Dele Omotunde
(From the Archive)
Grrreat Izzons!
Eh!
Grrrrreat Izzzzzons!!
Ehhhhhhhhhh!!
I salute you. I salute our ancestors. I salute the gods of our lands and waters.
After all, if water salutes the throat, the throat will open for it. If canoe salutes
the waves, the waves will make way for it. I salute our fighters. I salute our
commanders. The hand always returns after feeding the mouth. Our combatants shall continue to come back home safe and sound from the battlefield.
Aamen…!
Those who are standing behind us, both at home and in the diaspora, their feet
will not ache. They will never get tired.
Amen!
I have kidnapped your mama. If you want to see her alive, send me a red bike, some chocolate and guns , if not…your mama go see “wen”!
Our hands are already put to the plough and there is no looking back. But we should not do anything that would alienate us from our brothers and sisters.
Ehh!
I am here today to let you know that our recent hostage-takings are becoming too indiscriminate and a thing of concern to the international community. We seize Chinese, capture Koreans and take Philippinos and kidnap Arabs. We even hold Indians! These are of no value to our cause. Not at all.
Our people have a saying, to the effect that if you want to eat toad, at least you must go for the fat, juicy ones. Indians, Chinese, Philippinos, Koreans and Arabs are neither fat nor juicy. But, speaking seriously, I think we are flogging the issue of hostage-taking to death. It has become so commonplace that we now kidnap anything white in the name of ransom…
Great Izzons
Ehhh!
Our elder, I salute you. Please permit me to say that there is no room for sentimentality. War is war. The only good white man is the kidnapped one (toad) for supper.
Ehhhh!
I am told you are currently holding another white man. Where is he from? Is he British or American?
We don’t know. He has not talked because he is blindfolded and gagged.
Good. Can I see him?
Why not? OC, bring the hostage…
Remove the blindfold and the tape on his mouth…Here he is, the latest toad.
Egbesuuu!
Whaat! Who is this? See the person you are holding…
Is he not fat or juicy enough?
Whaaat?!
Who is he? What’s so special about him? Is he the Bush-man’s ambassador or the Queen’s high commissioner?
Don’t you know this is our own man? Look at him very well. Is this not Benjamin Murray Booze, our man in Lagos? Egbesuuuu!! And this is exactly what I have just said. Is it every ‘white man’ we must kidnap for ransom? Booze is one of us. He is only ‘white’. He is from this state. You don’t use the son of the soil for rituals. It’s a taboo! An abomination! Great Izzons!
Ehhhh!
That reminds me of the atrocities now being perpetrated by every Dick and
Haruna, even children, in the name of liberation. Is it not our elders that say
children learn what they see their elders do? Our children have also become
kidnappers and hostage takers, as young as they are! Egbsuuu!
It’s a lie! Children kidnapping? Kidnapping whom? No, never! Not on our cap!
You have not heard my story, have you? Listen!
Bring it up! We are all ears.
Who will rescue us from “our children”?
This is the story of Little Dappa Diepriye as told by an NGO official at the last Izzon – in – Diaspora Congress held in Dublin , Hayaland, last month. ..
Little Diepriye’s birthday was approaching. So, one day, he ran into his mother’s room to remind her of what he wanted as a gift. “Mum, I want a bike for my birthday”. His mother thought this was an opportunity to tame her troublesome child who was always getting into trouble at school and at home. She asked him if he thought he deserved any gift, given the many troubles he had got into over the past year. He said he did. Mother then asked Little Diepriye to think about how he had behaved in the year and then write a letter to God and tell Him why he deserved a bike for his birthday. The boy ran to his room to write what he thought would be a letter to convince both his mother and God:
“Dear God”, he started, “I have been a very good boy this year and I would like a bike for my birthday. I want a red one.
Your friend, Priye.”
He read the letter over and he knew that he had told a lie. He had not been a very good boy this year. So, he tore the letter and started all over.
“Dear God, I have been an ‘OK’ boy this year. I need a red bike for my birthday.
Thank you. Your friend, Priye.”
Still, he was not satisfied. He wrote another.
“God,
I know I haven’t been a good boy this year. I am very sorry. I will be a good boy if you just send me a bike for my birthday. Please! Thank you, Priye.”
He knew this letter would not get him a bike even if his claim was true. He was upset but like a determined Izzon boy that he is, he went to his father’s library to think of a new strategy to get a bike. He went through newspapers, magazines and books.
At nightfall, he went back to his mum and told her he wanted to go to church.
She felt happy, thinking that her plan had worked.
Priye walked down the street to the nearby church on the corner and went in through an open window when nobody was looking in his direction. He went straight up to the altar, bent down, picked the statue of Holy Mary and ran away with it down the street, into the house and up to his room where he hid it in his wardrobe. Now satisfied, he sat down to write his letter to God.
“Dear God,
I have kidnapped your mama. If you want to see her alive, send me a red bike, some chocolate and guns , if not…your mama go see “wen”!
Diepriye, the Izzon
boy”.
See what I mean? Our children are coming fast! . Our oppressors, the cheaters, had better do something fast or else… Great Izzons!
Ehhh!
END
This Opilogue, written in 2006, has been extracted from “OPILOGUE: NOT A LAFFING MATTER: published in 2011. Purpose? Our Children Have Arrived! No longer a case of “Our Children Are Coming”, à la Chukwuemeka Ike. Our restless and jobless children now hunt and turn their elders to human SUSHI, toads for supper? The gods must be angry. Now, who will rescue us from “our children”? Food for thought.
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