Imo Electorates Still at Crossroads
On the 29th of September 1989, in a riverside village of Oguta II, there was an incident of a sank boat carrying commuters, which led to four persons being drowned. Tales after the event were replete with all emphasising on pre-event warnings and omens. But I still recall the after event scenario, as I watched the sectionalised wailing villagers. There was among the four drowned, a twin girl of 12 years, whose twin sister was said to had wicked and greedy heart. The alleged wicked twin was said to have scavenged every nook and cranny in the village searching for abandoned bottles for barter-trade, which made her have 5 plastic cups afterwards. She refused her twin sister having one of them then for drinking. For this, the denied vexed and scavenged the vicinity and packed waterleaf vegetable for sale at the Nkwo Oguta while the flood was very high. She too had a good market; returned with 7 plastic cups, but while returning the boat sank. She swan swiftly as at her age swimming ought to be a hobby, but was braced up by a 7 months pregnant woman from another village who twisted her alms round her little waist and both drowned.
When the news of the disaster reached the two other neighbouring villages, the one of the pregnant woman furiously rushed to the host village and irately embarked on destruction of properties, singing war songs. After awhile, the corpses of the first two victims were pulled out and the boat baled, but both the drowned twin and the pregnant woman were still missing. The people from the second village hurriedly carried their dead old woman and quietly went home after performing with cash the required votary sacrifice. At last, the village youths diving found them and pulled the twisted duo out- A real sight of sorrowful companionship, a very tall, fat and pregnant woman hanging on a little enfant for camaraderie to the great beyond. Suddenly echoes of wailing shouts loomed the air as the missing two were found, and the survivors hanging on trees brought out. The irate visiting villagers rushed down the waterside to behold the back-to-front round-waist-tie, a terrible self evident truth for interpretation. Among the survivors was a younger sister to the drowned expectant mother who told before their people, tales on how her sister sank the boat. She testified that the drowned sister was the one that sank the boat as she sloped rightwards with a bottle to fill drinking water and suddenly slipped off into the huge waters and caused the tilt that sank the boat.
Human irascible emotions and dawning realities faced the duo villages. The details of their reactions and fallouts I reserve for next time. But, what would you do if you were among the irate visitors now faced with the scenario and testimonies- A labyrinth? What would you do if you are among the host and terrorised villagers- Seek justice and vengeance? Perhaps you would “doublethink” as George Orwell would say. Perhaps you would adjudge the first group that left quietly with the corpse of their old woman as wiser or cowards. Perhaps still, you would scuttle out of the scenario sobbing, if you are not crying now as you read this redaction of real events.
Whenever I remember this incident, my mind goes to the gubernatorial realities in Imo State since December last year. The number of political parties and gubernatorial aspirants were much, just as their structures and followers are much and of diversified minds that have today slide into the Orwell's labyrinthine world of double-thinking. The labyrinthine world of political realities has thrown the greater percentage of Imolites who believe in might as rectitude into confused states and to the crossroads, knowing not where to go again.
Like the first mourners in the affected three villages in the short story above, most Imolites have silently gone home with the corpse of their failed aspirants as unrealised dreams. They have buried their dead and care not further about the incident and its fallouts. This category of politicians and electorates has retired, turned their back against political activism in this dispensation and are on the fence immediately after the party primaries. Like the second mourning villagers, some gubernatorial aspirants are busy destroying things and wrecking havoc in the society, while allowing divers from the tormented village (as compensation for the death of the expectant mother) to search for the lost corpse-ticket of their pregnant aspirants who have but two months to deliver. Most Imolites are with this set of political parties and politicians, devising means to avenge the dead-ticket or destroy the life-wires of the survivors and caring not about how to bring out the survivors still hanging on trees in the flood. But whether when they get it, they will resurrect the dead expectant-woman to deliver the second child of the family, is still an issue to doublethink, or perhaps there is need for the family that has only one child- A girl, to think fast on how to remarry in order to have another child since it is its epoch of procreation than allow the most available maiden be married by a lady-killer. Like the third mourning villagers looking for their own 12 year old twin girl, all gubernatorial candidates in Imo State are busy with their structures and supporters diving to get their dead-one but will discover at last that the selfish finding of one dead, is same as that of the other, and that this latter discovery will dawn on all and thus necessitates the invitation of the next neighbouring and untouched village to intervene, make peace and restore order to the village social life.
