By Suyi Ayodele

Oluwafemi Ositade is a 17-year-old student of the Ambassadors College, Ota, Ogun State. He is a child every parent would want, and every nation would adore and celebrate. The boy broke the internet recently when the news broke that the prodigy gained scholarships to 14 different universities outside the shores of Nigeria. According to the news, little Ositade who participated in the popular Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), scored a total of 760 marks out of 800 with a Cumulative Grade Points Aggregate (CGPA) of 4.04/4.0. The performance earned him full scholarships to many Ivy League universities such as Harvard in the United States of America, and other top-notch universities in Canada and the Middle East.

The universities that have offered the genius full scholarships include Harvard University, Brown University, Duke University, University of Toronto Lester B Pearson Scholarship, Wesleyan University, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, University of Miami, Howard University, Stetson University, Fisk University, University of Toronto, Mississauga Campus, University of Toronto St. George Campus, University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus and Drexel University. These universities are not concerned about the ‘maturity’ or otherwise of the 17-year-old boy. They are interested in his brilliance and what he could achieve in his cradle for the betterment of mankind. That is how advanced countries think. That is how those who run governments in sane climes project for the future. They are never tied down by antediluvian policies.

Last week, Nigerians were served with the sad news of the woeful performances of the candidates who participated in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). Of the 1.8 million candidates who sat for the examination, 1.4 million of them were said to have scored below 200 out of 400 marks. Terrible results! But while parents, guardians and Nigerians generally were bemoaning the horrible UTME results, the news broke that from inside the black pot, a whitish substance in terms of agidi (eko) had come out.

From the Bullamakanka town of Omu Aran, Kwara State, came the news of a 15-year-old genius, Olukayode Victor Olusola, who scored 362 marks in the same UTME. Olusola, a student of Government Secondary School, Omu Aran, scored 95 marks each in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry and 77 in English Language. He intends to study Electrical Electronics Engineering at the University of Ilorin, Kwara State. That should be good news to his parents, his school and every human being with a good sense of merit. But we are in Nigeria. Despite this sterling performance, Olusola may have to wait for the next three years before he can fulfill his dream of a university education. Why? Someone high up there feels and thinks that a 15-year-old, who could study to score 362 marks out of 400 marks obtainable, is “too young” to be in the university. If the brilliant boy were to be an American, or a citizen of any of the other forward-looking Western countries, he would be celebrated. Here, we think in the opposite direction of where the advanced world faces! Too sad!

Penultimate week, precisely on Monday, April 22, 2024, our Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, was in the news. It was for, to be humorous and obsolete, the ‘wrongest’ of all reasons. The minister, while on an inspection of the UTME being held across the country then, said that the admission age for all undergraduate courses in our tertiary institutions would henceforth be 18 years. The position of the minister runs in contrast to the existing regulation in most universities, which is to the effect that a candidate must have attained the age of 16 years or would have done so on the first day of October in the year of his/her candidature. In 2022, the Senate Committee on Basic Education said that 16 years would be the age of admission. The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, told the Senate Committee that JAMB had no powers to disqualify any candidate on the basis of age. He emphasised that individual universities could determine age to admit as the case maybe. Most universities peg their admission at 16 years. Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU), Ile Ife, for instance, has no age limit. There was no age limit when I gained admission into the school in the late 80s and the situation remains the same till date. So, between our universities and the Minister of Education, who is right?

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The minister, a professor and thinker, ‘justified’ his position on the age of admission to the university. According to him, parents who allowed their children to go into the university at the age of 16 “are pushing their children too much”. To arrest the situation, Mamman, after giving a pass mark for the conduct of the examination said: “The other thing which we noticed is the age of those who have applied to go to the university. Some of them are really too young. We are going to look at it because they are too young to understand what the university education is all about. That’s the stage when students migrate from a controlled environment where they are in charge of their own affairs. So, if they are too young, they won’t be able to manage properly. That accounts for some of the problems we are seeing in the universities. We are going to look at that. Eighteen is the entry age for university. But you will see students, 15, 16, going to the examination. It is not good for us. Parents should be encouraged not to push their children too much.” The minister then proffered a solution, to wit: The only solution to that is skills; by talking skills right from the time they entered school, from the primary school. Somebody should finish with one skill or another. That is part of the assumption of the 6-3-3-4 system…”

