Anthills of the Savannah

TWO

His excellency's deep anxiety had been swiftly assuaged by his young, brilliant and aggressive Director of the State Research Council (SRC). He proved once again in his Excellency's words as efficient as the Cabinet was incompetent. Every single action by this bright young man from the day of his appointment has given His Excellency good cause for self-congratulations for Major Johnson Ossai had been his own personal choice whom he had gone ahead to appoint in the face of strong opposition from more senior officers. And it had happened at the very tricky moment when His Excellency had decided to retire all military members of his cabinet and to replace them with civilians and, to cap it all, add President to all his titles. There were unconfirmed rumours of unrest, secret trials and executions in the barracks. But His Excellency rode the storm quite comfortably thanks to two key appointments he had personally made — the Army Chief of Staff and the Director of the State Research Council, the secret police.

So when Professor Okong was marched in by the fierce orderly he found His Excellency in a tough and self-confident mood.

'Good day, Your Excellency, Mr. President,' intoned Professor Okong executing at the same time a ninety-degree bow.

No reply nor any kind of recognition of his presence. His Excellency continued writing on his drafting pad for a full minute more before looking up. Then he spoke abruptly as though to an intruder he wanted to be rid of quickly.

'Yes, I want you to go over to the Reception quadrangle and receive the delegation waiting there… Well, sit down!'

'Thank you, Your Excellency.'

'I suppose I ought to begin by filling you in on who they are and what they are doing here, etc. Unless, of course, by some miracle you made the discovery yourself after I left you.'

'No, sir. We didn't. I am sorry.'

'Very well, then. I shall tell you. But before I do I want to remind you of that little discussion we all had after the Entebbe Raid. You remember? You all said then: What a disgrace to Africa. Do you remember?'

'I remember, Your Excellency.'

'Very well. You were all full of indignation. Righteous indignation. But do you by any chance remember what I said? I said it could happen here. Right here.'

'You did, sir, I remember that very well.'

'You all said: Oh no, Your Excellency it can't happen here.' The way he said it in mimicry of some half-witted idiot with a speech impediment, might have raised a laugh from a bigger audience or at a less grave moment.

'Yes, Your Excellency, we said so,' admitted Professor Okong. 'We are truly sorry.' It wasn't yet very clear to him what point or connection was being made but what his answer should be was obvious and he repeated it: 'Your Excellency we are indeed sorry.'

'It doesn't matter. You know I've never really relied on you fellows for information on anything or anybody. You know that?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I should be a fool to. You see if Entebbe happens here it's me the world will laugh at, isn't it?'

Professor Okong found the answer to that one somewhat tricky and so made a vague indeterminate sound deep in his throat.

'Yes, it is me. General Big Mouth, they will say, and print my picture on the cover of Time magazine with a big mouth and a small head. You understand? They won't talk about you, would they.'

'Certainly not, Sir.'

'No, because they don't know you. It's not your funeral but mine.' Professor Okong was uneasy about the word funeral and began a protest but His Excellency shut him up by raising his left hand. 'So I don't fool around. I take precautions. You und'stand?'

'Yes, sir. Once more, may I on behalf of my colleagues and myself give you — I mean Your Excellency — our undeserved — I mean unreserved — apology.'

There was a long pause now like the silence of colleagues for a fallen comrade. His Excellency had been so moved that he needed the time to compose himself again. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face and then his neck around the collar vigorously. Professor Okong stared on the tabletop with lowered eyes; like eyes at half-mast.

'The crowd that came in an hour or so ago,' he said calmly and sadly, 'has come from Abazon.'

'Those people again!' said Okong in a flare-up of indignation. 'The same people pestering you to visit them.'

'It is a peaceful and loyal and goodwill delegation…'

'Oh I am so happy to hear that.'

'… that has come all the way from Abazon to declare their loyalty.'

'Very good, sir. Very good! And I should say, about time too…' A sudden violent frown on His Excellency's face silenced the Professor's re-awakened garrulity.

'But I have been made to understand that they also may have a petition about the drought in their region. They want personally to invite me to pay them a visit and see their problems. Well you know — everybody knows — my attitude to petitions and demonstrations and those kinds of things.'

'I do, sir. Every loyal citizen of this country knows your Excellency's attitude…'

'Sheer signs of indiscipline. Allow any of it, from whatever quarter, and you are as good as sunk.'

'Exactly, Your Excellency.'

'This is a loyal delegation though, as I've just told you and they have come a long way. But discipline is discipline. If I should agree to see them, what is there to stop the truck-pushers of Gelegele Market marching up here tomorrow to see me. They are just as loyal. Or the very loyal market-women's organization trooping in to complain about the price of stockfish imported from Norway.'