What will the warring villages do when they at last discover that their two dead ones are tangled and must be separated by a singular collective ritual before being carried away? Can they ever come to terms at once now after the damages and the truth of the boat-sinking and twisted drowning realities, as well as the provocations? Who will take up among them, the urgent duty of votary rites in order to let the dead be buried and societal life go on? Can the first mourners settle it with the pains in their heart or perhaps a nearby happy village be called to step in and stop the raid, thus settling the labyrinth?
These realities confound Imo electorates who actually yearn for peace, tranquillity and conducive atmosphere to reign in the State. The worst of their labyrinthine state is the fact that the apex politicians in the warring and bickering parties, in their egotistic dispositions refused to tell their followers truth and directing them accordingly to where serenity could be brought to the State. Our political leaders muddle up issues and realities, play pranks and pull-him-down games, and these confuse the more their followers in the labyrinthine political jungle.
According to George Orwell there are certain societal realties that send both the inhabitants and natives of every human society to crossroads and labyrinthine world. These include, “to know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully-instructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions, which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claims to it; to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy; to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, then to promptly forget it again: And above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.”
This world of missed opposites that are concomitantly lived by the politicians, confuse and confound the more the minds, perceptions and understanding of the lay-electorates in the State. What Orwell expressed in his labyrinthine world of truth above, is seen in all the elderly major parties in the State, and as a result of it, the electorates are left abashed- 'Whither to now,' they ask and long for proper direction. But as my friend, Prince Stanley U Okoroji would say, “every epoch in human history has its proper epochal angel and genius as well as its celebrated epochal evil genius.” Whenever the evil genius emerges and wrecks havoc, confidently know that the epochal angel is also within your reach, to turn, behold and embrace. In one of the biblical Pauline Letters, it is said that 'the Lord maketh way where there is no way;' and in the darkest night of the soul, there comes a gleam of hope that resurrects confidence and restores normalcy in existence, refilling all seepages of hope and aspirations.
No one benefits from chaos and when there is no peace and harmony, progress and success are hampered. But since as it is said, “when one door closes, another opens,” Imolites should be fast to look around them and find the Abrahamic sacrificial lamb that hangs on the tree, which brings peace to the Imo community- The United Progressive Party (UPP), and with it, the biblical silence of Sarah to the sacrificial attempts of Isaac and the crisis that would have erupted in the faithful family thereafter, which most biblical readers never think of, are waved off.
It is evident in Imo State today that all the three major and elderly political parties are today raided by one cataclysmic and catastrophic crisis or another, either in the State or at the Federal level, which like diabetic wounds must take long to heal, and the prolonging of the healing being not compatible with the whimsical nature of the April 11 gubernatorial elections in Nigeria. Politics is never a do or die affair, and where A did not work, B will in good faith. Like Benson Omonode rightly said, under this confused state of ineffectuality, one has to try another leg. If non-resoluble crisis raids the major parties where all eyes are, the next to them is the alternative, especially when it is obvious that this alternative party- The UPP is like 'water weh no get enemy,' ever there for the assuage of your political confusions and pains. Prof Wole Soyinka said that “the man dies who keeps silent in the face of anarchy.”
The central confusion in the major elderly and combatant party with regards to the Imo electorates today, is that the apex leaders have all ceased to be ordinary politicians we used to know and became pure capitalist, investors and comprador bourgeoisies that see in election, inalienable affinity with monetary interests. But these are not compatible with the management and piloting of the human society, with societal engineering and the distribution of ends and means. Since Imo electorates have been thrown to the crossroads by the major elderly and combatant political parties, the UPP is there, set like the sacrificial lamb hanging to salvage the Isaac-Imo State. It takes but to raise the eyes above heaven and incline your lobes to hear the voice of the Divine, the Oracle that speaks to your mind and conscience- “Don't kill him (because of material thing- Election), take the lamb (the UPP) there instead.” Let all Imo electorates tilt to the spirit and hear the divine order- “Not to kill but take the lamb'- The UPP. “Obedience is better than sacrifice.”
Prof. Protus Nathan Uzorma (The Reformer & Mayor of Imo youths).