I have tried to rationalise what informed the minister’s posture without success. Why do we always think backward in this part of the world? All over the world, we see, and hear stories of child prodigies doing exploits. But here we are talking about a 16 or 17-year-old child being “too young” to be in the university. What about special children, the ones we call geniuses- the likes of Ositade and Olusola mentioned above? What do the advanced nations of the world do to them? Ositade, who in the estimation of Professor Mamman is “too young” to be in the university, has secured 14 different full scholarships outside Nigeria! This is where our problem lies as a nation.

If we accept the proposal by the minister, it means that a child who completed his or her secondary school education and passed all the qualifying examinations at the age of 16 would have to wait for another two years before he or she could be admitted into the university. What would such a child be doing at home for the two years interval? Are there government established intermediate vocational centres where such children could go? Or they would just be at home waiting for ‘old age’ to write their UTME? Did Professor Mamman give consideration to the damage the two-year break could cause? Under whose watch would the children be during the two-year hiatus? Do we talk about the possibility of waning enthusiasm, interest, frustration and other psychological effects? All these are by the way. It is obvious that the minister spoke from the point of ignorance. That indeed is very unfortunate in itself! The extant law on admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria today pegs the age at 16 years. Any child who is 16 years of age by October of the year he or she seeks admission is qualified. There is nothing in the books for now to show that this position has changed. We copied a lot from the Western world. I think we should also copy their mode of education and the policies therein. We need to do this if indeed we must compete with them.

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The oldest, and one of the best universities in the world, is the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. A check on the university’s admission requirements for undergraduate courses revealed that: “The University does not set any age requirements (except for the Medicine course: please see below), but applicants for all undergraduate courses will be expected to demonstrate a mature approach to the study of their subject which includes demonstrable skills of critical analysis, wide contextual knowledge and the ability to manage their time independently.” The only condition the university gives for intending undergraduate students below age 18 is as stated: “If you intend to begin your course before your eighteenth birthday, we recommend that you consult the college to which you are applying to discuss your application, as they will wish to consider provision for your welfare.” It is only candidates seeking admission in the university’s medical college that are required to be 18 years of age “at the time they start the Medicine course. The clinical contact in our programme starts in the first term and means that younger students would not be able to take part in required elements of the course. For Medicine, your application will not be shortlisted unless you will be at least 18 years old on the 1 November of your first term.”

The same applies to most Ivy League universities in the United States of America. Come to think of this. It is on record that Harvard University for example, had, as far back as 1909, that is 115 years ago, admitted an 11-year-old into the institution! William James Sidis (April 1, 1898- July 17, 1944) entered the university at age 11. Described as an “American child prodigy”, Sidis’ father first sought admission for him at age nine but was rejected by the university. Two years later, Boris Sidis, the psychiatrist father of the genius, convinced the university to admit his son, who is recorded in history as having “an IQ between 250 and 300 and conversant in 25 languages and dialects”. A year after his admission, Sidis was said to have “lectured the Harvard Mathematical Club on four-dimensional bodies”. One of those who met Sidis in Harvard, Norbert Wiener, in his book, “Ex-Prodigy”, said of Sidis thus: “The talk would have done credit to a first or second-year graduate student of any age…talk represented the triumph of the unaided efforts of a very brilliant child.”.

By the age of 16, Sidis, on June 18, 1914, left the university with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Imagine if Sidis were to be in the Nigeria of Mamman and the backward policy of age limit! Yet, we have many Sidis as our children in Nigeria. Yet again in the same Kwara State of Olukayode Victor Olusola, a Catholic secondary school, Eucharistic Heart of Jesus Model College (EHJMC), Ilorin, displayed 30 photographs of its students, who scored between 355 and 300 marks out of 400 obtainable marks in the same UTME. These children are between the ages of 15 and 17. Sadly, our Minister of Education said these ones are “too young” to be in the university. This is one of the reasons why in the year 2024, Nigeria still imports plastic toothpicks and calls it ‘dental floss’ to give it ostentatious status! How do we match up to a country, which 115 years ago rose above age limitation to accommodate the best from its educational system when in the mid-21st century, we still consider our 16-year-olds as “too young” to be admitted into our universities irrespective of their performances at the qualifying examinations?