The Professor laughed loud but alone and stopped rather abruptly like a maniac.

'So I have a standing answer to all of them. No! Kabisa.'

'Excellent, Your Excellency.' It may have passed through Professor Okong's mind fleetingly that the man who was now reading him a lecture had not so long ago been politically almost in statu pupillari to him. Or perhaps he no longer dared to remember.

'But we must remember that these are not your scheming intellectual types or a bunch of Labour Congress agitators but simple, honest-to-God peasants who, from all intelligence reports reaching me, sincerely regret their past actions and now want bygones to be bygones. So it would be unfair to go up to them and say: "You can go away now, His Excellency the President is too busy to see you. You get me?"'

'Quite clearly, Your Excellency.' Okong was beginning to get the hang of his summons here, and with it his confidence was returning.

'That's why I have sent for you. Find some nice words to say to them. Tell them we are tied up at this moment with very important matters of state. You know that kind of stuff…'

'Exactly, Your Excellency. That's my line.'

'Tell them, if you like, that I am on the telephone with the President of United States of America or the Queen of England. Peasants are impressed by that kind of thing, you know.'

'Beauriful, Your Excellency, beauriful.'

'Humour them, is what I'm saying. Gauge the temperature and pitch your message accordingly.'

'I will, Your Excellency. Always at Your service.'

'Now if indeed they have brought a petition, accept it on my behalf and tell them they can rest assured that their complaints or rather problems — their problems, not complaints, will receive His Excellency's personal attention. Before you go, ask the Commissioner for Information to send a reporter across; and the Chief of Protocol to detail one of the State House photographers to take your picture shaking hands with the leader of the delegation. But for God's sake, Professor, I want you to look at the man you are shaking hands with instead of the camera…'

Professor Okong broke into another peal of laughter.

'I don't find it funny, people shaking hands like this… while their neck is turned away at right angles, like that girl in The Exorcist, and grinning into the camera.'

'Your Excellency is not only our leader but also our Teacher. We are always ready to learn. We are like children washing only their bellies, as our elders say when they pray.'

'But whatever you do, make sure that nothing about petitions gets into the papers. I don't want to see any talk of complaints and petitions in the press. This is a goodwill visit pure and simple.'

'Exactly. A reconciliation overture from Your Excellency's erstwhile rebellious subjects.'

'No no no! I don't want to rub that in. Let's leave well alone.'

'But Your Excellency, you are too generous. Too generous by half! Why does every bad thing in this country start in Abazon Province? The Rebellion was there. They were the only ones whose Leaders of Thought failed to return a clear mandate to Your Excellency. I don't want to be seen as a tribalist but Mr. Ikem Osodi is causing all this trouble because he is a typical Abazonian. I am sorry to be personal, Your Excellency, but we must face facts. If you ask me, Your Excellency, God does not sleep. How do we know that that drought they are suffering over there may not be God's judgement for all the troubles they have caused in this country. And now they have the audacity to write Your Excellency to visit their Province and before you can even reply to their invitation they carry their nonsense come your house. I think Your Excellency that you are being too generous. Too generous by half, I am sorry to say.'

'I appreciate your strong feeling, Professor, but I must do these things my way. Leave well alone.'

'As you please, Your Excellency. I shall do exactly as Your Excellency commands. To the last letter. I don't think Your Excellency has said anything about television coverage.'

'No no no no! I am glad you raised it. No television. Undue publicity. And before you know it everybody will be staging goodwill rallies all over the place so as to appear on television. You know what our people are. No television. Oh no!'

'Your Excellency is absolutely right. I never thought of that. It is surprising how Your Excellency thinks about everything.'

'You know why, Professor. Because it is my funeral, that's why. When it is your funeral you jolly well must think of everything. Especially with the calibre of Cabinet I have.'

'Your Excellency, may I seize this opportunity to formally apologize on my behalf and on behalf of my cabinet colleagues for our, shall I say, lack of vigilance. I say that in all humility and in the spirit of collective responsibility which makes each and every one of us guilty when one of us is guilty. One finger gets soiled with grease and spreads it to the other four… Your Excellency may be aware that I have never wished to interfere in the portfolios of my cabinet colleagues. It is not because I am blind to all the hanky-panky that is going on. It is because I have always believed in the old adage to paddle my own canoe. But today's incident has shown that a man must not swallow his cough because he fears to disturb others…'

'I don't quite get you, Professor. Please cut out the proverbs, if you don't mind.'

'Well, Your Excellency, I have been debating within myself what my path of duty should be. Whether to alert you, I mean Your Excellency, on your relationship with the Honourable Commissioner for Information and also the Editor of the Gazette.'

