The Mashes Of March
By Eddie Wole-Olujobi
Just emerging from the parched remains of the month of February, March wasn’t idle afterall. She showed she could entertain and be as dreadful as her immediate relatives — February and January.
Russia, still the same old story from the previous months, is not backing down. Now, we hear Mother Russia is boasting about her alliance with Syria, which will ultimately lend support to save her from her military campaign disgrace. Mother Russia thought it was going to be easy fighting her weak neighbour Ukraine, now it is likely she calls her doting buddy Syria to help her win the war.
How hard is it for a Super Power to invade a small and weak country? Only the Americans can legitimately answer that question in their war with Vietnam.
Around the world, nay Nigeria, things are becoming more confounding. While mundane acts, such as giving someone a slap is cheap, same cannot be said about peace among the people. Around the Ides of March, Obiano’s wife thought it would be a tea party attending a new governor’s inauguration with all the fun on such occasion. As she marched to her “rival’s” seat hoping to savour the aroma of the event, Ojukwu’s angry ghost seized his wife Bianca. Obiano’s wife managed to return to her seat in one whole but with the pieces of her wig left on her head.
Less than twenty-four hours after the melee between the daughters of Eve in Akwa, Willy Obiano in far away Lagos got his own share of the fury of March. Hours after handing over the keys of the palace to Prof Charles Soludo, the EFCC Eagle lurking in the shadows of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, swooped on him, held him with her claws and threw him into her nest. Wife got slapped, husband got snapped. Indeed, it wasn’t a good month for the Obianos.
Peter Obi is not a coward after all. He has decided to throw his hat into the ring to contest the presidential elections next year in PDP.
Looking at the caliber of contestants in his party, will Peter walk on water to clinch his party’s ticket or will he be distracted by the storms and billow of wind that has characterized Nigerian politics? Storm is indeed gathering after Obi made his move.
In the ruling party, there is a new sheriff in town in the person of Abdullahi Adamu. While the ruling party enjoyed the limelight, gloom it was for the opposition that laboured to abort the Abuja event. It ended in vain.
Now the previous head of the ruling party a governor, the subsequent a senator. Regardless, the latter now faces the burden that comes with wearing the crown. As for the ruling party, it is a new chapter. But for us watching on the sidelines, we pray against the usual melodrama that will ensue from the cohorts of spoilers to rock the boat of the new the king.
Again, the Month of March held us by the head and turned our focus to North America for another session of judo, for Season of Slaps that has turned a trans-atlantic wave. It neither respects territorial integrity nor does it pay obeisance to social status.
The Academy Awards are awards for artistic and technical merits in the film industry in America. What should have been an historic night for music and film superstar Will Smith metamorphosed and turned him a villain. He decided to speak with his hands when emotion took patience from his tongue. The spotlight was on Will but Smith outshined it. We watched in astonishment as Will Smith marched towards the platform to punish the host, Chris Rock, for a joke, which he initially laughed at but found offensive afterwards about his wife’s haircut. We wonder what happened between the time he chuckled and the moment of madness that became the highlight of the Oscars in Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
As if the theme of violence was not enough in the month of March, agents of the devil laid ambush for the innocent passengers on the Abuja-bound train along the Abuja — Kaduna rail track. Some call them terrorists, others prefer the euphemism, bandits. They are all cut from the same cloak of violence.
As March hands us over to April with her bloodied hands I pray the orgy of violence in Nigeria subsides and peace and tranquility become our lot in the month of April.
* Eddie Wole-Olujobi, ex-EKSU Campus journalist, writes from Lagos
