Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth Read online

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  The pattern of conferment also underwent ingenious variations. There were instances where the winner could not attend the awards in person, and the reasons for such absences were myriad. A traditional ruler, business mogul, or governor might feel—rare, but it was not unknown—that it was lèse-majesté to be seen with lower creatures of the entertainment world, trade unionists, common agitators, the notorious and unpatriotic members of the Academic Staff Union, or simply junior local councilors. A finicky judge might feel that the dignity of office was imperiled by the garish ambiance of the gala night, or a bishop or mullah fear a loss in congregational attendance from puritanic elements and thus a reduction of tithes or zakat. The motivation of extending hospitality was also to be conceded and commended. The reasoning was obvious: absence justified a special ceremony in its own right, specifically for the private presentation. Chief Ubenzy Oromotaya had an accommodative temperament. At the event itself, the winner would be represented by a cabinet minister, commissioner, permanent secretary, first lady, or nearest available son or daughter. Afterwards the designee held a special, extra ceremony in his or her domain, dispensing happiness in normally neglected, indeed often hitherto unheard-of corners of the nation.

  The much-craved super-category of the Common Touch Award was of course in a class of its own. It was presented by a farmer, market woman, factory line worker, or street vendor, plucked off the kerbside or market stall for the occasion, washed, clothed, and festooned in costume jewellery for the public presentation. In the case of an absentee winner, the bewildered representative of the people would be invited as guest of honour to the banquet hall or performance grounds of the exalted absentee, a public toast for the next twenty-four hours of happiness. The glory of physically presenting the symbol of popular acclaim, needless to say, belonged exclusively to the media proprietor himself, the effervescent Ubenzy Oromotaya.

  Perhaps it is worth remarking that at inception, the in-absentia variation was not permitted—you were either present and honoured or absent and dispossessed—though this did not prevent the right to add a rubric to one’s CV in the tradition of “Two/Three Times a YoY/PACT Nominee.” For the proprietor and organizer, absenteeism also offered the advantage of presenting double awards in the missing category the following year. All that changed, thanks to the somewhat extreme conduct of an unusually temperamental winner, a governor. Later Oromotaya kicked himself, wondering why from the very beginning he had failed to think of the advantages of a distinct in-absentia category—Don’t budge, we’ll bring the award to your doorstep!

  The advantages were delightfully obvious. For a start, this structurally turned YoY into a moving, all-year fiesta, spread all over the nation, as each winner took to celebrating victory in his or her own time, own milieu, own manner, and, if an office-holder, at public or corporate expense. How many could embark on the logistics of dragging a cow, even the odd sheep, ram, goat, or baby camel, to be slaughtered and roasted on a spit at the venue, which was the National Theatre on the semi-outskirts of Lagos? Of course, a number were only too happy to eat their cake and also have it—they basked fully in the glitter and glitz of the gala Night of Nights, then returned home to hold a mini-fiesta of their own—happiness outreach to the less privileged, who could not afford the time or transportation fare to Lagos. However, the defining moment for the formal change of policy—which had in any case evolved on its own into a most extravagant and economically robust mixture of variants—offered no glimpse of such prospects at the time. Indeed, it came rather close to tragedy.

  It so happened that this expectant winner, a governor from north of the River Benue, Usman Bedu, had turned up in a motorcade of thirty “luxury buses” and motorized caravans. These ferried his entire harem of twenty-seven wives, plus extended families totaling three hundred and eighty-five and the State Cultural Troupe, including acrobatic horsemen with glittering lances and attire straight from the Arabian Nights. The last were lined along the final approach to the vast rotunda known as the National Theatre—a Bulgarian Palais de Sports import to the last bolt, knot, and cement blob—to welcome arriving guests. It was a personal contribution—a token of his appreciation, unsolicited. The same award had, however, been sold, democratically auctioned by secret ballot, and not for the first time, to the highest bidder the morning before the ceremony. The governor was not expected. Indeed, the excited young recipient had deliberately suppressed his real intentions. It was all designed to be a surprise, a spectacular, dramatic appearance. The cavalry was sent to stand in, a compensation for his supposed absence. The planned scenario went thus: they would canter to the airport to receive their governor, then lead his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud in grand formation to the National Theatre. The factor of a notorious Lagos traffic jam was one that never even entered the head of the celebrant, such was the narcotic power of the people’s Night of Nights. Usman Bedu’s arrival was indeed a spectacular feat, never to be forgotten by motorists on that infamous Saturday. The young scion, who regularly spent his summer vacations in London, had seen the Trooping of the Colours at Buckingham Palace and had resolved to celebrate his win in a no less splendiferous manner.

