“Confidence is like a dragon; for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.” That is from Criss Jami, poet and author of Venus in Arms. There is no moral mountain the confident will not seek to degrade.
A party is proposing a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket and it is dead serious about it, mobilizing talkers, writers and scribblers to force it through. “Don’t look at religion; look out for competence.” That is the argument of the proponents. Did they not argue against that argument when the North attempted to use ‘competence’ to ditch geographical zoning of the post of president? “The South has competent people,” we cried and joined them to shout down the North. Now, the victors are talking about a single-faith presidency as if there is no competent Christian in the North. Can Muslims accept a Christian-Christian ticket? Shakespeare in Titus Andronicus says “be as just and gracious unto me, as I am confident and kind to thee.” But justice to this political band is whatever gives them victory. They will ask us to keep quiet or simply look away. When you’ve never lost a battle, there is no war you won’t seek to start. But this is a war for Christian soldiers to fight or not to fight. We are in a season of money; hard dollars – and the market is booming. Let the cassock sell the temple; it is their choice. I sit back and watch how this audacity succeeds to the shame of all who deploy complicit silence to seek justice for all.
I move to other matters, the Peter Obi challenge and its social media embers. Peter Obi says he is the saviour that is coming to slay the dragons of Nigeria. His friends say so too and I smile. ‘To Kill A Dragon’ is a 1988 Russian film that should interest anyone searching for lost people to salvage. A knight wanders into a town terrorised by a three-headed, fire-breathing dragon. Knight offers to kill Dragon but the town’s high and low say no. They say the terror did not start today; Dragon is 400 years old and has become their kin. They say they are coping and will continue to cope as their ancestors did. They say Dragon is a very generous one who protects them from other dragons and even feeds them from its loots. They say Dragon may take maidens as unfailing annual sacrifices but it has lived long enough to become their own blood brother and only bad people treat brothers as enemies. But Knight is a heady, obstinate warrior with a mission. He fights Dragon, kills the demon but is mortally wounded and the people he saved blame him for his woes. They say they warned him and that his eyes have seen what he searched for. But not all heroes die in battle. Wounded Knight gets better over time and finds the townsfolk rejecting freedom and their children in love with reincarnated Dragon. Knight remembers what is said about every dog set free: it soon runs back, on its own, into the doghouse. Knight agrees finally that big Dragon isn’t the only terror in town. The impossible people are far more dangerous than the three-headed monster. “The dragon will have to be killed inside each of them,” he says with a heavy heart.
Lasisi Olagunju
