2019: May Our Mouths Not Kill Us

There is nothing government cannot do. You saw what Saudi Arabia did to that journalist who didn’t pray enough for his mouth and words not to kill him? Jamal Khashoggi walked into a government building in Turkey at 1pm and vanished, never to be seen again. Only governments do that.

That is why I am worried for trouble seekers in Nigeria who don’t know that the mouth saves, and that the mouth kills. The system is worried that we now ask questions and say everything like Iwofa Alaba who saw a talking skeleton on a kolanut tree and didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.This 2019 politics is an election of skeletons and cupboards. The gloves are off on all sides. Railing mouths have started competing with reviling fingers, and the government is warning the unbridled. These are seasons of bad, bitter truth and of fake news pursuing power downhill and uphill. Dove is chanting incantations and Pigeon is not keeping quiet. Doves tug at Pigeons as fake and genuine scandals and would-be scandals rock the polity left and right. And these are loquacious times. There is nothing too big for us to ignore again. Some audacious people are even demanding our president’s school certificate and making other subversive comments. There has been no coherent response from those who should talk. They may not respond; they will act. I am sorry for those asking irreverent questions. They will soon be sorry for themselves.

Our National Security Adviser has warned all of us to mind what we say or write; including what we post and share. He said last Thursday at a press conference that the land is dangerously strewn with rogue drones and illicit broadcast equipment and lies and hate messages sent viral. After hearing him and his promise to tackle the menace, I looked at my troublesome iPad and smartphones and asked if it would not be wisdom to flush them down the cesspit of ignorance. What do drones and broadcast stations do that smartphones do not do or cannot do? If drones are problem bringers, iphones would be spring heads of trouble. Why not just run away from them, embrace ignorance and be safe? Why not go back to that age of no phones, no calls, no internet and no trouble? I reflected on what we do on WhatsApp and Facebook; Twitter and Instagram and I felt like saying maybe the title of this monologue prayer should really be ‘May our fingers not kill us.’

Our NSA was worried that Nigerians use the social media to heighten tension and spew hatred in the country. It was his duty to identify threats and spike them whenever they raise their ugly heads. But then, how safe are we in the hands of a government that selects definitions for universal concepts? The NSA recognized our rights to our freedoms but warned that deliberate acts of subversion of peace would be firmly punished. You know the number of heinous crimes social media persons commit every minute poking their fingers into gadgets of subversion. Technology has made many of us to speak with our fingers very often and we have become very uncontrollably irritating and subversive even to ourselves. So, how do you escape the wrath of the law if your fingers are itchy and they are your masters in this age of truthful lies and unsure truths? The dutiful NSA has a suggestion: interrogate news and information before broadcasting or sharing with others. More importantly, he said, consider if the information you are about to share is factual, logical, promotes national interest and engenders peaceful coexistence.

I have many friends who wake up 4am daily, hop into the train of WhatsApp and start sharing bad ‘news’ to a nation that enjoys sleeping at dawn. I have warned them. I have told them to drop that question in their lips about who went to school and finished schooling and who did not. I have asked them to stop wondering aloud on who determines what is factual and logical and about what constitutes ‘national interest.’ I have told them to know that there cannot be two drivers in a driver’s seat. I have said that power is so powerful that it is the sole possessor of the dictionary of life and its meanings. The one who has power, I told them, has the knife and the yam and has the facts on all issues.

Truth is what power approves; and logic is what frames power and its potentialities. In the fast receding values of our fathers, the one who lived life in peace was that person who bridled his mouth. I pray daily for the ones with verbal incontinence — the ones who can’t see and keep quiet. I tell them: May your mouth not kill you.

IToday, technology is making us speak almost only with our fingers – they are the unsleeping mouths prompting us to say everything about everything — and about everyone. Shit-posters are on the loose as a counterforce to government’s thriving shit business. The government lies with impunity; the opposition lies as a matter of duty. Both sides and all who side with them have no inhibition in saying whatever serves their politics — no matter how hideous. Our elders remind us that the one whose mouth has no brake would die the death of Iwofa Alaba. That restless fellow was Alaba’s Iwofa (pawn) who never took heed of any counsel even when offered freely. He was that person who found Akuuju (Skeleton) perching on a precarious tree branch and loudly sent it greetings. What sort of man would not allow the dead sleep in peace even if it is on a tree branch in broad daylight? And Iwofa Alaba got more than he asked for. Skeleton answered him with an exclamation and an ominous warning: “IwofaAlaba! Mind your business or your mouth will kill you.”

But IwofaAlaba wouldn’t stop. He was surprised that the dead could talk even without flesh, blood and life. “Ah, you answered me,” he shouted. “Eemo wo’lu! It won’t be my ears alone that would hear these. The king and the whole town must also hear.” Iwofa Alaba ran to the king’s palace and told every soul he met on the way his tale of trouble. Breathless and sure-mouthedly, he gave an incredibly accurate account of what he saw and heard to the king and his chiefs. “Follow me, Kabiyesi, and see what my eyes just saw and hear what my ears just heard.” Talking skeletons! He was thought to be mad, or drunk or simply insolent trying to ridicule the king by taking him out on a wide goose chase.

“Iwofa Alaba, are you sure of what you just said? If we get to the kolanut tree and we can’t see this your talking skeleton, I will order that my sword be unsheathed in your face and sheathed at your back!” The king said and Iwofa Alaba understood what that meant; it meant death, summary execution. But he was sure of what he saw and heard and so agreed to the decree of the king. Every villager who heard what Iwofa Alaba said exclaimed “Ahhhhhh!”

The whole village –king, chiefs, old and young –soon followed Iwofa Alaba to his tree and the talking skeleton. And, truly, there it was, the skeleton, perching lifelessly on a branch.

Iwofa Alaba, confident and happy at his achievement, shouted at Akuuju, the skeleton; greeted it and demanded that it greet the king and his chiefs. Silence. Akuuju did not utter a word in response; did not even hear a word. Dead men don’t talk! Alarmed, Iwofa Alaba moved closer and shouted louder: “Akuuju, why are you not talking? Were you not the one who entertained me with talks just this morning? Talk, the king and his chiefs are itching to hear you.”

From Akuuju came neither a word nor a whimper. Sweating profusely, Iwofa Alaba remembered the last words of Akuuju: ‘May your mouth not kill you.’ But it was too late for him to say Amen. The king had to fulfill his pledge; Iwofa Alaba had to die and he was beheaded for ‘tricking’ the king and his people to the bush. But just as Iwofa Alaba’s head was severed from his neck, Akuuju moved, shook the tree branch with laughter. He laughed and laughed. A startled king and people looked at the skeleton and wondered why he killed Iwofa Alaba. “I did not kill him,” Akuuju said. “His mouth killed him. I warned him. Your lips are not moulded to move every time you see something. May your mouth not kill you.”

This 2019 politics is an election of skeletons. We have seen some; we will see many more. Skeletons are very stubborn effigies; they always wait by the roadside of politics. We will encounter many as we journey towards the destiny of Nigeria. Politicians are praying for us to be wise and let the dead rest in their chosen height — undisturbed. We won’t keep quiet and we won’t stop asking questions from power. We can’t wait to see the end of the skeletons and we will not end like Iwofa Alaba whose unhinged mouth destroyed his head. Our fingers will not stop clicking — and they will not kill us.