  Chief Oromotaya was not aware of his presence in Lagos until the cavalry clattered up the concrete drive of Entrance A of the performance rotunda. Accustomed to “regularizing” such minor blips in his own way afterwards, the sponsor had not expected the unsportsmanlike response that emerged from the celebrant. Among the governor’s people, however, loss of face was not considered a trifle. When Chief Ubenzy tried to explain the “unfortunate mix-up” to His Excellency Usman Bedu in the VIP green room, the convivial atmosphere changed abruptly. The media proprietor saw the governor’s hand disappear into the folds of his babanriga, to emerge with a jewel-encrusted curved dagger the likes of which he had seen only in Bollywood films. Ubenzy let out a scream and his knees buckled. He slumped onto the carpet, clutching his heart. It was the governor’s turn to be horrified, believing that his gregarious host had died of a heart attack or whatever. He fled the National Theatre, headed straight to the safety of his private jet at Ikeja airport, ordering his aides en route to round up his caravan and herd its participants home to safety as best they could across the Niger. Ubenzy, now recovered after first aid administered straight down his throat from a Johnnie Walker bottle, spluttering and badly shaken, was rushed to a private hospital for a checkup. From there he took a decision to be “flown to Dubai” for full examination and recuperation.

  That gala Night of Nights did proceed peacefully thereafter, Oromotaya monitoring and overseeing progress from his permanently reserved suite at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, while the terrified governor was fed the latest health reports on his stricken host, supposedly in intensive care in Dubai, hanging between life and death by the sheerest thread. Before Ubenzy officially returned to his home base, peace, as always, had been restored. The governor had no choice. Intercessors ensured that he became aware of some sensitive material in the chief’s possession that would be of public interest, ready to go to print in The National Inquest. This illumination enabled the governor to accept that there were limits to blood feud under the Nigerian constitution and that a community of interest had to be the deciding factor of business relations. The dueling pair restored accustomed diplomatic relations and swore eternal friendship. Governor Bedu was rewarded with a special individual edition of YoY where he accepted a newly created, personalized award—the People’s Scimitar. They exchanged chieftaincy conferments, Udenzy in Bedu’s hometown, Bedu in Oromataya’s. Bedu threw a feast that featured, for the first time in Nigerian history, an entire stuffed baby camel—a specialty, it would seem, of Saudi Arabia. In addition, he became the Life Patron of YoY. Oromotaya was famous for his creative application of soothing Vaseline on what many would consider incurable tumours. That, anyway, remained the authenticated version of events, according to Ubenzy Oromotaya himself—but only when secure among his close circle.<
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  The pursuit of that golden fleece, the YoY Award, was not, it would appear, an affair for the faint-hearted. Acts of sabotage and image neutralization, crude to sophisticated, were commonplace. Fake News expanded a thousandfold, with the ruination of marriages and friendships and the bankrupting of businesses. There were sudden, unexplained deaths. College cults were recruited and let loose on the neighbourhoods of aspirants, both virtual and physical. Nonetheless, many conceded that the contest for the Yeomen Awards, and most especially that of the Common Touch, brought out the creative and egalitarian spirit universally remarked among the Nigerian people. There were videos of a governor eating amala, the gooey Yoruba yam-flour staple, in a peasant’s roadside shack, the okra dripping down his wispy beard while he licked the backs of his fingers with an outsized tongue and belched into the camera—no elitist steel cutlery for him, thank you very much. And he drank only palm wine—from a calabash, not a glass or plastic cup. Another submission featured a senator ushering an aged woman into his BMW Sports Utility, which he drove himself, while his aides loaded her firewood into the rear space, its caption “Lending a Helping Hand.” One notable entry was a photo of yet another governor hoeing a yam patch in unison with his workers, just another lusty voice raised in the traditional work song, in readiness for and stimulating the early arrival of expected rains, caption “Stomach Infrastructure.” The more adventurous politicians were filmed participating in a break-dance contest at the famous Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, caption “Rumble of the Humble.” And so it went, with an enthusiastic followership sending in comments both verbally and in the shorthand literacy of emoticons.