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Most embarrassing from the minister is his allusion to the 6-3-3-4 system of education as a solution to the ‘immaturity’ of young undergraduates. To the best of my ignorance, Nigeria moved from the 6-3-3-4, to the current 9-3-4 system in 2004. That was when the State Primary Education Board (SPEB) changed to State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEB) across the states. By that change, primary and junior secondary (first nine years) came under SUBEB. Is the minister not aware of that, such that he would still be relying on a policy that was changed 20 years ago? This is one of the problems we have as a nation. The quality of the mental ability of those who superintend over every segment of our life speaks volumes. Granted that there is illiteracy in the land, but must our policy makers also be ignorant of the correct policies in their ministries and departments? Is anyone still wondering why we have not been able to make any headway? Can we get the respected Professor Oloyede of JAMB to whisper to the minister that his position on the age requirement for admission into tertiary institutions is wrong, and the minister should not mislead the children to think that they are below the constitutionally prescribed age? Such a bland announcement by the minister is capable of sending some children to depression.

It is gratifying to note that our fainéant senate is rising to the occasion, this time around, to curtail the pre-historic thinking of Minister Mamman on the age limit for admission into our universities. Senator Adeyemi Adaramodu, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, was quoted to have described the stance of the minister as “just an opinion.” It had better be! Adaramodu, according to the reports, said that any adjustments to the age limit for admission into our universities would require proper legislative procedures, adding that if such a matter was brought before the senate, “there is going to be a public hearing. All the stakeholders will sit down and talk about it – the parents, teachers, legislators, civil society organisations, even foreign organisations.” Should the issue come up for debate in the National Assembly, I commend the two chambers to take the wisdom of Professor Dipo Kolawole, former Vice Chancellor, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, who, while faulting Minister Mamman, said: “With global advancement in medicine, science and technology, age is no more a major determinant of capacity to cope with higher education but depth of knowledge. It is sheer backwardness to measure maturity principally on the basis of age.” Describing the minister’s position as “absurd” and “repulsive”, Kolawole posited that: “In America, China and others, people now obtain PhD at relatively young age. They are immediately recruited and deposited in their research laboratories and institutes to enhance technological advancement of their countries in a competitive world of science and technology.” One can only hope that Mamman, and many of his ilk, would be conscious enough to know that the world has moved beyond the level they are. Rather than depriving brilliant children of admission to tertiary institutions on account of their ages, the government should develop policies that would make the universities to grow to the level that they would begin to make “provision for your (their) welfare”, of Mamman’s “too young” undergraduates. It is wrong for Nigeria to keep engaging the reverse gear while other nations of the world are moving at supersonic speed.

The writer, Mr. Suyi Ayodele is a senior journalist, South-South/South-East Editor, Nigerian Tribune and a columnist in the same newspaper. This article was first published by Nigerian Tribune. It is published here with permission from the author.

By Lasisi Olagunju

A young taxi driver sat on the bonnet of his car some years ago thoroughly frustrated by Nigeria’s unending petrol mess. A television reporter asked him to speak on his experience in that filling station where he sat, stranded. He looked straight into the camera and said he wanted “the world to come to an end, this moment. I want all of us to die – all.” He thought Nigeria was a wilderness with a succession of fake Moses leading the country from Egypt to Egypt. To the taxi driver, mass death of victims and their victimisers would be the neat, equitable way to end all suffering. I watched the video and heard more than what the gentleman said. People who think and say what he said are persons who have run and got to the end of running. They are people who have shifted and shifted and have hit the wall.

