Other than October 1st in bittersweet memory of our independence from
British colonialism, we hungered another date even in mock remembrance
of umpteen forfeit of freedoms to muzzles of guns at our vulnerable
skulls by brothers in khaki and camouflage…
Till the dribbling, evil genius (from Ogbomoso, I hear, or elsewhere
other than he claims) gifted us one ,albeit in default, via one more
chinking run through the exposed vestiges of our flanks at the swift
trail of his eight-year-plus transition agenda…
When his benighted foreman (struck deaf if not dumb for very long
after) elected you the head cornerstone, much to the chagrin of the
gap-toothed messiah who annulled the election whole and entire, only
to step aside, setting up in his stead an interim government, a shack
hanging on indeterminable balances…
Till came and went the gale of his bespectacled majesty (the one with
matted hair and all though he claimed to come from Kano) and following
a rumoured diet of Indian apples served up in flagrante delicto,
kicked the bucket at the eve of his enthronement as emperor of the
realm…
Then it took a treated cup of tea administered in front of the high
and mighty for the avoidance of doubt, to send the mandated one to a
death died to set up a tribal equation that remained unbalanced till
the chicken farmer from the heart of the South West like him (though
fathered in default by a Southeastern monarch) was spirited out of
prison into which he was bundled for a misprision of treason and made
president…
He it was that affixed the final nail on your coffin of state by
forcing on us a different date as ominous as it was ignominious, till
the return of that man from Daura (though in the throng that had
invaded from the Futa Jallon) and in a wave of political necessity,
they say, he has today enthroned you our proper Democracy Day!
