The Letter

The story you are about to hear is what some in a Mass Com department and all those other journalism related courses will refer to as stale, moldy news. Story no one will halt or pay anymore to hear, the same story was what settled deadlock situation in an election tribunal four years ago here. That time, some elders jazzed it up and it was something else.

2023. the state of the nation's economy, odor of it was in a precarious moldy state, smelling too bad. Nothing was shedding the old in preparation to assume the new. Things including the humans seem to prefers their old nature to new despite all their muttering on the state of the old and what they stood for. The leaders were the most confused, they were jumbling things, tarrying to mend the broken while toiling with the unbroken in a strange dangerous way.

The people were tired, that kind of tiredness rinsed in hopelessness. The weather aren't helping in mood lifting in any way, when the sun or rain is out, they dance in a way you won't fail to realize that they too are restless. Anger was the overriding emotion in everything; the weather and everyone. Buyers and Sellers settle scores with machetes, guns and fist. No one cares about this evening, this week, this month, this day, let alone the next generation.

This is just 40% idea of the situation and emotion people move around in that period. Eye for an eye compass controlling relationships, actions that tail end of 2022. Alhaji and his missus on the seat, lording it over the rest of the nation were the kind you can easily see were more concerned with counting off days to their departure date like inmates do in prison awaiting the D-day. Things so disorganized that you can't fail to see that the two have no remedy to the problems but dumping them and taking cover after eight years of lumbering around in the corridors of power.

They had initiated this idea of currency swap aimed at curtailing what they claimed to be swarms of fake currency in circulation. The notes they wanted their colors changed, images untouched, but the exercise went the way of our things. They found it hard moving forward and harder returning to base.

But, the state of the economy is even quasi tale I wanted to tell you here. If you are the kind such perks up, the summary is that they never succeeded in swapping common currency, so they decided to allow the old to coexist with the new. Same 500 and 200 notes, same value, different quality and different colors.

The nation's capital by road to my base will be around a day's journey, so I am far removed from the drab and dingy games of daily politics. Better to say we are in a different world. I am not by any known means a politician unless you count writing and commenting about them and their antics as being one.

I recalled having gone through the national capital thrice or four times if you count to and fro as not being one and that was during my service year in far flung state of the northern region. Not even through it but at its periphery. The bus I was in had no much choice than to circle its parameters.

"This is the best route to Sokoto" the drivers always say.

Just like other areas of our lives when you don't remember: hitches, blocks, headaches, breaks and problems, they have this way of remembering you. Politics is that way. I don't remember them but they have this way of remembering me for reasons I never halted to dissect. 2023 election I am telling you about never failed to halt in front of me to sneer.

I had minded my business as usual and that business is no other but just casting my vote and calling it a day and then trying not to worry about what comes after. Things always happen afterwards during the census and election time in Nigeria. The two tools we showcase our tribal wisdom in.

So, on that sunny election day in 2023, I had gone to my ward to fulfill my constitutional obligations. Over here, people always sweat to help themselves before asking what the government can do for them. The government is complimentary source of help to the people here. A staff eyed me like a snake and asked for my card. She went through their record, raised her head like Agama Lizard and asked her colleague leafing through the images.

"You see him?"

"Yes" she answered.

"Then capture him" she ordered the one with what looked like a notebook camera or something.

The lady ordered me to look straight into the lens while snapping me.

"Thank you for performing your national duty" was what dropped from one. I murmured my acknowledgement as I took my leave, my duty completed. I never failed to see that half that registered never cared to turn up. It's stress without dividend. Effort that never counts.

Months later, I was more than surprised to realize that the politics never freed me from its drama of something afterwards happening in it. This time, it's court battle between the declared winner and the man that felt shortchanged in the election. Both I don't know.

The court issue was a third-class actors at work. It dragged on that way till one day, I was surprised to see the president reading letter they claimed came from my girlfriend. He later handed over the letter to the incoming VP that submitted it to the court. The court ended their drama on the letter and declared the current president and his VP the winners.

Later I figured the source of the letter, and those it came from, reason they played that game. They were probably paid for such, shifting the source to me believing they are smart and setting the ground to kill two birds with a stone. Who knows other emotions overwhelming in them that period their wisdom was at its zenith.

I wouldn't have ever believed that anything from me was good enough to turn such deadlock into a foam exposed under the sun. The problem like magic evaporated into thin air due to that letter. All courtesy of my name on a letter that came from my unknown girlfriend. No one ever cared to verify the letter, its source or the supposed girlfriend.

Mad move I know wrong ideas, self-awareness, wrong information and wrong emotion powered that period and they believed it had no leakage.

I just know I don't exist in their book, know its wrong emotion and idea controlling their moves that period, all the kind that come back to bite one in the ass when he least expected it. Which girlfriend is that? What's the content of that letter? Who is that invisible girlfriend? How did the letter get to them?

How did her words have such powerful force to melt the tribunal deadlocked situation and make some president and VP just like that? Such was how important I was to them then that I don't even know which girlfriend, know the name of the court or the chief judge that sat over that decision. I was a day by road away from those people, the letter and force behind it.

How did they pay off this mirage girlfriend? Did she submit the letter by herself or did the police do it? Today, the economy is in shambles. I was once seen as the oracle causing those roadblocks that I was once blamed by the VP for being the reason the national football team lost the cup final to Ivory Coast. It's hilarious but I think their lies were encroaching in their sleep and pointing accusing fingers to them while they slept. Now they are worrying about illiteracy and poverty, once again circling me on that account too.

"You are part of this government," the president once said to me. I eyed the man and said "nah, I am not, I am a writer" there is no way I can be part of this government. I am not a politician but a writer. At times, I have this feeling that they either consider me an oracle or something in that regard. But I think there is an acute fear of the unseen working in them in a negative way. There is something they are into their conscience is playing games on them. That thing called conscience can be an arbitrary court at times.

But that isn't all. I recalled that when I heard about that letter and its effect in the case years back, I felt I was reliving an experience. I must tell you that there was this kind of mighty sense of déjà vu that enveloped me on hearing about that letter from their court games.

I spent years in a Chinese prison and composing such scathing letters wasn't new in my life, it's an archaic story inside there. I have always been this thing some see as something oozing fears that needed overcoming. Some inmates will compose scathing letters dripping with their fear and venom, affix my name on it and put it in the criminal department letter box in the newsroom in the district there awaiting result. It's a common story inside there that I felt it when it came from these politicians here years later.

Their idea must have been to poison the minds of the officers against me but the result they were awaiting from those little exercises never materialized. I suspect the same from the party chiefs at work here on the same move on me.

2023. Surprised that the same letter writing was the weapon they went to court war with and I was indirectly connected to it once more. That letter, that bogus letter, that scribbling was strong enough to falsely put some people into office for four years now.

You can undermine the power of written words, its source and names at your own peril. Both I have seen have force,mighty force powering them on.