The giant of Africa: An allegorical perspective

BY JACOBSON AUGUSTINE

‘’ It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the Saints’’ – Revelation, 19:8. Cosmologically-speaking, all things within the universe – animate and inanimate, tangible and incorporeal, sport some kind of garment which may either be physically worn; or surrealistically manifesting as an aura. The physical garment (clothing), adorned by ‘homo sapiens’, is determined by their choices, culture, tastes and preferences, trends and styles.

And, whereas, the spiritual or the surrealistic garments of all things within Cosmos, are created by one’s habits, vibrations, preoccupations and acts. They constitute a macrocosm of virtues inherent in matter, its atomic contents and paraphernalia. All these sum up to their distinct auras. In that connection, therefore, the aurora borealis is the garment or the aura of planet, Earth.

The universes, continents and nations have their unique auras or garments. This ought not to be confused with the nations’ different flags. However, for space and time, the writer would focus solely on the garment or the aura of the ‘’Giant of Africa’’ within the comity of nations.

To break the ice, ponder on these posers: what, and how bright or grim, is the Giant of Africa’s garment or aura? How befitting is the Giant’s garment vis-a-vis the other nations of the world?

In this piece, besides proffering answers to the above questions, the writer will also dissect the Giant’s long and tortuous journey through the labyrinth, to his laundry. Therefore, the phrase ‘’Giant of Africa’’ would be interchangeably used when referring to, ‘’Nigeria’’ whilst the words ‘’aura’’ and ‘’garment’’ would be synonymously used, in this write up, to mean ‘’an emanation, covering or a veil that envelopes the country Nigeria’’ which, technically speaking, and in the light of metaphor, is her ‘’corruption’’.

Albeit, this evil garment is what citizens have been wearing, either by commission or omission since independence. This veil could be effectuated by the ulterior underpinnings of one’s greed, socialization and conditioning amongst other factors. While others wear it simply as a trending garment, a matter – of –course, others choose to wear the notorious aura because, from the first republic to the ninth Assembly, politicos and bourgeoisie, had unwittingly made it a kind of State policy (for so it seems) hence, its adoption by the bandwagon.

For the first time in our nation’s political history, this garment of sorrow, was so popularised, even with hunched up shoulders, by the ‘man with the diastema’, who was also eponymously named after the great footballer and dribbling-human-machine, the late Diego Maradona (requiescats) . The man with the diastema, during his ‘democratic’ and very ‘popular’ hegemony, epitomised crime and corruption; and It was almost stressed beyond the limit.

‘Maradona’, the Giant’s alter ergo, made the art of ‘’settlement’’, a buzzword then for sleaze, the Giant’s stock-in-trade, while his ‘’boys’’ became the critical harbingers at the forefront of putrescence. And from the first republic to the ninth Assembly, the Giant of Africa sported and continually brandishes corruption as his favourite garment with the mystic orb of disgrace ad noseam.

How could a man whose renown, from the rising to the setting sun, bedecks himself with a single set of garment for nearly 61 years with no change of wardrobe? With an incurable penchant for globetrotting, wherever he goes, he breaks the wind; and the world covers her nostrils, in order to ward off the stench coming from the great Giant. Corruption stinks. Like the hydrogen selenide and its cascading effects cut across the global hemispheres!

This global embarrassment, resulted in the genesis of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2003, sequel to the constant pressure, inter alia, mounted by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) a.k.a Groupe’ d’action Financiere’ (GAFI); for the Giant’s framework configuration in the fight against the canker worm, money laundering.

And, on the heels of this, were international approbriums, raised against him from 2003 to date (though somewhat minimized of late, through conciliatory ratings). He seems to be on his hunches, and has constantly been shopping for seasoned ‘laundry men’ or ‘drycleaners’, who could sanitize his filthy garment of corruption. These were experts in their own right. He found a handful and amongst them, was a laundress –a certain woman in the wash house, purportedly loved by all. Although these experts executed their jobs as expected of them, their tenures were not without some controversies:

It was widely noised in several quarters, that rather than launder the Giant’s battered image and whitewash his putrid cassock, these chief drycleaners were allegedly pilfering recovered loots and laundered instead, his finances and prized assets! Hence, were made to vacate the wash house, so distraught; crestfallen and flummoxed – a corollary of public’s vitriolic lambastes and leftist media pasquinades.

And so, like King Oranmiyan, who left Igodomigoddo (now Benin) as ‘’Ile Ibinu’’ (a land of vexation) so did they, with the warped conclusion that, only the ’core drycleaners’, born and bred within the wash house perhaps, could redeem the Giant.

And, to add salt to a festering wound, the Transparency International, in 2012, had construed the Giant to have lost a colossal sum of over 400 billion US dollars since independence. Most recently too, in 2018, he was rated the 144th amongst 180 countries listed in T.I’s corruption index. And, the Giant of Africa, in so far as financial transparency and general body cleanliness is concerned, was made a mere Lilliputian by countries like Denmark, Singapore, Sweden, New Zealand and even Ghana, which are globally viewed as the least corrupt nations in the world. The great Giant now frolics with the likes of Somalia and C.A.R.

Business as usual, he still cherishes his garment as the next best thing after sliced bread; so much so that citizens now perceive it as spick and span.