'Relationship, how do you mean? Can't you speak more plainly?' The level of irritation in his voice was now pretty high.

'Well, Your Excellency, I am sorry to be personal. But I must be frank. I believe that if care is not taken those two friends of yours can be capable of fomenting disaffection which will make the Rebellion look like child's play. And if my sixth sense is anything to go by they may be causing a lot of havoc already.'

'That's fine, Mr. Okong. I deal with facts not gossip. Now run along and deal with that crowd and report back to me as soon as it's over. No rush though. After they've had their say and you have replied I want you to stay with them and act as host on my behalf. I have arranged for them to be entertained to drinks and small chop. You are to mingle with them and make them feel at home. They are not students of Political Science but I am sure you will manage. The State Research Council is in charge of the entertainment but you are the visible host. Is that clear? Make them feel they are here on my invitation.'

'Very well, Your Excellency.'

Poor Professor Okong's last words were drowned by His Excellency's loud impatient buzzer and such was his confusion as he withdrew from the audience that he just narrowly escaped crashing full tilt against the heavy swing-door bringing in the orderly. Outside the door he stood for a while trying to regain full control of his legs which were suddenly heavy like limbs of mahogany. He felt he needed to find a chair somewhere and sit down for a while. But there was no chair in sight, only the vast expanse of grey-carpeted corridor. In any case he really had no time to stand and stare. He had an urgent national assignment to perform. He began to move again although three-quarters of his mind stayed on the crushing manner of his dismissal and particularly on the fact that His Excellency had called him mister. He stopped walking again. 'I am in disgrace,' he said aloud. 'God, I am in disgrace. What did I do wrong?'

'You still de here?' barked the orderly from behind him, and Professor Okong sprang into life once more. He felt somewhat light in the head. Perhaps the Chief of Protocol down the corridor would have some brandy in his cabinet. He could do with a shot.

Meanwhile the hard-faced orderly who overtook him on the corridor a while ago had turned into the Council Chamber, dismissed the detained Cabinet on his Excellency's latest orders and summoned the Attorney-General to his presence.

What exactly did the fellow mean, His Excellency wondered. I handled him pretty well, though. I certainly won't stand for my commissioners sneaking up to me with vague accusations against their colleagues. It's not cricket! No sense of loyalty, no esprit de corps, nothing! And he calls himself a university professor. No wonder they say he now heads a handclapping, spiritualist congregation on campus. Disgraceful. Soft to the core, that's what they all are. Professor! My semi-literate uncle was right all the way when he said that we asked the white man to pack and go but did not think he would take with him all the utensils he brought when he came. Professor! The white man put all that back in his box when he took his leave. But come to think of it whatever put it into our head when we arrived on this seat that we needed these half-baked professors to tell us anything. What do they know? Give me good military training and discipline any day!

'Come in, Attorney-General… Sit down. I sent for you to ask you a direct, simple question. I realize that you are a lawyer but I am extremely busy and I want plain speaking and to the point. Right? I have received intelligence from various sources indicating that the Commissioner for Information is perhaps not as loyal to me as he might be. Now as you are well aware this is a very serious and very sensitive and very delicate matter and I am asking you in the strictest confidence. Nothing about this must get outside these four walls.' He indicated the four walls two at a time like an airline hostess pointing out exits in emergency drill before take-off. The Attorney-General nodded four or five times in quick succession.

'Fine. What would you make of such intelligence?'

The Attorney-General was perched on the edge of his chair, his left elbow on the table, his neck craning forward to catch his Excellency's words which he had chosen to speak with unusual softness as if deliberately to put his hearer at a disadvantage; or on full alert on pain of missing a life and death password. As he watched his victim straining to catch the vital message he felt again that glow of quiet jubilation that had become a frequent companion especially when as now he was disposing with consummate ease of some of those troublesome people he had thought so formidable in his apprentice days in power. It takes a lion to tame a leopard, say our people. How right they are!

As he savoured this wonderful sense of achievement gained in so short a time spreading over and soaking into the core of his thinking and his being like fresh-red tasty palm-oil melting and diffusing itself over piping hot roast yam he withdrew his voice still further into his throat and, for good measure, threw his head back on his huge, black, leather chair so that he seemed to address his words at the high, indifferent ceiling rather than the solicitous listener across the table.

Suddenly suspicious like a quarry sniffing death in the air but uncertain in what quarter it might lurk the Attorney-General decided to stall. For a whole minute almost, he stood on one spot, making no move, offering no reply.