  There were critics, not unexpectedly. What happened to governance under a serial, cyclic fiesta hysteria? Such voices were easily silenced. Governance, as attested by flurries of releases from ministries and government agencies, was unaffected. Indeed, business peaked, most especially in what was called the informal sector. A journey normally of ninety minutes between two cities now took four, six, nine, twelve hours and sometimes spilled into the following day, especially in the rainy season, when lakes sprang up in the middle of the expressway, sucking even petrol tankers into their bosom. Such stagnations created instant road markets—more truthfully amphibious—shooting the nation’s informal GNP to astronomical heights. Gridlocks brought reality to economic diversification. Culture itself profited, as there were new entries into the register of Nigerian names, a nation that had justly earned fame for inventiveness—Tonade, Bisona, Bolekaja, Toyota, Aderupoko,* etc., the nomenclatural celebration of infants born in public or private transport when traffic stood completely still and motorists were turned into instant midwives. The hunt after missing billions intensified, headed by the prime minister himself, who personally flew out to consolidate the repatriation of new discoveries of hidden assets, all announced with fanfare—Cayman Islands, Dubai, the United States, and Switzerland. These counters silenced the dissonant voices, kept the nation’s adrenaline high and hope ever-resurgent. A few careless, overbearing party card-bearers were felled to establish the stamp of evenhandedness in the apportionment of justice. This rejuvenating cycle—missing, pursuit, whistleblower, and hyperactive agencies, lawyers, witnesses, no matter if they proved missing in action on their day in court—joined a list of enviable achievements. The breast-beating overwhelmed even the throb of the annual Drum Festival from one of the allegedly happy states.

  It therefore came as a rude shock to the executive, legislators, and nationals when news broke that the nation had earned an unexpected—and unmerited—honorific from a former colonial civil servant as the Most Extraordinarily Corrupt Nation in the World! This laudation, which appeared to have been off the cuff, attracted far more prolonged and intense denunciation than the continuum of vanishing chunks of the national treasury. The day’s business was set aside in both lawmaking houses to debate and condemn the utterance. What, the debaters argued, was extraordinary about a cultural norm? It was pure abuse of language—just because the language was theirs, was that a good reason to use it just anyhow? Did they think the Giant of Africa could be intimidated by such big words? The two-tier legislature tabled motions for a complete boycott of British goods, seizure of all British assests, expulsion of all British nationals and then a break in diplomatic relations with such an impertinent foreign power—yes, foreign! Did they think the nation was still under colonial rule to tolerate such insults?

  It was time for a renewed world tour by the prime minister, Sir Godfrey Danfere, this time to dialogue with foreign nations who haboured the same conviction, next to rebuild the image of an abused nation. Accompanied by an entourage that dwarfed the caravan of Usman Bedu, Sir Goddie commenced an unprecedented blitz. The charm offensive ended just in time for nominations for the next edition of YoY. It was a triumphant return. He looked forward to presenting his report first to the president and next to the nation in his State of the Nation address, that the denigrators and professional PhDs (Pull Him/Her Down Syndrome) were mere noisemakers, international nonentities. They were economic saboteurs acting against the diversification of the one-track oil-based economy. Sir Goddie would urge the creation of more Ministries of Happiness by states that had yet to jump on the bandwagon.

  “I have been everywhere,” he announced to the waiting media corps, success neon-inscribed all over his impressive frame, which had earned him his favourite nickname, the Presence. “It will be my great pleasure to report to the president when I brief him tomorrow that nowhere did I hear one dissenting voice. The nation is in no danger. We retain our number-one position—the Happiest People on Earth.”

