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Baba Kadiri ,
Kudos! The coronavirus issue is serious enough and we should be more concerned about how to fight it in Nigeria, but let’s leave that for a moment.
In the good old days of corporal punishment in our part of Colonial West A-free-ca, the motto was “spare the rod and spoil the child!” Sadly, after so many civil wars and the destruction of the normal social order, the consequent destruction of the natural order of authority due to war, child soldiers and other social disorders, whole societies turned upside-down, all some of the elders and Babas can do now, is pray, and weep and sing this kind of hallelujah, in nostalgia,
“There was a time, when peace was on the earth,
And joy and happiness did reign and each man knew his worth
In my heart how I yearn for that spirit's return
And I cry, as time flies,
Om, Om “
Baba Kadiri, it has come to our notice that “spare the rod and spoil the child” is exactly what you have been doing for quite some time now, i.e. you never miss an opportunity to castigate/spank/trash your eternal object of opprobrium, namely your bad boi, Don Kperogi the intransigent. I guess it would give you more than visceral satisfaction, if only you and all of us would or could hear Kperogi hollering from the smarting in pain caused by your sadistic drubbings, all conducted, only verbally of course, and in the national interest.
In the good old days, you would also get the well-earned satisfaction of a duty, in this case a national duty well done, if it were to have produced the necessary reform in your subject, the mandatory, “ Ai baig pardon Sah”, maybe him laying his belly flat on the ground, hands extended to reach for your feet, words of remorse, words of sincere repentance and a firm promise to never criticize Muhammadu Buhari again, not as long as he lives. In the good old days just a dozen strokes of the cane on a nearly- bare bottom would extract that kind of commitment , for at least as long as the pain lasted or could be remembered with a feeling of “ never again” (Like Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s public flogging of political prisoners and journalists, sometimes also having some of his citizens flogged in a public stadium, for coming adultery or fornication) - and drinking (intoxication)
I’m told that in some non-fictional African country, the dictator-president would send his security agents to apprehend the unfortunate journalist who had written” something” about him. They would eventually throw the unfortunate journalist at the foot of Mr. President’s throne, and there the unfortunate journalist would remain huddled in a heap, not daring to move until he had to move a little involuntarily when he heard Mr. President asking him harshly, “You wrote that rubbish about me?”
The unfortunate journalist would then move slightly, pretending to be in more pain than he really was in, and hoping that he was sounding as contrite as possible when he said, “Pa, please forgive me, I beg you in the name of the Most Merciful God Almighty. Sir, it was not me, I was drunk when I wrote what I wrote.”
Baba Kadiri, how do you defend yourself against the charge that no matter how extreme, detailed and punctilious Don Kperogi’s criticism of Mr. President and any of his perceived shortcomings, you can’t accuse your Don Kperogi of un-Nigerian activities, although perhaps his non-stop criticism of his motherland could be viewed in certain quarters as “ un-American activities” to the extent that an exasperated Brer Trump could ask him why then don’t you go to your s-hole country and fix things there, instead of complaining ad nauseum from the precincts of Atalanta, Georgia?
Don Kperogi has already told us how he would respond to Trump requesting that he go lead the revolution in Nigeria: “Buhari’s agents are planning to assassinate me”
Baba Kadiri, now to the main point. I’m disappointed. You lambast your culprit, “the misanthropic logorrhoea”, strong words, but in the final analysis, could you accuse him of being treacherous or treasonous? Misanthropy and loquaciousness are not in themselves political crimes, or are they?
If you are serious you could fill out the charge sheet with all the crimes and misdemeanours that you believe Don Kperogi has committed and sue him in court - Fela’s African court if you will – on behalf of whoever – Buhari, the APC, Nigeria, the Africa Union., the US-Africa DialogueTo view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM5PR06MB29247FE9C182AF7AECCA544CAEC20%40DM5PR06MB2924.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.
Baba Kadiri!
You know the proverb,” Let the fool speak and the wise give no answer”?
I learned that from my mother’s mother. She used that proverb of Solomon whenever she wanted to stop or kill an argument or a conversation. It’s a very effective way of saying “Shut up!”
Consider V.S. Naipaul: The Mimic Men. See what has happened to those whose minds were colonised by the English Language, especially if that language was acquired (like Joseph Conrad) a little later in life. That’s why this is the most interesting topic to appear in this forum, for a very long time. It’s RICH! Even I have some profound first-hand insights and understandings about my niche.
