The real trouble with Magu: Between metaphor and literal translation

BY OCHADA AJOGWU

One of the real tragedies bedevilling modern day Nigerian newspaper columnists, even the ones that are well regarded by discerning readers, is the penchant to often latch onto populist angst and ride the waves of temporary popular idiosyncrasies. This often happens as they relate to interpretations of existential vicissitudes and dislocations, to sustain relevance.

Gone are the days when informed commentary was penned by proper, well grounded columnists, whose rational insights and polemic leanings often resulted in seminal opinions, crafted with the meticulous interrogation, rigorous exploration of the subject matter and delivered in the preferred genre, most enjoyably with satirical flavour, to an eager community of readers, whose nationalistic and universal views were defined by the suggestions and interpretations contained in these essays.

In the last decade or thereabouts however, columnists have become more dependent on the popular mindset of emerging cultures to set the tone and determine the focus of informed commentary. By this unfortunate capitulation, they cede the agenda setting role of the columnist in defining the temper and engagement of national discourse.

It is little wonder therefore that the contextuality of our national psyche has more or less been translated in the excess latitude of social media, the mass hysteria often provoked by the lyrical intoxication of mundane and banal lyrical excursions such as Marlians, as well as the triumphalism of ritual, cum cyber-voodoo induced wealth, the laziness of some present day columnists and social commentators have been drastically exposed in their inability to tackle societal challenges with erudite articulation. Thus, by this glaring failing, continue to undermine the fine art of critical writing in the country.

One of such recent offerings, which sadly reflects this capitulation is the piece entitled: ‘The Real Trouble With Magu’, by Abimbola Adelakun, published in a popular national Newspaper of March 5, 2020, in which the columnist went to great lengths to vilify and castigate the personality, intellect and reputation of the boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over his widely reported comment that the Coronavirus is caused by corruption.

Indeed, Adelakun may have no doubt managed to attract and endear herself to a motely cult of personality following over the years. Although discerning readers may not necessarily place much credence in her 2017 Ph.D in Theatre and Dance, from the University of Texas at Austin for the incontestable fact that top Nigerian Universities are better rated in the obstructions and practice of Theatre and Dance.

Nonetheless, her sojourn in the Mass Communications department at the University of Ibadan redeems her credentials to scholarship and may even be conjectured that she probably has a high level of academic intelligence. But that may have been entirely so if her specific disciplines in Ibadan and Texas had been reversed. Be that as it may, it is only natural to expect that someone whose academic focus majored on theatre and performance, Pentecostalism and Pentecostal culture, indigenous African religions, religious creativity, Yoruba studies and black popular culture, would quickly embrace the theatrics and crusading zealotry of spontaneous national opprobrium against a statement which has been uttered more in the connotative context of a metaphoric innuendo than in the clearly pedestrian denotative interpretation of a columnist with a penciled pedigree.

Indeed, one is a bit flummoxed by the seeming ignorance of a Professor of Communications and Language Arts or is it Theatre and Dance now, to differentiate between when a comment is made in the context of expansive metaphor and innuendo and when it is done as an attempt to exhibit particular or specific knowledge of the subject matter.

Of course there is the little matter of locating Magu’s comment within the ambit of popular imagination by putting it in proper perspective.

Recall that the EFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu first made the Coronavirus and corruption claim in the presence of President Muhammadu Buhari, at the passing out parade of EFCC’s Detective Inspector Course 5 cadets at the Nigerian Defence Academy, (NDA) in Kaduna on Tuesday, February 18, 2020, when he said: “Corruption is the biggest strategy to humankind. Your Excellency, corruption is worse than all the diseases now running about. And I strongly believe, Your Excellency, that even the coronavirus is caused by corruption.

“The EFCC is not satisfied with just prosecuting and jailing the fraudsters, rather the commission has concluded plans to reform them in collaboration with relevant government agencies towards making them better citizens.

“EFCC has zero tolerance for corruption as our mandate is to kill corruption as corruption is worse than all the diseases we have now and I strongly believe coronavirus is caused by corruption.

“Corruption is a huge burden to our nation. It has spread to insecurity, poverty, unemployment, falling standard of education, weak access to affordable health care, falling infrastructure and so many others.

“As part of vigorous pursuit, the commission has created new specialised directorate and section taking into cognisance the changing phase of criminality,”

The national verbal backlash which greeted this isolated comment on Coronavirus and corruption was understandable because global news channels and social media had already saturated the airwaves and inundated Nigerians with the devastating consequences of this new disease that has no cure.

A sneaky translation therefore, would suggest that majority of folks who attacked Magu’s comment were simply reacting instinctively to the larger suggestion that many Nigerians were already gripped in the throes of the pandemic of corruption and Magu was indirectly telling them that they had Coronavirus.

Attempt by the EFCC to properly situate Magu’s comment in its proper interpretative context and his subsequent reaffirmation of his statement, was greeted with the same vitriolic outbursts by Nigerians, who perhaps were subconsciously wishing that the virus will not get here, until it finally did on February 27.

The feeling, as is typically Nigerian, was that Magu, by linking Covid19 to corruption just less than a week earlier and even insisting on his position the day before, must have somehow attracted Covid 19 to the country. And with this mindset gaining traction, especially in social media amongst the mass of gullible information consumers, Ibrahim Magu became the pantomime villain for a nation and some of its informed commentators, gripped in the allusion of a global pandemic mutating into the essence of a generic and willing national host.

Those who know the EFCC boss very well, will quickly confirm that his zero tolerance for corruption is not just passionately unparalleled, but can only be equated perhaps, with that of President Muhammadu Buhari and if indeed there was a stronger word or disease to capture how he regards corruption and intends to do curb it, would not hesitate to use that word or do that which would kill corruption dead, once and for all. It is not news anymore that he has often metaphorically associated every national malaise to corruption.

However, what beggars belief is that a seeming Professor of Literary Arts would so brazenly input literal translation to what is obviously Magu’s figurative references and then proceed with frenzied zeal to embark on a lengthy and oftentimes rambling diatribe of contracted commentary, aimed at diminishing the ebullient stature and serial successes of the anti-corruption champion on the basis of a metaphoric sentence in a very serious discourse.

To be sure, Ibrahim Magu’s excellent credentials, both in rigorous academics and the anti-corruption crusade speak for themselves and are verifiable. Only a cretin would attempt to impugn on his sterling reputation and even proceed to define him as a dingbat in the public space of a newspaper column. This simply reflects the sad depths to which informed commentary has fallen into at the hands of attention seekers, whose existential relevance reconciles in exploiting public angst to undermine heroic national crusaders to satisfy paymasters, with dubious intentions.

It is important to advise Miss Abimbola Adelakun that while life is a stage (metaphorically of course), the real challenges of existence and governance, which can also figuratively be regarded as Theatre and Dance, demand a deeper, more poignant and instructive interpretation than the literal excursion which reveals her poorly disguised intentions to take a deliberate swipe at Ibrahim Magu.

Ajogwu writes from Abuja