  Seated in the comfort of the stretch limousine on his way to his power base, Villa Potencia, he tapped the shoulder of his chief of staff, seated next to the chauffeur. “Get hold of Teribogo. Tell him to ensure some—happiness—awaiting me at the Villa.”

  The chief of staff was expressionless. “She’s there already, Sir Goddie.”

  Skip Notes

  * Landed en Route; Born on the Road; (Born Within a) Passenger Truck; (Born in a) Toyota; Excess Load.

  3.

  Pilgrim’s Progress

  Harsh were his beginnings, his trials and tribulations, long the journey, albeit interspersed with patches of lucrative relief, of the man whose origins remained a cause for endless speculation. At the time of the issuance of his second passport however, he was registered as Dennis Tibidje. His original document ended in a midnight bonfire in the backyard of his first home liaison, following his hasty return to Home Sweet Home. The multitalented youth had dropped out abruptly from overseas studies. He shook the dust of the United Kingdom off his feet in a fit of righteous indignation. He had received an invitation by his college dean to report and defend his honour against a charge of attempted rape, laid by a fellow student. Not even his closest college buddies knew of his departure, not even his landlady to whom he still owed several months’ rent, plus some emergency borrowings while “awaiting his scholarship remittance.”

  Back home, Tibidje soon found a niche as a bit actor in Callywood—the South-eastern (Calabar) version of the national cinema flagbearer, Nollywood. There was a brand-new film village in the same state, a rustic, water bordered setting called Tinapa, with fully equipped ultra modern studios. It had been established by a film-struck governor with a passion also for Nature and her preservationist imperatives. Tinapa’s technical facilities were utilized, but the practitioners shied away from branding their products with such a backward sounding name as Tinapa. They preferred to be seen as another foundling of the gnarled family tree that was rooted in a distant coastal state of the United States, known as Hollywood.

  Tinapa’s new entrant augmented the precarious livelihood of all actors through a position with a publicity and marketing firm. He had also artistic skills that enabled him to keep his head above water in those barren stretches between shooting engagements, which all professional actors underg
o much too frequently. Such talents included, in his case, a natural ability to copy the handwriting and signatures of others and thereby provide vital documents in time of need. It was a proficiency, alas, that also led to the brevity of his sojourn with the firm. After failing to produce the promised original of his college diploma, a condition of his provisional engagement, he eventually presented a document whose authenticity was unfortunately suspect—not the artistry itself, which was impeccable, but a computer-generated contradiction on dates. The future, in one instance, seemed to predate the past. A small detail, but it caught the attention of an overzealous personnel clerk and avid computer geek. His employers summoned Tibidje, advised him to change occupation. They admitted being sad to be obliged to dispense with such talent and even provided him the bus fare to his alleged home in Lagos State. His explanation for claims of Lagos origin was that he was sired into a Lagos household. The culprits, however, were pure Deltan, of Itsekiri stock. Tibidje had one all-engrossing yet suppressed ambition, not always openly acknowledged—to reoccupy his preferred roots in Lagos ancestry. Not as a sentimental longing but as the logical facilitator of his desired occupational destiny.

  For a while the venturesome youth remained where he was, in the bustling city of Port Harcourt, contemplating his future moves. A decision was not long in coming. The three months of his employment, as well as forays into the putative cinema community, were more than sufficient to enable more than a few helpful contacts. It was thus one easy step into the virtual world of internet entrepreneurship, focusing on accounts of his erstwhile associates. Barely escaping a police raid on an operational café for the yahoo-yahoo fraternity, as the internet scam artists were known, Tibidje decided that it was time for a change of environment and indeed a change of persona. Interception of an advance payment to his former company for publicity work required no more than a morning’s intensive work, followed by its redirection to the coffers of a travel agency. It was his farewell exploit, dedicated to a return ticket to Houston, USA, via New York City, and a passport that passed immigration scrutiny. It did, however, lack a visa. Confident in his ability to persuade immigration officials that he was a victim of political persecution, he flew out, landed, and was indeed granted admission, but straight into a waiting federal bus that took him, together with a motley of international voyagers, straight to a staging station for illegal immigrants in Newark, New Jersey.