LITTLE ENDS: Tatioro: The Pied Pipers of Abuja

Pius Adesanmi

The town of Hamelin in Germany is suffering from severe rat infestation in the year 1824. A man named Franky Grammyfoot comes to town, claiming to be a rat exterminator. He signs a rat clearance contract with the townspeople. He then plays a magical pipe, which lures all the rats into the Wesser River where they all drowned. We Yorubanized the legend of the pied piper of Hamelin back in nursery school. Our teachers even improvised a Yoruba song which we chanted as we imagined the rats marching in a convoy behind the pied piper to certain death in the Wesser river: “tatioro, tatioro, ekute ilu yi, e jade ke ka lo, e si ma tele mi, tioro tatioro”.

This legend provides a good background for engaging the latest mind-boggling act of our rulership. Few Nigerians doubt that we are dealing with a totally crazy rulership. What we debate and often disagree on, sadly, is the degree of the craze. Some say that the composite persona of our rulership has already crossed the market. If you are Yoruba, you understand that there is no redemption after a mad man has crossed the market. Others say that the convoy of Nigeria’s rulership is only just beginning to approach the market at breakneck speed. I believe that our rulership crossed the market a long time ago.

President Yar’Adua (may Allah help his health) and Dimeji Bankole have become the Pied Pipers of Abuja. They have rat and mosquito infestation in their respective domains. Proposed fumigation comes at a price tag of one hundred and five million naira in the 2010 budget. Mr. Yar’Adua is even modest; he needs only five million naira to clear his kitchen of rats and mosquitoes. Dimeji Bankole on the other hand needs one hundred million naira to fumigate just the House of Reps Chamber in the National Assembly. Obviously, the rats and mosquitoes disturbing President Yar’Adua and Dimeji Bankole are very expensive capitalist pests.

Ever since I saw that absolutely crazy part of the 2010 budget proposal, I have felt nothing but pity for respected compatriots like Pete Edochie, Nkem Owoh, and Pa Soludo. Nigerian politicians can be very heartless. At one hundred and five million naira, President Yar’Adua and Dimeji Bankole are indirectly saying that their rats and mosquitoes are worth more than the combined hostage value of these men. Those are the kinds of deadly symbolic messages a state like Abuja sends in order to nurture the psychological war it has declared on the ordinary citizen.

The situation is even more disheartening given the fact that we know that the rats and mosquitoes in Aso Rock and The House of Reps - if there are any - have absolutely nothing to worry about in the coming year. Not one hair on the body of any rat shall be touched. Not one wing of any mosquito shall be harmed.

Those pests can in fact look forward to a year of abundance. This, after all,

is Nigeria. Let’s not kid ourselves. What we really have going on here is food for the boys. The retinue of aides who have been “good boys” in Aso Rock and the House of Reps can now rush to the Corporate Affairs Commission, register fictitious pest extermination companies, and farm out the one hundred and five million naira into numerous contracts and sub-contracts. Luckily, the pious ones among them may remember to rush to their churches and “sow seed” with part of the money. “That is how things work here”, a friend emailed me from Abuja as I discussed this matter on a popular Nigerian listserv.

This brings me back to the impact of these scenarios on the battered psyche of Nigerians. Since we have learnt to live with the permanent reality of looting, is there really no way to do it and still maintain a modicum of respect for Nigerians? If you must loot my patrimony, is it really too much to ask that you don’t insult my intelligence to boot? If you must pad the budget with kolanut and nkwobi money for the boys, for God’s sake tell me something intelligent. Do not tell me that you are going to kill mosquitoes and rats with that kind of money. Patricia Etteh even had something more psychologically soothing to tell us about her own loot. She said she renovated her official quarters and bought massage machines. She did a lot better with her own story than this rats and mosquitoes nonsense.

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Reader Comments (7)

Posted by yommi on Dec 09 2009

Methinks, since Dimeji and Umaru are rearing executive Rats and mosquitoes in their palaces, and we all know that big man's shit is always more expensive to clean, thus those mosquitoes and rats should have their elimination contracted out even to Foreign companies owned by local boys. Nigeria, we hail thee

Posted by TATA on Dec 10 2009

i swear i was in abuja in 1982, and they were no mosquitoes and rats there until the yaribas arrived, ..who does not know about the long snout rat that bites and blow you at the same time...it is found mostly in ibadan, it even transmits rabies [infact it has a special rabies strain named after it] and was brought to abuja...along with lagos mosquitoes, which does not listen to shelltox, these mosquitoes carry a special strain of yellow fever, dogon yaro and quinine are no match, you get bit, it goes straight to your brain to cause cerebral malaria... why do you think bankole behaves the way he does?

