Esama and Akarue

The Office of the Oba of Benin has given the Esama
of Benin 1 week to apologize for bad behavior. Apparently
the Esama was "posing" as the Oba. These are the charges.
On the day before I was sworn in to defend the United States
against enemies foreign and domestic, I rendezvoused with
one Chief Esama in Washington DC who seemed to me to be,
quite obviously, the highest ranking Nigerian in the Federal
hierarchy--to the extent that one exists--that I had ever
met. Na bloke o, Oba. Di bob na bloke. Even oyibo dey
look am. So what's this all about?

Apparently, Chief Akarue, the registrar in the Nigerian
Customary Court of the Mid West made some pact with the
federal hierarchy. Chief Akarue was an elder in the Ogboni
as was his brother in Warri, and the two of them towered
for decades over life in those parts. We called them,
in Hollywood (true story), "the Last Egyptian Wizards."

The pact was meant to hold the Nigerian Monarchical family
at ransom, that they would not disrupt the unity of Nigeria--
not become too powerful, per se. For whatever reason, this
has meant mirroring the royal family and using me, a royal
ordained by the witness of nature and in the presence of
credible observers, as a judge. And so every sphere of
Nigeria I attend to I am met with a bipolar distinction,
one related to the Nigerian federal hierarchy, which woos
me incesantly, and one related to the Nigerian Royal family,
with whom I have become friends with many of their children,
having been elevated in status by by natural ordainment.

And so, when I heard that the Oba of Benin was going through
something similar, I had to trace the reason. The reason the
Federal Hierarchy of "Mirror Monarchs", based in National Theater
Eko, targeted the Oba, I suppose, is the Ogbe Hard Court
tennis tournament that I attended with Bata Tomo in Benin
a certain year when Tobi was commissioner. I have told and
retold this story, and even have laughed with the Oba's
office about it--the juju. Till today no one knows how that
mat began dancing, but National Theater takes such things
seriously while others shrug and laugh it off as phony tricks.
However trickish, it was impressive to see a straw bundle begin
dancing, when it was made evident that it was completely inanimate.

So, this battle in Benin is about Eko and the =Royal fam.

And I find myself in the center. On the one hand pressured
to sing "one Nigeria," on the other hand beginning to feel
that if the legitimate Royal Family can demonstrate to me
the highest levels of moral jurisprudence I would probably
be on their side--there's so much corruption at the federal
level that I cannot have my innocence tainted.

The solution, clearly, is the stemming of corruption at federal,
which would not alienate those like me who straddle the sensitive
middle ground between the Nigerian Federal Family and the Nigerian
Royal Family. The Esama's apology will only be meaningful to the
Oba, or even myself, if this bipolarity ceases and the federal
government stops fearing its own children.