Shehu Odudua's Honeymoon

I have come to agree, that Igbo people are not and should not be welcome in Northern Nigeria. This talk suggesting "it is our country" does not take into account the realities of history. A caliphate, the only legitimate one in the world today, sprawls across Northern Nigeria... like an ancient city of clay and fire. Richard Boucher has opinions on Pakistan, should you ask him, but it is also clear that America is not serious about Democracy. After all, what should explain the ressurgence of the Sokoto Caliphate, led by His Eminence, Sa'ad[i] Abubakar?

It is quite simply true that, by democratic means, Sokoto voted itself back into power. The implications of choosing Sharia'a law concern the mechanisms by which one legal system is replaced, wholesale, by another. This is not the time-worn battle betwen Federal and State rights. This is, obviously, the time-worn battle. Jihad. I suspect there is little appetite these days to spread Islam to the Atlantic, as our Father, Dan Ifowodo, would have wanted. Even so, the Sharia brigades, the enforcers of islamic law, demonstrate the President Odudua's legitimacy is... faulty, in the least. I must now, therefore, challenge his authority.

Our Father, Dan Fodio, the very first one, left our lands long, long, long ago to go to the "Big City" after Oba Shango, mesmerized by the intellect of a drunk nine-year old boy, had him sequestered in Oyo for three years. He did make it to what Mekka was then, Gogobiri and Kukawa country, and yes he was the father of Nimrod. They used lodestone heavily in those days and so the clan of Lamurudun held Mekka in suspense, with idolatory of a superlative sort--infiltrating wooden demons with magnetic ones, if only to convince the fools that wooden demons were alive.

By now you know the story. Lamurudun was found out to be a charlatan and he fled with a small entourage and there the story ends. Some will tell you that his family made it back to Oyo, but I have another story to tell.

One day, a stranger arrived at the banks of the big river where the women were washing clothes.
"Greetings dark stranger" the women said in amusement. Never a more sun-beaten man had they seen in their life's journey.
"I will need," the man said, perhaps rudely, "the following ingredients for my supper."

It was their culture to feed strangers, but this rude man did not make things easy. The iyalode was appraised, but told that the man was rude. So, not only did she delay his dinner, but she fed him meager rations. The man, Bala Dan-Ifowodo, was displeased.

That night, he poisoned the water hole and within three days all the people of the village had died. He tossed their bodies, one by one, into the river.

After a three day's journey downstream, Bala Dan Fodio arrived at the next village. There awaiting him was a table forty feet long with every kind of roasted chicken, rice and condiment fit for a king. It is what he was.

I am content that Northern Nigeria has executed its political will. The longer it takes to discuss the implications of this.... secession... the more probable it is that the King Abubakar's Sokoto will be coerced by other Islamists, who do not have the interests of the people of Sokoto at heart, to find a way to hurt Nigerian oil exports to the US if they can do this without concomitantly hurting Sokoto. Is what RIchard Boucher would tell you. I tend to agree.

Me, personally, I am Hausa. From Zaria. I enjoy being from Zaria since it means that there will be a safe haven, in Zaria, on my land, for those whom Sharia in Zaria does not apply to. Alas we hear that even in Sabon Garri it is now dangerous to grab a beer from the watering hole. I shall, like our Father, then poison it...

Insha Allah...

My Cousin Mayowa

"Y'oro", the voice explained, "Y'oro awon iba'ntutu"
"Y'oro Bantu?" I clarified.
"Yes," the voice explained, "Understand to them the poetry of those who lived when it was cold, Y'oro Bantu."

My cousin Mayowa lived in Ikpeja, a sprawling estate across the way from some of the world's finest palmi joints. We never did have a cola together, though I remember him, with his American accent, insisting that whatever truth Plato wrought was less important than non-truth. To hear him tell it, my cousin Mayowa, "peace" was all that mattered. "War" existed only because the peaceful ignored those things that led to peace--like family ties and whatnot. I was less convinced.

"Y'oro" the voice explained, "Y'oro imesi"
"The voice of the Oyo Mesi?" I clarified.
"Yes," the voice explained, "Understand to them the poetry of those who lived when it was cold, Y'oro Bantu."

In those days, in Azania, there were two major Kings. King Lola ruled Northern Azania with an iron fist. Most said she was a lesbian, primarily because soft women do not have iron fists. But how could a lesbian born child? Maybe she was a virgin... of yore. King Lola was known, in many circles, as a stubborn man. She often ate groundnut just before noon, not because this was acceptable by the standards of polite Azans, but because the noise it made--that smacking noise--offended those who did not, too, have groundnut to eat. And King Lola lived to offend. She loved to offend the closed-minded, the evil and the bad. Except for her husband, Queen Awala, who, at the time, ruled Southern Azania... also with an iron fist....

(to be continued)