Can Tinubu, our Eddie Kwansa, now come home?

Today’s Gen Z world may not know of “Eddie Kwansa”. It is a famous folk song Owerri, Imo state, donated to the rest of Nigeria. Released shortly after the piercing agony of the Nigerian civil war in 1972 by Dan Orji and his Peacock Band, the song should remind people of my generation of the equally famous NTA soap opera, Village Headmaster. The Orji song became the signature tune of that opera and it runs thus, “Eddie Kwansa oo, bia o, bia o (3ce) Izu ka nma na nneji oo, bia o, bia o…” Translated, the melodious song says, “Come, Eddie Kwansa; It’s good when blood brothers reason together.” Another version translates the lyrics into “Come, Eddie Kwansa, come; quarrels among brothers are best resolved at home.”

The legend behind it makes it an evergreen folk song among Owerri people. The legend, the claim of which has been disputed by those close to the musician who sang it, has it that a handsome young man named John Obikweentertained Owerri people with his guitar before the civil war. Shortly after the war, he and his three brothers discovered that their late father left land for them in Port Harcourt. They then agreed to sell it and share the proceeds equally. Upon the sale of the land, however, Obikwe’s siblings short-changed him, giving him not even a dime. Downcast and frustrated, Obikwe relocated to Ghana where fate smiled on him. He then totally disconnected from his siblings. His successful life story, especially entreaties from his now repented brothers to him to come back home, became the legend strewn into a song by Orji.

I digress. Yoruba’s world of incantations is built round literary devices of alliteration, similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, etc.  When you are assailed from within and without by enemies, necessitating your running helter-skelter for remedy, my people deploy the imagery of the leaf called “àáràgbá” to describe your situation. As an incantation, using the homophone in “gbã” which collocates with and is an alliteration to the name of the “aàárà-gbá” leaf, they sew together the poetic incantation of “ilé ò gbá, ònà ò gbàá níí se ewé àáràgbá”. Translated, that incantation curses that, as the leaf of “àáràgbá” moves hither thither in discomfort, so shall it be for the recipient of the incantation. Buffeted at home by pellets from terrorists, and abroad by the razor-sharp tongue and gruff of Donald Trump, the American global policeman of democracy – apologies to General Sani Abacha – I suspect that political enemies must have cast the spell of a troublous presidency on my Yoruba kinsman in Aso Rock. In this piece, however, I volunteer to be there for my kinsman. It is at times like this that consanguines, whose blood is reputed to be thicker than water, ought to be there for one another.

Now that our kinsman in Aso Rock is being pummeled by artillery fire from everywhere, we hope his travails will enable him to listen to our Eddy Kwansa call on him to let us reason like children of same Oduduwa parent. Didn’t the lines of Eddy Kwansa’s song say it is good when brothers reason together? The truth is, when you think you have fooled the rest of the world, unbeknownst to you, you are the greatest victim of your contrivance. When you luxuriate in such a fool’s paradise, my people have two very powerful sayings for you. In the first, they say you are Amuda’s concubine. She was a jester who gave birth to a child and named him Yésúfù – “Oníyèyé àlè Àmùdá t’ó bímo tó soó ní Yésúfù” Amuda is a colloquial rendering of “Ahmad” which in Arabic translates to a “thankful person,” while Yesufu is a collocation of the name “Ahmad”. The etymology of the phrase and the plot which gave birth to it are unknown. However, the phrase has widespread appreciation and affiliation with self-delusion and hypocrisy.

There is another saying of my people which explains and disdains self-conceitedness. It rests on the pedestal of the earlier saying’s format and, like it, euphemistically expresses bother about self-deception. It is woven round a woman, whose son is named Jimoh and who walks into a mosque on a Friday and, satisfied by its ambience, claims she had arrived the home of her son. Yoruba express this saying as, “Èèyàn ò tan ara rè bíi Ìyá Jímòh t’ó wo Mósálásí t’ó níòhun dé ilé omo òhun.”

Now, this is the link: “Jimoh” is a nativised rendering of the Arabic word, “Jum’ah” or “Mosalasi” (mosque) among Yoruba Muslims. When Iya Jimoh gets so hypocritical and self-delusional as to conflate “Jimoh” the mosque, with “Jimoh,” her son, then her self-deception is perceived to have landed her in cloud-cuckoo-land.