So His Holiness the Pope doesn’t pray to the Almighty in the Peter Okwoche type of BBC English. Does it matter, frightfully?
Here’s a list of people who are dyslexic. The ones I know are often very artistic and competent in many other ways, even mathematics…
The pronunciation that some of the pedants would be looking for in song, well just check out Dylan asking the night-watchman “Is it me or him that’s insane?” or” Is it me or him that’s in sight?”
I can give a few dozen examples of this kind of thing with Dylan and Mick Jagger. And Faust. And and...
A South American friend was listening to someone doing a cover of early Tabu Ley doing their old hit “Paquita” with Dr. Nico there on lead guitar ( what Nico did was transfer a simple piano riff to the guitar) anyway, about the vocals, Tabu Ley / Seigneur Rochereau thought he was singing in Spanish, but it didn’t sound so Spanish, not even to a Cuban ear…
This constant bickering, Kperogi said this, Kperogi said that, is getting to the point where any psychologist that witnesses this endless tittle-tattle from you, could easily diagnose an obsession. More correctly speaking, it’s known as Obsessive-compulsive disorder ( OCD). Please correct me if I’m wrong. It seems to me that other people may be addicted to e.g. big booty, coffee, marijuana or something stronger, but our Baba Kadiri is addicted to Farooq Kperogi.
Don Kperogi knows how to push Baba Kadiri’s button. Don Kperogi doesn’t (hasn’t) claimed any prophetic powers, nor is it fair to diagnose him as Baba Kadiri has done, so unjustly, in the name of libel and slander, claiming that the brother is “a schizotypal person “; nor has Don Kperogi claimed any “extra-sensory powers” or that he is “able to read minds” – unless by “minds” or “ other minds” Baba Kadiri is referring to e.g. Chidi’s poetry, or “the Gospel according to John” because, for sure, Don Kperogi is not a solipsist.
But I believe that there are some things that I can predict with an almost 100% certainty : That the sun will rise tomorrow and that all Don Kperogi needs to do is make sure that the name “ Buhari “ is featured prominently in the next headline of his Notes From Atlanta - and therefore expect a Pavlovian reaction from Baba Kadiri. In other words, Baba Kadiri’s interest is whetted by whatever Don Kperogi writes, and that interest is particularly whetted by any reference to Baba Kadiri’s beloved President Muhammadu Buhari. That 's guaranteed. Perhaps, equally guaranteed, an instantaneous reaction if unexpectedly tomorrow’s Notes from Atlanta headline contained the name “Mrs Salimonou Kadiri” – in which case, Don Kperogi had better be very careful, because that could be causing him plenty of trouble; Already in Heaven, any Professor with a long or only a short string of pearls behind his name shouldn’t want to see his dead body floating down the River Thames, or would he?
This pronunciation bug! The Sephardim chuckle about what they see as Ashkenazi mishandling the correct pronunciation of the Holy Tongue! You hear some American rabbis reading Hebrew with a distinct American accent ( like John Wayne) , others with a pronounced Yiddish accent. Fact is the Almighty understands anyway. Call his servant Abraham or Ibrahim, Moshe, Musa or Moses, call him Yehoshua or Jesus, call him David or Daoud, Solomon or Suleiman. No problem.
So, Dear Baba Kadiri this is another way of looking at it: I see Professor Kperogi as the new normal. President Buhari’s speeches are subject to all kinds of tests in Doctor Kperogi’s language laboratory. President Buhari’s every utterance in Nigeria’s Official language, provides the documentary evidence which has to be analysed in his laboratory which specialises in collecting living specimens of Nigerian English and records Naija’s deviations from Her Majesty’s Buckingham Palace standards. Have you taken some time off to look through his magnum opus : Glocal English: The changing face and forms of Nigerian English in a global world ?
For all we know, he is working hard, collecting first-hand material for an addendum to this book, some new subchapters on the new Naija political jargon which is not standing still, you know; just this year the 29 Nigerian English words which have been added to the Oxford Dictionary will have to be incorporated in Oga Kperogi’s next big book. Offhand, I can think of more than a dozen Naija English words and phrases that are even more deserving of being included in the Shorter Oxford.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CY4PR06MB2919CC1DB68A4BCCB6C354C4AEC30%40CY4PR06MB2919.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.