Over the course of life, suffering, one way or the other, is inevitable. We do not need a priest to convince us of that. But, why is it that here, in this country, time and change give no relief to the poor?

As I write this, everyone is at the petrol station – exactly as they were 30 years ago when they thought democracy was the messiah that would dry their tears. In petrol stations where there are no queues, the price there is killing; where the price smiles a little, bedlam reigns. If matters remain as they are, driving a car anywhere in Nigeria will soon be a mark of the beast, the ultimate evil. Very soon (and I am so scared to say this), having money to buy petrol will be an exposure to marks of the dragon – the kind that is in the Christian Bible: ten horns, seven heads, “with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.” Why is this democracy this ugly and so unprofitable to the people?

There is a joke about a man from Israel who demanded to know why Moses promised his ancestors good life, took them out to wander in the wilderness for forty years only to deposit them in a land that has no oil. I won’t be shocked to hear this said about our democracy. What is the worth of that struggle and that vote that birthed this suffering?

Our dog boasted in the last election that there was no danger in Tiger’s forest. That boast appears to have killed it. A saying in Yoruba approximates this: Ajá kì í dán’nu kò séwu lóko ẹkùn. Stealthy, strong Tiger is an ambush, apex predator; dog is one of its preys. The wisdom here eluded many who refused to trust the truth. They are now left behind, stranded by their faith in man born of woman. In their bowl of gaari, they now have water in destructive excess.

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You are a very senior professor. Your monthly salary is N700,000, pre-tax. This past weekend, you and other petrol users bought a litre for N1,000. Your car uses 10 litres of petrol per working day. There are five working days in a week. That gives your car 50 litres of petrol per week, the cost is N50,000. There are four weeks in a month. Fifty thousand naira in four places makes it N200,000 – just to fuel your car. Because your residence is allocated Band E by NEPA, your ‘I-better-pass-my-neighbour’ generator will use 10 litres of petrol per day. In 30 days, that gives you 300 litres of fuel. At N1,000 per litre, the cost is N300,000. Do the maths. Petrol alone takes N500,000 from your pre-tax N700,000 salary. Tax takes about N120,000. Do the maths again. What is the way out? The Yoruba will join you to ask: Kí ni ònà àbáyo? Kí ni?

With ‘Darkness Falls’ as its title, the second part of Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s Weep Not, Child is about a country in distress, about a village where light is morbid and darkness is saviour. It is about a home that is no longer a place for telling good stories. It is here that we are asked to “turn to the Gospel according to St Matthew, Chapter 24.” Here we are told that we “shall hear of wars and rumours of wars” and that “nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places.” We are told that as horrible as these occurrences are, “they are (just) the beginning of sorrows…And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”

Could this moment be Nigeria’s hour of that prophecy? The havoc wreaked in town today is worse than the experience of the ill-starred, anecdotal sentry of Apomu whose oracle (ifa) got stolen and his wife snatched. He reached for his divining chain (òpẹ̀lẹ̀) and saw it in the mouth of an audacious dog. He pursued the dog to retrieve his last hope but the dog ran and jumped into a deep well. While panting, the distraught man was asked what next? “It is time to leave this town,” was his response – (Ìlọ yá Oníbodè Àpòmù, wón kó o ní’fá, wón gbà á l’óbìnrin, òpẹ̀lẹ̀ tí yíò tún fi tọ ẹsẹ̀ e rè, ajá tún gbé e lọ. Ó lé ajá, ajá kó sí kànga. Wón ní, ‘Ilọ yá àbí kò yá?’ Ó ní, ìlọ yáá…).” Today is worse than that hopeless situation. I have never been as afraid for Nigeria as I have been in the last one week.