'Well?' His Excellency was stung into loudness by the other's delay and silence. He was also now sitting bolt upright. 'Did you hear what I said or should I repeat?'

'No need to repeat, Your Excellency. I heard you perfectly. You see, Your Excellency, your humble servant is a lawyer. My profession enjoins me to trust only hard evidence and to distrust personal feeling and mere suspicion.'

'Attorney-General, I sent for you not to read me a lecture but to answer my question. You may be the Attorney but don't forget I am the General.'

The Attorney-General exploded into peals of laughter, uncontrollable and beer-bellied. Through it he repeated again and again whenever he could: 'That's a good one, Your Excellency, that's a good one!' His Excellency, no doubt pleased with the dramatic result his wit had produced but not deigning to show it, merely fixed a pair of immobile but somewhat indulgent eyes on his Attorney-General, patiently waiting for his mirth to run its course. Finally it began to as he took the neatly-folded silk handkerchief out of his breast-pocket and dabbed his eyes daintily like a fat clown.

'You will now answer my question?' said His Excellency in a slightly amused tone.

'I am sorry, Your Excellency. Don't blame me; blame Your Excellency's inimitable sense of humour… To speak the truth, Your Excellency, I have no evidence of disloyalty on the part of my honourable colleague.' He paused for effect. But nothing showed on His Excellency's face. 'But lawyers are also human. I have a personal feeling which may not stand up in court, I agree, but I hold it very strongly and if Chris were here I would say it to his face. I don't think Chris is one hundred percent behind you.'

'Why do you think you have that feeling?'

'Why do I have it? well let's put it this way. I have watched my colleague in question closely in the last year or so and my impression is that he does not show any joy, any enthusiasm in matters concerning this government in general and Your Excellency in particular. I was saying precisely that to him only a few minutes ago. Why do you go about with this tight face all the time, I said. Cheer up my friend. But he can't cheer up. Why? The reason is not far to seek. Two of you were after all class-mates at Lord Lugard College. He looks back to those days and sees you as the boy next door. He cannot understand how this same boy with whom he played all the boyish pranks, how he can today become this nation's Man of Destiny. You know, Your Excellency it was the same trouble Jesus had to face with his people. Those who knew him and knew his background were saying: "Is it not the same fellow who was born in a goat shed because his father had no money to pay for a chalet?"…'

He was going on and on, but His Excellency's mind was now divided between what he was saying and the echoes of old President Ngongo's advice: 'Your greatest risk is your boyhood friends, those who grew up with you in your village. Keep them at arm's length and you will live long.' The wise old tortoise!

A new respect for his Attorney-General was now reflected on the mirror of his face where the shrewd lawyer saw and caught its beams in both hands. This giant iroko, he thought to himself, is not scaled every day, so I must get all the firewood it can yield me now while I am atop.

'As for those like me, Your Excellency, poor dullards who went to bush grammar schools, we know our place, we know those better than ourselves when we see them. We have no problem worshipping a man like you. Honestly I don't. You went to Lord Lugard College where half of your teachers were Englishmen. Do you know, the nearest white men I saw in my school were an Indian and two Pakistanis. Do you know, Your Excellency, that I was never taught by a real white man until I went to read law at Exeter in my old age as it were. I was thirty-one. You can't imagine, Your Excellency how bush people like me were. During my first year in Britain I saw Welsh Rarebit on the menu one fine day and I rubbed my hands together and my mouth began to water because I thought I was going to eat real bush-meat from the forests of Wales!'

His Excellency was now definitely amused and smiling. The Attorney-General was dazzled by his own performance and success. Who would have believed His Excellency would listen this long to a man talking about himself and even smile at his jokes?

'I say this, Your Excellency, to show that a man of my background has no problem whatsoever worshipping a man like you. And in all fairness to my colleague — and I want to be scrupulously fair to him — he does have a problem; he wants to know why you and not him should be His Excellency. I don't mean he has said so in so many words to me but it is in his mind. I am not a mind reader but I am sure it is there, Your Excellency…'

'Thank you. You have no evidence, only a rather interesting theory. I appreciate it. You know I don't as a rule go about snooping for this kind of information, or setting my commissioners to spy on each other. I can assure you there is a very special reason, reason of state, why I put that question to you. And I appreciate your candid answer. In a way I am relieved and very happy that there is no evidence whatsoever. Now, you must forget we ever talked about it. As I said before, not a word about this to any living soul, you und'stand?'

'Perfectly, Your Excellency. You can count on my absolute discretion.'

'Discretion? No, Mr. Attorney-General, you mean your absolute silence. If a word of this ever gets around, it's either from me or from you. Is that clear?'

'Absolutely, Your Excellency.'

'Good day.'