Nigeria’s national pains knew no bounds as terrorists struck the country two weeks ago. It was one of the country’s most nightmarish weeks ever. That week brought into vivid remembrance the British proverb, “it never rains, it pours”, possibly taken from a 1726 satirical article with the title, “It Cannot Rain, But It Pours”. It is a literary description of a cacophony of misfortunes befalling a people. In Eruku, Kwara State, right inside the Christ Apostolic Church, a viral video showed terrorists wielding automatic rifles. Two worshipers were gunned down, and 38 congregants abducted. In a few hours’ interval, 25 students of Government Girls Comprehensive Senior Secondary School (GGCSS) were kidnapped. One of them escaped. On November 21, 315 students of St Mary’s School, Papiri, Niger State, were also abducted by terrorists. Aftermath of the shock, the parents of one of the abductees reportedly slumped and died. That same week, news of the brutal killing of Nigeria’s Brigadier-General, Sani, suffocated the air.  

I pitied my kinsman. In my piece last week, I reckoned that Karma was again shooting its shot. Not to worry. The builder of Lagos had a response. When it comes to ‘effizy,” (showmanship), no one can surpass Lagos people. It is in their gene. The man who would not stop his flight in September, in spite of huge national clamour, but proceeded to Paris, the nestling home of his buddy and business partner, Gilbert Chagoury, for a “10-day working vacation,” stopped his plane from flying to South Africa this time around. Pronto, the minister of defence, Bello Matawalle, was ordered to relocate to Kebbi state. Many wondered what the minister, severally accused of being the godfather of bandits, would do in Kebbi.

But, Allellujah! The work of God is wondrous. It reminds me of the childhood song we sang while growing up: “Come and see, American Wonder!” we chorused. Like an apparition, the 38 abducted parishioners of Eruku walked home, too. Praise the Lord! Before we could say Jack Robinson – pardon this sudden trip into yesteryears – the abductees of Kebbi state also resurfaced, eight days after. Can you not see that God loves Nigeria? Almost immediately, regime data boys could not contain their paroxysm of anxiety. Couldn’t we see that this government is not clueless? Was this feat not what the Muhammadu Buhari government couldn’t achieve?

Governor Idris of Kebbi was the first to burst our bubble. No single naira was paid in ransom, he said. The president too said he was relieved. Glad that the abductees are back home, Nigerians still wanted to know how the Tinubu wonder came about. On his X handle and on a national television interview, Onanuga claimed it was the work of non-kinetics. Whatever that meant! Couldn’t he spare us of bombast? He said the Eruku 38 were released after security agents made direct contact with the kidnappers, maintaining that the government always chooses to avoid direct armed assaults due to the risk to civilians.

The Nigerian senate continued its grovelling pedigree. Senate spokesman, Yemi Adaramodu, said not only didn’t government pay a dime to the abductors, but the “bandits fled when they saw superior power.” It reminds me of that evergreen James Hadley Chase’s counsel that liars must have a good memory. From Onanuga’s statement above, which clearly contradicts Adaramodu’s, you would imagine that the military team on a rescue mission and the bandits were in a ‘paddy-paddy’ detente while negotiating the abductees’ release. How did an expedition that was said to be ‘negotiation’ morph to become Adaramodu’s “superior power”? 

The lead story headline of the Daily Trust newspaper of November 27 – “Released, Rescued or Ransomed?” –  speaks directly to the anxiety and apprehension of Nigerians about the Tinubu wonder rescue. Knowing the Nigerian governments’ predilection for the untruth and this particular government’s obsession with barefaced lies, interest in the mode of the rescue of the abductees went upswing. The queerest of the government’s assertions on the rescue is the claim that, for perpetrators of such a heinous act of terrorism, who killed two in Eruku, a vice principal in Papiri and a guard, there would be no consequences. In the words of government officials who were at the vanguard of the rescue, the government found the bandits’ location, engaged them, and they released their captives. QED.

Not long after news of the release of the Kebbi girls, their abductors released a concerning video where they affirmed that there was indeed negotiation between them and the government. In the video, the gloating abductors said that, in spite of Nigerian fighter jets hovering over the captors, government security agents were helpless until they negotiated with the bandits. Like Amuda’s concubine and the woman who walks into a mosque on a Friday and claims she had arrived at the home of her son, this government and its officials are on a roulette of lies. While they think they have made a fool out of us, little did they know that we watch them live in a fool’s paradise.

All over the world, state negotiation with terrorists is not only seen as anathema, it is a weak alternative. It is also enveloped in dark motives. Most governments that choose to negotiate with terrorists do so in order to find a mediated way out of a conflict. In doing this, they merely postpone an imminent defeat or a detour out of what is called a mutually hurting stalemate.

Negotiation is frowned upon as a means of combating terrorists because, in the long run, it violates states’ domestic and international legitimacy. When a state credited with a monopoly of force goes to terrorists to negotiate, it, by that very fact, loses its regard.