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The people are hopeless and helpless but they are quiet. And that is dangerous. There is a passage in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart which warns about silence and its potent danger: “Mother Kite once sent her daughter to bring food. She went and brought back a duckling. ‘You have done very well,’ said Mother Kite to her daughter, ‘but tell me, what did the mother of this duckling say when you swooped and carried its child away?’ ‘It said nothing,’ replied the young kite. ‘It just walked away.’ ‘You must return the duckling,’ said Mother Kite. ‘There is something ominous behind the silence.’ And so Daughter Kite returned the duckling and took a chick instead. ‘What did the mother of this chick do?’ asked the old kite. ‘It cried and raved and cursed me,’ said the young kite. ‘Then we can eat the chick,’ said her mother. ‘There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.’ Nigeria’s streets are scanty and sad; neighbourhoods are dank and dark. Where the ice of fuel scarcity appears to be thawing, the price has remained prohibitively high. In food markets, traders’ looks are forlorn; buyers’ heartbeats are irregular. There is darkness in every home where light used to shine. Yet, there is quiet, silence, midnight, graveyard chill where prophets used to warn.

In Matt Lorenz’s ‘The Meaning of life in the Wilderness’, we are told that “the wilderness is a space where human beings can go morally astray.” True, many and more have gone astray here. Henry Bugbee, in his The Inward Morning, says that “our true home is (the) wilderness.” I read this and wanted to disagree. I wanted to ask how our home could be the wildness -uncultivated, uninhabited, inhospitable wild. But, then, I remember William Butler Yeats’s thoughtful line: “…the world is more full of weeping than you can understand.”

As long as we breathe, we keep hoping (and praying) for deliverance from evil. There is a line of divine promise in Ngugi’s ‘Darkness Falls’: “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved…” He was quoting the Bible.

We will endure this to the end because we’ve been promised salvation. But, when is the end and where is the saviour? Or, when is the saviour coming? The government is quiet and silent. It acts the perfect I-don’t-care way of lords who have climbed the hills and have seen the very end of the world. But its defenders are not quiet. They blame the past and point at similar acts of official betrayal. What is in uniformity is no longer a shame. There is no new thing under the sun. They open history books of countries outside Africa, the first world. They say “even America once suffered what we suffer. We will be out of the problem one day.” They say the media of that and other countries still reminisce about their own era of anomie. One of such reflections is Reis Thebault’s “Long lines, high prices and fisticuffs”, a Washington Post’s 2023 video on the 1970s petrol shortage bedlam in America. “The line of cars stretches for blocks. Pumps run dry. Newspapers warn of a great ‘gas crunch.’ President urges calm. Panicked motorists turn on one another.” Thebault wrote, mimicking headlines from Nigeria’s future. If the abobaku of this regime come to see this Washington Post content, they will grab it with eureka; they will use it as a justification for the criminal betrayal that professed this suffering. What a country!

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The elephant’s hunger is the shame of the forest. America would have remained where it was in 1970 if what it had were bumbling leaders like ours. To the US, the owner would rather starve than for the thief to be without food. We have that proverb, the United States appropriated it long ago to solve its “pumps run dry” problem. I always wonder why the elephant of oil-rich Nigeria keeps rumbling in the forest and goes to bed hungry. Imagine the Eskimo queueing for ice. But here, children of butchers fight over bones.

What really is the cause of this fuel scarcity? There is neither cohesion nor coherence in the little we’ve heard from persons who sit atop our welfare. All we’ve seen (and we are seeing) are quick-and-slow marches of crass confusion. What are they doing apart from fixing themselves up in vaults? The sheep of Nigerians won’t forget if they do well and provide it just bran. But they are behaving like àgbà òsìkà sowing suffering in people’s lives. They soil their breast pockets with red oil of impunity and keep a straight face. Is it true that this is all about jacking up the price of petrol as instructed by the holders of the Nigerian yam and knife? It is like land grabbers setting fire to a whole market because they covet the land. They are killing us without drawing a sword (apanimáyodà). But, they can eat their excess without scorching the city. Unfortunately, that is what they are doing with their take-it-or-leave it disposition to the petrol wickedness they put on the table. It is dangerous.

I borrow again from Yeats. In his ‘The Wind Among the Reeds’, the poet tells the powerful that he, “being poor” has only his dreams to nurture and keep. Then he begs them: “I have spread my dreams under your feet;/ Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” The people are the eye of the earth. If this government must tread on them, it should do so gently.

