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One of the African folklores I find most fascinating is the one concerning the transmutation of monkeys from complete animals to semi-human beings. According to this folklore, monkeys were once devoid of human features they possess now until an encounter they had with God changed their nature to half animals and half men.
As the story goes, in the wake of creation, monkeys became envious of human beings and approached God to change their nature so that they would become men. God obliged the monkeys by giving them a jar of water they should bath with after seven days.
They took the water home and guarded it jealously as they awaited their day of transformation with bated breath. On the sixth day, however, they were consumed by the excitement of turning into human beings within 24 hours.
As they gathered around the jar, drumming, singing and dancing, one of them erroneously kicked it and spilled its contents. Not willing to see their entire dream collapse, they scooped whatever they could to wash their hands, legs and faces. The parts they washed became like those of human beings. There is yet another tale about monkeys that is less popular, but equally instructive. A man who was very fond of his monkey requested the monkey to go with him to the market. The monkey declined, citing the fact that the sight of him in the market place would cause a stir.
“No,” the owner said. “I will dress you up so well that no one would know that you are a monkey. You will only need to conduct yourself well enough not to give away your identity. I assure you that no one will call you a monkey if you don’t call yourself one.” With those assuring words, the monkey agreed to go to the market with its owner, dressed up so well that no one suspected it was a monkey. They moved from one stall to another without any incident until they got to the stall of banana sellers and the monkey lost all sense of decorum.
The monkey’s owner was still haggling with the seller when the monkey grabbed a bunch of bananas and started running. His action drew everyone’s attention. Its cap fell off as it ran and everyone started yelling, “It is a monkey! It is a monkey!”
The Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, would seem to have toed the line of the errant monkey when he called a press conference shortly after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in July last year, declaring eloquently, emphatically and unambiguously that Nigerians should call him a bastard if the APC did not collapse like a pack of cards within one year. His word has since become his albatross.
The APC did not only survive one year, it held a presidential primary that has become a reference point in the conduct of elections in Nigeria. As would be expected, the reactions in the social and traditional media have been massive. Nigerians have been falling head over heel to ratify the new name publicly adopted by the the President’s special assistant. But as a Yoruba man who knows the extent to which the tribe loathe the word, I am persuaded that it must have taken more than forces within Okupe’s control to publicly embrace the prospect of being called an illegitimate child when there have been cases of Yoruba men who committed suicide just because they found that they were products of matrimonial infidelity. The foregoing, added to his recent act of blasphemy in comparing a desperately failing president with Christ, qualify him for public sympathy rather than the wave of condemnation that has become his lot.
While he has pleaded to be called a bastard, the discerning public should weigh the implication of the suicidal request before pandering to it. It is enough misfortune that a man who spent the early part of his adult life training as a medical doctor would only find fulfilment in acting as the attack dog of a failing president, so much so that he would not even recognise a stethoscope now if he sees one.
Like a dead clock that is correct twice in a day, there are positive lessons to be learnt from the seemingly reckless utterances of the special assistant. If nothing else, they offer an insight into the past time of the most of the presidential aides who reckless adulation of their boss are now holding him up as the new Christ, without regard for God and without respect for Christians. Their act would seem to lend credence to the saying that he who the gods want to kill, they first make mad.
In their desperation to tell the President only that which would gladden his heart, his aides deliberately misread the social and political barometers of the nation, feed him with falsehood and give him the impression that a paradise is evolving while the nation is set on the path of perdition. Rather than tell him the truth about the parlous state of affairs, they read his mood and tell him what he would like to hear.
By so doing, they present themselves to the President bearers of good tidings and not agents of doom. Okupe’s utterances could also have resulted from frustration: the kind of verbal accident that occurs when a man is overwhelmed by the task of marketing to millions of people a product which in itself is not marketable. Be it as it may, Okupe deserves our collective sympathy and forgiveness because two wrongs, as they say, do not make a right.
Source: The Nation
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