Consequently, patriots and aficionados of the Giant such Invectus Obi and Ramon

Olorunwa alias Hushpuppi, became crucial ‘ambassadors’ and attained their socio-economic climax as nouveaux riches and parvenus, in Dubai and the United States

respectively. Alas, this were social media influencers and false models that the youths looked up to; yet these men led a life of the primrose way; boisterous and of a make-believe opulence and grandeur within the social media and the blogospheres.

These folks marketed and advertised the Giant’s trademark and his customized garment so passionately, that they became global iconoclasts, so ‘popular’ to the extent that, they won laurels besides, being graciously cameoed by the paparazzi worldwide. They have carved a niche for themselves and have secured some kind of trophy: (the big boys’ chains or manacles.) And, should Ramon be found guilty of his crime, he would surely join his counterpart in the world’s ‘grand ivory palaces’ of reformation and correction! What manner of rewards, for merely adorning the same garment with the Giant of Africa!

The pulsations from this messy apparel, is most enthralling, fascinating and mesmeric, such that it has captured not just a few admirers. Wearers believe that somehow, the Giant’s garment is magical: it accelerates and elevates the social statuses of men. It is no longer mythical seeing modern wearers undergo metamorphoses in their social classes, tastes and fashion.

For example, unlike Fred Ajudua and Emmanuel Nwude et al, who once literally lived in a makeshift ‘’face-me-I-face-you’’ advance fee fraud shanties of the 80’s, neo wearers of toady, have long relocated from such ghettos to some more fortified mansions or fiefdoms, the veritable laboratories where Genii in ‘’yahoo-yahoo’’ histrionics, develop sophisticated modus operandi, never before imagined, through the Blockchain-Cryptocurrency frauds, so to amass monumental financial wealth, to wit terrorism-financing, kidnapping, drug-trafficking, banditry and the bankrolling of elections.

Most youths would be flabbergasted today, when realizing the truism why the term, ‘’Giant of Africa’’ was not just an incognito. The Giant was so christened not just because of his population endowment; or borne out of delusion of grandeur, but rather, due largely to the invincibility of his currency and economy, which was not experiencing the vicissitudes, through malevolent global economic forces. Youths may be shocked to know also, that there was a time, when the Giant’s currency (the Naira) outrivaled the American Dollar. Yes, it was superior to the Dollar in those days!

Shockingly today, the Giant’s economy and currency wobbles on end. He is now a laughingstock and a byword to all nations, having stumbled from the highest rung of the ladder, to the lowest ebb. His corruption stench oozes from the rising to the setting sun. He who was once a Giant is now an effete Dwarf; he who was once a King, is now a slave; even to some inconsequential fellows. And the aura of the Giant, is of a motley of dark colours, conveying with it, legions of elementals, germs, bacteria and entities. He now lay prostrate, sick and in agony. He was once a man of valour, but now severely incapacitated, as result of his corruption and crimes.

A nation’s search for a perfect ‘chief drycleaner’ then began, and came to a head, when on the 16th day of February, 2021, a certain figure – au courant, and connoisseur of the Law Enforcement, from the fold of the cognoscenti, a man of no mean repute, and one of the pioneer cadet officers of the elite wash house (EFCC),

who is (obviously), a big head on young shoulders, was nominated and subsequently confirmed, without much ado, on the 24th day of February, 2021, as the Executive Chairman and the ‘Chief Drycleaner’ of the Giant’s wash house. In order not to be accused of taking the gilt off the gingerbread, I will state here that this chief drycleaner, is a knight in shining armour who knows his onions and the ropes of dry-cleaning the nation. A lodestone of some sort, he swept the board during his public interview and got the Assembly men and women almost discombobulated as he answered those knotty questions put across to him effortlessly.

And, having knocked the spot off the honourable members of the National

Assembly (technically- speaking), they would have asked him to do the ‘obeisance’ and ‘’take’’ the usual ‘’bow and go’’ but they needed him more, to showcase his knowhow and horizon, commensurate with the arduous task ahead, which he would soon be expected to surmount.

From all fora and foci, ‘’our chairmoo’’ (permit me to use this rustic’s parlance for Chairman), seems to be the answer (and correctly so) to the maiden’s prayer and cannot afford to lose or turn up a crying game.

To this end, it is pertinent to state here categorically, that insufficient tools, modern scientific gadgets and equipment, are the wash house’s albatross. The elite wash house relies solely on the OSINT framework for her Forensic and cyber crimes investigations; hence, there is the need for the procurement of relevant tools to assist investigators and operatives in carrying out their duties more effectively. Such tools include but not limited to the following: EnCase, CAINE, Sleuth Kit, ProDiscoveryForensics, Magnet RAM Capture, Matego/Ciphertrace to mention but a few.

Finally, with this and other things put in place, ceteris paribus, the chief drycleaner is good to go, and sure is bound to succeed for, in the words of Ella Wheeler Wilcox: ‘’there is no chance, no destiny, no fate that can circumvent, hinder or control the firm resolved of a determined soul.’’

Long live the wash house (EFCC)!

Long live the chief drycleaner!

Long live the Giant of Africa!

A new Giant is possible!