The author, Dr. Lasisi Olagunju is the Saturday Editor of Nigerian Tribune, and a columnist in the same newspaper. This article was first published by the paper (Nigerian Tribune). It is published here with his permission.

Tunde Odesola

Sleep is the next-door neighbour to good memory. This is the view of neurologist Andrew Budson and neuroscientist Elizabeth Kensinger in their book, “Why We Forget and How to Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory,” published in 2023 by Oxford University Press.

It’s my considered view that lack of sleep can twist the head backwards, like Humpty Dumpty-headed Nigerian leaders, who amass fleeting riches, little realising that life is a transient journey exemplified by the birth of Solomon Grundy on Monday, christening on Tuesday, marriage on Wednesday, sickness on Thursday, worsened on Friday, death on Saturday, and burial on Sunday.

Macbeth murdered sleep and he slept no more; Nigerian leaders murder sleep, yet they snore even more because hell lives here.

Both Budson and Kensinger believe that memory isn’t a bank that just sits somewhere in the brain. They aver memory is an active and effortful process. Using FOUR as a mnemonic for things to do to get information encrusted into memory, both researchers opined that the mind must (F)ocus attention, (O)rganise the information, (U)nderstand the information and (R)elate the information to something the brain already knows.

According to the authors, when someone goes to a party and can’t remember anybody they met or when a student studies for an exam and can’t recollect the content they know, such an individual cannot focus attention. When struggling to retrieve information from memory, the scholars advise the individual to avoid the urge to generate possible answers, saying in those trying moments, the individual should use retrieval cues such as remembering events at the party or what he read the last time he studied for the exam, ‘the context, and the possible connections’.

To store up information in memory for longer-term access, getting enough sleep is one of the most important things to do, counsel Budson and Kensinger, adding that, “Sleep helps information to move from being briefly accessible to being stored in long-term ways.” Eating right, engaging in regular exercise, keeping a healthy body weight and being socially active are other ways of keeping the brain healthy, says the researchers.

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Budson, a Professor at Harvard Medical School, contends, “There’s nothing wrong with outsourcing your memory or using memory aids. I offload my memory as much as possible. I have all my passwords written down in a secure digital place. I use calendars, planners, and lists.”

Kensinger has a piece of advice for the student studying for an examination: Do not cram! She explains that the need for sleep and the time it takes to reach understanding make it important for students to start their preparation early and keep it going throughout the semester rather than cramming right before a big test.

Chair of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College, Professor Kensinger says when the individual is aging, and not struck with Alzheimer’s disease or age-related diseases or disorders, the brain prioritises the gist of events by embracing the similarities across events rather than trying to hold on to each individualised event.

In an article, “Why We Have to Forget to Remember,” written in The Sunday Magazine, a psychologist, Oliver Hardt, says: “If we lost the ability to forget, we might also lose the ability to remember.” Hardt, an assistant professor at McGill University, explains the brain needs to free up space to make room for new memories.

Hardt, who specialises in cognitive neurosciences, says, “The brain is some form of promiscuous encoding device. It just forms memories of basically anything you pay attention to. If that goes on unchecked for days and days, the brain will be flooded with an army, almost, of useless memory demons that distract you in any way possible. That’s where the brain’s automatic forgetting process comes in.”

Furthermore, Hardt says ‘neuromodulatory events’ help the brain figure out which experiences are important. “If you get excited, or afraid, or you have a moment of surprise, or there’s something novel in it you didn’t expect, these experiences cause the release of certain substances in the brain (like dopamine and norepinephrine). They improve the memory-making process that is going on in the moment. If there is a strong emotion associated with a memory, there’s a greater chance it will withstand the brain’s natural forgetting process,” he explains.

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Although none of Budson, Kensinger or Hardt links brain health to corruption, the way Nigerian leaders loot the treasury while the populace hail will, no doubt, reveal profound research findings. Essentially, corruption is a function of the mind, with Nigeria being the rich farmland, where Òkété, the pouched rat, shoots at the farmer; ignoring the folkloric song, Òkété o ma yin’bon s’oloko, popularised by senior citizen Tunji Oyelana. With mouths full of palm kernels, pouched rats in government aim the bullets of inflation at the skulls of the masses as prices of goods and services soaraway.

