you are exhibiting identical traits. What concerns us here is motivation - is the purpose for good or evil? For the community, or for ego-centred purposes, such as entrenchment in power positions? Even where it lacks potency, the purpose is of critical essence to the well-being of community.

There is however an even more fact specific justification for the ascribed symbolism of the two rocks. You need not take my word for it ask the former incumbent of that place or, if he chooses to be reticent, ask his first chaplain. Compared to what Aso Rock became under the begoggled general, Sanni Abacha, even Okija qualified to be the most humanized face of cultural practices. The most bestial forms of ritual were performed in Aso Rock precincts, details of which have been suppressed - in my view - to spare the face of the military on which Sanni Abacha brought such depths of shame and degradation, but also, I suspect, owing to pressure from some influential Moslem leaders and traditional rulers who are embarrassed that a supposed Moslem leader could indulge in such superstitious conduct, and of such murderous dimension. Those of you who wish to have a suggestion of what became the norm in Abacha's Aso rockery should consult my play KING BAABU. Allowing for a playwright's admitted liberal utilization of creative licence, I assure you that the overall picture of the ritual routine of Sanni Abacha was what I attempted to re-create in that play. It was based on information that was freely volunteered even while Sanni Abacha was alive, horrendous details of which have been compiled after his death, but remain classified, perhaps permanently suppressed. Some of the top leadership of the ruling party know these details and, I repeat - if Obasanjo himself won't tell, ask his chaplain. It further reinforces my claim that the choice of Aso, as the antithesis of what Olumo Rock represents, goes beyond a symbolic contrast between Power and Culture, it is based on recent history, one that was not spectacularly reversed in spirit, if not in directly in act, by his eight-year successor. You only have to re-visit the extra-judicial killings, outright massacres and yet unsolved political assassinations that took place country-wide during that eight-year succession to understand the justification of that assertion.

From Egba women's culture of resistance a decade and a half ago to our own recent present: how do we describe the nudist parade in political circles that has riveted the nation in a way that has not been encountered since the scandalous revelations of Okija shrine during the Anambra state saga? I must admit here, and apologize publicly to the two or three people who, months before the news broke, had alerted me to allied goings-on in my own town of birth. I was frankly skeptical. True, I followed up their claims with some discreet enquiries of my own, but my informants were linked to zones of political bickering and intrigues of an acrimonious kind in an increasingly fragmented governance. Today however, the facts have been laid bare, uncontested, and one is left to wonder whether our local breed of ritualists imported mentors from the Okija shrine, or some government officials and politicians were seconded to that famous shrine for a crash course in oath administration. The unpalatable fact is that governance appears to have substituted the oath of office for the oath of allegiance.

Lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet comes readily to mind: There is something rotten in the state of Denmark. Are we now compelled to echo the Bard and shout: There is something rotten in the state of Ogun?

Aso Rock has rubbed off on, penetrated and overwhelmed Olumo Rock and really, shouldn't it be the other way round? Ogun State, of which Abeokuta is current flag-bearer, is in truth a nation by itself - one of the most ancient and cultured in the entire nation designated Nigeria. Abuja is an artificial city. In other words, Abuja is a synthetic habitation, a quilt-work of borrowed cultures and characteristics and thus, totally dependent for its cultural humanization from the most tested, most viable values from other constituent nationalities. This is only to be expected. Aso Rock cannot be anything but a city of business and deals, international intrigues conducted through embassies and internal cutthroat politics.