From the other side, negotiations are ego-boosters for terrorists. They often seek it so as to drastically improve their popular standing and legitimacy. In the recent ransomed negotiation with the terrorists in Nigeria, they could be seen doing a video of their victory with the Kebbi girls and flexing their muscles. Negotiations thus legitimise their philosophy, if there is any, and strengthen them. In the words of Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Bart Schuurman, in their ‘The Paradoxes of Negotiating with Terrorist and Insurgent Organisations’ (The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2011), it“elevat(es) their status from violent criminals to potent political activists.” 

Moreover, in insurgency and counterinsurgency, the weaker party is perceived to be the one that engages in negotiation. Didn’t Nigeria show, by the Eruku and Papiri captives’ negotiation, that it was a weaker party to the terrorists? In this vein, governments that negotiate are seen to be negotiating from a position of weakness and run significant risks in battle against insurgents. According to the two scholars above, negotiated settlements are viewed with scepticism. In their words, “(T)hese (negotiations) are often surrenders masquerad(ed) as calculated decisions, and their main effect has been to allow extremists to consolidate their control and push for greater gains.”

Many times, darker motives come with negotiations. Though they appear as non-violent ways of resolving conflicts, in disguise, negotiations could be paradoxes. First, they imbue the terrorists with growing strength and confidence. Second, terrorists may also negotiate with the aim of concealing their ulterior aims of gaining enough time for recovery and preparing for greater onslaughts. Countries like Cyprus, Spain, and Northern Ireland are good illustrations of nations at war which took the route of negotiation with terrorists to their regret. In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers ceaselessly repudiated negotiations and used them as an opportunity to regroup, rearm themselves and as a catalyst for renewed attacks against government forces.

When money is involved in negotiations with terrorists or bandits, it is even worse. The tactlessness of doing this is that it gives more legroom to the bandits. This we could see in the Papiri girls abductors who gloatingly and literally dragged Nigeria’s sovereignty and claim to being a powerful country in the mud in the viral video. Giving bandits money for a detente also affords them access to more resources for the purchase of higher-grade weapons with which to launch the next attacks.

Now, many talks, which have the Bayo Onanuga flavour, have claimed that the military chose negotiation rather than shelling the terrorists for fear of collateral damage. They cite the failures of the US’ Operation Eagle Claw and the Operation Urgent Fury. Why not cite the successful Operation Thunderbolt or Operation Entebbe, a 1976 Israeli counter-terrorist mission in Uganda? Those who argue from the angle of collateral damage fail to reckon with the fact that warfare has gone beyond this. With drones, targets can be taken out without any collateral damage.

While the apparently ransomed rescue of Eruku and Papiri abductees was going on, my kinsman ordered a sweeping nationwide emergency on security. He also ordered massive recruitment in the army and police, as well as a withdrawal of policemen from VIPs. Which are very commendable steps. The presidential order that has had Nigerians clapping ever since is the go-ahead he gave the National Assembly to review extant laws disallowing states from establishing their own police forces. However, shortly after the release of the abductees and after the president ordered a state of emergency on security, bandits again struck a rice farm in Palaita, Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State. They abducted 24 persons, which included pregnant women. In Kano and Kwara states between Monday and Tuesday last week, 20 people were also said to have been abducted by bandits.

Now is the time to urge our own Eddie Kwansa to come home for a truthful discussion. Didn’t a line of that immediate post-Civil War song say it is good when brothers reason together? First, let our Eddie Kwansa draw his pillow close to him and have a heart-to-heart talk with it. When all else fails, the pillow is man’s closest associate. A line of Juju music legend, Ebenezer Obey’s evergreen song of the 1970s, K’á so’wópò, says even if nobody else knows, one’s undies know the whole gamut of one’s closely guarded secrets. Eddie Kwansa’s pillow would tell him things are not looking up at all under him, at least security-wise. He and his “Oníyèyé Àlè Àmùdá” security chiefs have told themselves lies that terrorists shook hands with them and released the hostages without ransom payment. Two persons cannot suffer a mutual colossal loss from a lie; either the person telling the lie or to whom it is being told is richer in the truth of it. 

Let Eddie Kwansa ask for the tape of his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo’s speech at the Plateau State Unity Christmas Carol and Praise Festival held in Jos, Plateau State, on Friday. Thereafter, let him ask for a meeting with Obasanjo. He should ignore data boys and regime fawners saying otherwise. Even if there was a quarrel between Obasanjo and him, quarrels among brothers are best resolved at home, so says the lines of Eddy Kwansa. A breakdown of Obasanjo’s homily is this: Nigeria is burning under the feeble grip of our Lagos brother. Nigerians have the right to ask for assistance from other world leaders if theirs have shown incompetence. He left a capable government that could deal with the Mephistopheles. I agree with Obasanjo absolutely. 

We do not hate our brother, Eddie Kwansa. We will share the glory if he destroys those who want to destroy Nigeria. God bless Eddie.