Posted by Ayo on Dec 10 2009

Sir, you are asking the impossible expecting these people to give you ‘intelligent’ reasons for their behaviour. We are the way we are in our society because we underrate intelligence, unlike in the West. Intelligence is a subtle mental state you don’t know you didn’t have until you have it; or you think you have before you have it. Its closest parallel is the Christian doctrine of being ‘Born again’. You don’t know you are not a Christian until you are born again. The reason we get intelligence so completely wrong is because we assume it is bestowed by attainment of multiple academic degrees; travel; high society; or exposure to high culture etc. As a result, most people we describe as intelligent are still very much in Adamic ignorance. For example, intelligent patriotism does not harm but protects the interests and welfare of own people and country- even at a personal cost. Intelligence cannot act otherwise. Because it would be illogical and inconsistent with intelligent behaviour or behaviour intelligence naturally produces. This is self-evident in the lives of people who exemplify intelligent patriotism like Mandela, Awo, Luther King, Biko, Fajuyi, Ghandi etc. Clearly, you can’t imagine any of these people embezzling public funds or killing their own people that they claim to lead by example via letter bombs, hired assassins etc. This means that intelligence is creative or constructive of exemplary and novel ideas, values and behaviour that advance, not debase, the human mind, intellect and condition. In other words, intelligence is a problem-solving, not problem-creating, mind. Interestingly, although ignorance and intelligence are opposing extremes of the intelligence spectrum, they both have astounding similarities. For example, they are both states of mind and manifested through behaviour, values etc. The fundamental difference between them however is that ignorance is associated with animals; while intelligence is purely and exclusively human attribute. This means you are a human -being NOT SIMPLY because you are not an animal. In other words, it is the behaviour you exhibit, values you hold, and problems you solve (the way you organise and advance your personal life, society or civilization through politics, economics etc) that make you different from rats, mosquitoes and animal, in general. So, we should be much more precise about people we describe as intelligent. As poor but intelligent teenager NEPA clerk, I declined award of overtime hours I did not work. But my boss and colleagues grabbed it with both hands. They knew it was wrong because they respected me; but they couldn’t make the logical (not even moral) argument within and by themselves, and come to logical conclusions why doing it was animal behaviour. That is the reason that while you, and intelligent Nigerians and human-beings world-wide, are shocked by the behaviour of our politicians and CEOs, they just don’t see what is wrong with their behaviour. An empty mind sees nothing. Intelligence is not as cheap and common-place as we think it is in our culture. Apologies for the long comment. It wasn’t meant to prove anything but to learn from other comments on the topic.

Posted by fellentino on Dec 11 2009

Pius, Intelligent answers only come from intelligent minds and only those who have a mind can work towards making it intelligent. Alas, those in ASO ROCK has traded the tableu of their minds, you ask too much of them by asking for intelligent reasons looting, their minds are too daft to cook up some.

Posted by Fatai on Dec 12 2009

How long do we have to tolerate their malfeasance,lies and corruption ?

Posted by lateeisha on Dec 13 2009

intelligent reasons?? from where? aso rock??...keep dreaming.

Posted by Garbs on Dec 28 2009

Piussy watin. Haba "one hundred and five million naira" pere. That's just about one million dollars US and you de hala. Don't you know that the immune system of Nigerian politicians, whether trained in Samuru Zaria or Oxford has been very weakened and can not resist any mosquito bite at all. Especially if you travel frequently between Abuja and Abeokuta or Abuja and Katsina. Jo jaree Bankky ma bin. Pius does not get it. Allocate more, let's say 1 Billion naira or dollars or yen. After all your health is more important, than the health that of those lowly millions of Nigerians dying on bad roads especially between Abeokuta and Shagamu, those children dying of malnutrition, the pregnant women dying from complications of child birth, the middle age men and women dying of complications of hypertension etc. As a law maker your life is just too precious. You need to be alive and malaria-free to make laws that will be broken. Long time ago, I met a NPA personnel on flight between Lagos and Yola and he told me that the annual budget allocation for "bird and cattle chasing" in northern Nigerian airports was enough to build and service space station. That was then when the khaki boys were in power. Now, since space is not on the horizon for a country mega ridden by MDV (Moral Deficiency Virus), we must protect our lassa fever and malaria fearing politicians. As for Bankole, I can see that he is "radically" becoming the system that created him. Poor boy, the malady slowly he is slowly being infected MDV without him realizing it. Ol'boy I fear for Nigeria. The corruption virus in Nigeria wipes out intelligence by attacking the politician's brain. Unfortunately the virus is always in the air once and a Nigerian politician is infected, the prognosis is grim. Only people like Wole Shoyinka survived because he exited early "nigeriancephalitis" a permanent destruction of logic producing area of the brain. Lesson for Bankole, get out before you go completely "gaga". I beg Pius change the song to "tatioro, tatioro, elefon ilu yi, e jade ke ka lo, e si ma tele mi, tioro tatioro". This Nigeria.