Nigeria’s òkété leaders ignore the fate that made Macbeth describe life as ‘a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’.

If you read George Orwell’s Animal Farm, you will understand there’s nothing humans can do that animals can’t do when the ink in the quill of a writer is drawn from the well of creativity. Also, if you listened to Fela Anikulapo’s evergreen belter, Beast of No Nation, you can recollect the ‘egbékégbé’ atrocities performed by ‘òturúgbeké’ ‘animals in human skin’.

Once upon a time in Kogiland, there lived a little òkété called Bello. Due to its insatiable greed, the òkété could store plenty of palm kernels in its mouth for days and watch other òkétés’ children and aged òkétés starve to death. Inasmuch as its own children, family and friends eat and live well, it doesn’t matter whatever happens to all other òkétés. Because of its agility, the òkété can also store palm kernels in holes and treetops. It doesn’t matter if the palm kernels rot away, it’s okay insofar Òkété Bello’s family and friends have enough to feed and waste.

Òkété Bello soon grew big and arrogant. One day, it saw its reflection in the mirror inside the farmhouse. Òkété Bello didn’t see a pouched rat in the mirror, it saw a lion, a White Lion! It shouted, “Wow! Na mi bi dis!?” It took many steps away from the mirror, looked at itself fully, shook its white mane, and suddenly dashed forward, like a lion after a prey, stopping just an inch from the mirror, and roaring at the mirror, “I am a lion, a white lion!”

In a dark corner, the Tortoise cleared its throat, startling the òkété, who let out a squeak.

Tortoise: I bow and tremble, the White Lion.

White Lion: Are you talking to me, Tortoise?

Tortoise: Are you not the White Lion?

White Lion: Ehm, yes, I am.

Tortoise: Why don’t you go to Kutuwenji to join your fellow lions? I can lead you there.

White Lion: Sure? When?

Tortoise: We can go right away, I hate procrastination.

White Lion: I won’t devour you, don’t be afraid.

Tortoise: Thank you, sir.

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They trekked for three days and three nights, arriving at a wild plain by dawn. “You see that Iroko tree?” asked the Tortoise, pointing at a lone tree on the horizon, “Yes, I see it,” answered the White Lion. “Beneath it is the den of lions,” said Tortoise in a nasal tone, “Go and join your kindred, stop eating palm kernels, go and eat fresh meat and crack fresh bones.”

“Are you going back?” the White Lion asked Tortoise, who said, “Yes, I’m going back to Surulere to oversee the palm kernels on your behalf.”

There was a fierce battle for power when White Lion reached the den. Nobody noticed it. The aging lion from Katsina was abdicating the throne and aspiring lions were jostling to take over. The ferocious fight raised a cloud of dust. The den quaked. White Lion watched and pitched its tent with the Katsina pride against the Lagos pride.

The Katsina pride needed to bind the pinned-down Lion of Bourdillon, but the paws of the lion couldn’t hold the rope, so the white Lion strutted forward, “My claws and mouth can do the job. I’m the White Lion!” The Katsina lions looked at one another, they kept silent. White Lion, using its claws and mouth, ran the rope tight around the Lion of Bourdillon, calling the leader of the Lagos pride names. The Lion of Bourdillon kept silent, calculating.

At the last minute, the Lion of Bourdillon roared to life, shattering the rope and launching an onslaught. Lagos and Katsina lions fought all through the night and victory swung the way of Lagos in the morning. After the dust settled, the aging Katsina Lion retired to Daura. EmefieLion was the first casualty, White Lion is the second, and there will be more to go. In the winner-takes-all jungle, lesser animals mustn’t toy with the lion’s share. Lions don’t forget, only humans do.

The White Lion has transformed back to òkété aje lójú onílé, and has run into a hole. Nigeria’ll forget this drama very soon.

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