"Cantankerous": The Word that Got the Late Prof. Ayagi a Job
Farooq A. Kperogi
"Cantankerous": The Word that Got the Late Prof. Ayagi a Job
Twitter:@farooqkperogi
When I worked in the Presidential Villa between the twilight of former President Olusegun Obasanjo's first term and the incipience of his second term, I was told the story, by a close Obasanjo aide, of how the late Professor Ibrahim Ayagi got appointed as chairman of the National Economic Intelligence Committee (NEIC) in 1999.
It was said that Obasanjo asked his close advisers to suggest suitable names for the position. They reeled out several names and mentioned their strong and weak points.
When they came to Ayagi, they said he was "brilliant but cantankerous." Obasanjo, who had never known or even heard about Ayagi, jumped up from his chair, interrupted the speaker, and asked, "Did you say he is cantankerous?"
The speaker answered in the affirmative and wondered why the president was particularly interested in that word. Then Obasanjo reportedly said, "I like cantankerous people! If he is brilliant and cantankerous, I want him. This meeting is over!"
Since I heard this story in 2002, I have always mentally associated the word "cantankerous" with Professor Ayagi whenever I encounter it. I don't know why.
When I read that Professor Ayagi died yesterday in Kano at the age of 80, I remembered the story again--and of, course, the word "cantankerous." Words do indeed matter.
May Professor Ayagi's soul rest in peace and in aljannah firdaus.
Kennesaw State University
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
Cornelius Hamelberg
Words do indeed matter. Some are habitually misused or misunderstood. In time, with time and varying cultural contexts, they may adapt local colouration and meaning. Those who are familiar with a wide range of poetry understand what I mean. Nor should we confine ourselves to precise dictionary meanings, because words can be more flexible/elastic than the connotative prisons in which you find them. Take the word cemetery, for example.
Obasanjo must have been rubbing his palms together happy with his own understanding of the word cantankerous, because no sane leader would like to work with a cantankerous somebody, especially not a smart & cantankerous military dude who would not want to obey orders. (Which does not mean to say that Egba Brother Obasanjo, a dear man of God, was or is insane.
In Jamaican English, “cantankerous” has a special ring of rebelliousness.
Autobiographies forward personal versions, mostly sell favourable versions of the gentle, righteous, humble self. Right now, thanks to the lockdown I’m reading Selected letters of D. H. Lawrence some of which reveal – surprise, surprise, elements of rabid anti-Semitism, directly from the horse’s mouth, undeniable self-confession. Words matter, that’s why we should be careful with what we say and understand what we are saying and to whom we are saying what we say. When the British Naval Commander says, “Make sure that you bring my daughter back home before midnight”, he means what he says. I’m talking from direct personal experience.
When it comes to the anecdotal, journalists, hagiographers, ritual disparagers, and those who compose, construct and circulate their biographical heresies sometimes forget or make their specious reports as if oblivious to a rule of thumb in the trade: Check and verify your sources. You just can’t go around believing everything that flies into your ear because it sounds good to your ears, not even in the Sierra Leone State House or in the dining room of His Excellency the Governor-General , considering that sometimes, he too or his wife, has an axe to grind, he, she have their own court favourites, fambul ( relatives) and are wittingly or unwittingly the target and victims of malicious talebearers, sycophants vying for favours such as promotions, appointments, in pursuit of which they are liable to cause grievous damage to the reputation of their potential rivals.
Check and verify your sources. John advises: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
According to Galatians 5: 20-23: “ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
In the Acts of the Apostles, there is this story with this punchline: “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?”
My favourite: “A member of one synagogue said to a member of another,
” Our wonderful rabbi talks daily with the Almighty!"
"How do you know?” asked the other man.
"He told me!"
"He might have been lying"
"Nonsense - the Almighty wouldn't daily talk with a liar!”
When I come across the expression “Weapons of mass destruction” I think of Colin Powell
Music: Samuel Coleridge Taylor
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Cornelius Hamelberg
“And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden “
( Gates of Eden )
He?
“I’m just average, common too
I’m just like him, the same as you
I’m everybody’s brother and son
I ain’t different from anyone
It ain’t no use a-talking to me
It’s just the same as talking to you”
As always, on the lighter side
(even during these coronavirus killer days)
Lady Day: He’s Funny that way
If you don’t have a sense of humour you had better be dead, not stone-dead and not brain-dead, just humour dead – because it takes brains to have a sense of humour or to perform as a clown or as a comedian. Just ask Richard Pryor what kind of English he spoke and the kind of temperament that he had. From the point of view of COINTELPRO’s J Edgar Hoover, Malcolm X and them niggers and rappers like Ol’ Dirty Bastard y’all were probably “Cantankerous” , if not outright, doggone rebellious Critical critters. Critical niggaz. J. Edgar Hoover was tone-deaf. Not musical. And funky? Hell no!
As always, it’s different strokes for different folks.
It’s not quite a Rorschach test, but it’s a fascinating game known as “word association” – you see a word or are presented with one and sometimes to your surprise you discover which other word spontaneously first jumps into your mind. Black and some folks will say “White” - others will shout “Power!” He hears “Fulani” and it’s like an obsession - the thinks, “Herdsman! “ For the English breakfast king, just mention “bacon” and he’ll come up with “ eggs” - for some Scot, say “Whisky “ and he’s spontaneously thirsty, he either wants to wet his throat immediately or first word is only pleasant memories and the taste of “Soda” like Bembeya Jazz: Whisky- Soda - or like the dogs we had in Sierra Leone, two mongrel cockerel Spaniels and their names were “ Whiskey” and Soda” (smile)
As always, first, back to basics. It’s simple: GOD hates arrogance
For me, from the very beginning of time, just whisper the word Vermin and up pops Hamelin
and these memorable lines by Browning from The Pied Piper of Hamelin :
“And as for our Corporation — shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine
What's like to rid us of our vermin!
Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.”
The cosmopolitan sees his fellow man and says, “Welcome, here’s one of us!”
Third World: Lagos Jump :
“Oiay, efusa, said Igbo man to me
Rasta messenger
You're welcome
Oiay efusa, said Igbo man to me
Rasta messenger
No problem
Lagos Jump, Lagos jumping
Lagos Jump, Lagos jumping”
If quite telling isn’t it, that in our little Open Society, our little Pan-African Parliament being hosted in cyberspace, one wimpy weepy member, our greatest orator - or so he thinks and like a dictator president of some imagined greatest African country, says to some other Honourable member, the greatest hatred : “ thou wretch - begone - I don’t want you here !” – you’re deported, persona non-grata; then I had better grab my Swedish passport and run or wish that I still had my British passport – because he speaks better Arabic than Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alaihi wa salaam, and like Muhammad Siddiq - that’s yours truly, he can quote a few dozen stanzas by heart from both the Quran and Milton, because believe you me, he’s not better than you, he didn’t jump down from some tree, yesterday, even if he repeats by rote, these words by Dr Alban,
“So why be shy
why be humble,
I just came straight out of the jungle”
Enough to make you tremble:
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives
This is just a recapitulation:
In Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s seminal Mesilat Yesharim ( The Path of the Just) in which the 26 chapters outline the steps to attaining holiness, ” The trait of humility” occurs as late as chapter 22 which begins with these words. “We already spoke earlier on the disgrace of arrogance, and by inference, we learned on the praiseworthiness of Humility. Let us now explain Humility in a more fundamental manner and arrogance will become clarified by itself. The general matter of Humility is for a person not to attribute importance to himself for any reason whatsoever. This is the exact opposite of arrogance and the effects that result from this are the opposite of those that result from arrogance.”