By  Muhammed Adamu
Yes, now that Reuben Abati, Jonathan’s erstwhile Media Adviser, is on the menu, again, maybe we should do some reminiscing on a familiar recipe -the Abati attention-seeking industry. Shortly after his Principal left office,

Reuben was the one who soon got bizarrely nostalgic about the trappings of power. He wrote a piece complaining about his phone no longer ringing, -again. It was his crafty way of letting us know how powerful he was in the Jonathan corridors of power; and that although he was not a cabinet member in that government, he was right in the other inner, more exclusive cabinet, the Jonathan ‘kitchen cabinet. And he got all the thumbs-ups and the thumbs-downs that he deserved.

But then from plain nostalgia for the sweet nectar of political power, Reuben Abati soon drifted into eerie melancholy of a superstitious kind. He now wrote another piece telling us how those same corridors of power were in fact bewitched –or is it animated- by a potpourri of ghoulish spirits, none of which, he said, ‘worketh for good’ to advance good governance. This time it was Abati’s crafty way of excusing Jonathan’s mis-governance, and especially the mind-numbing corruption that went with it. But the spirits of Aso Rock must have gotten really angry –being busted by a nosey Abati. This week I serve you a piece I wrote six months ago in reaction to Reuben Abati’s silent phones. It was titled ‘Abati: Now a hero, now a bore’(08/06/16). Enjoy it.

ABATI: NOW A HERO, NOW A BORE

Reuben Abati

By Mohammed Adamu

Back in my final year (1987) in the University of Sokoto (now UDUS) I loved my ‘African Fiction Class’, with the heavily-accented Indian lecturer Mrs. Jayagovind who was yet superb in handling the milieu of cultural themes inherent in African novels; and my ‘Soyinka Class’ with amiable, easy-going MJ Yahya who ensured a no-holds-barred class on the playwright’s usually inane and gaudy phraseology. And then my ‘Shakespeare Class’ with the melodramatic Dr. Sanyal who groomed me enough to brave the only Project topic on Shakespeare which he supervised.  Outside the class I also visited the Students’ Common Room regularly to read ‘Newswatch Magazine’s quartet of Dele Giwa, Yakubu Mohammed, Dan Agbese and Ray Ekpu. These writers mastered the use of metaphors and figures of speech. Plus I would not miss ‘The Guardian’s famous 3-Piece opinion Page in which gladiator-writers tried to prove a thing or two about the art of writing.

And so when, in 1989 as a cub reporter for a local Paper ‘Newsline’, a piece I wrote titled ‘You Too Can Write’ made it to that Guardian page, I had felt almost like a Laureate already. ‘You Too Can Write’ was my magnum opus –of sort- conveying the excitement of a rookie-writer who, though still draped in diapers, was yet daring to be didactic about a delicate subject matter. Surprisingly my favorite gladiator then, Reuben Abati, youngest member of the Guardian’s Editorial Board, did a reply to my piece with a rhetorical title: ‘Who Is Afraid Of Writing?’ Abati put an expert touch to the subject and wisely cautioned that the art of writing was neither for the timid nor for the fainthearted. But the big one was that he described my writing as ‘mellifluous’ and said that with a debut like that ‘a rich harvest’ of writing awaited me.

For an idol I had hoped someday I could proudly brag ‘we chew the same tobacco’, such early plaudit from Abati in fact already brought a whiff of that tobacco right up to my nose. I clutched that approbation like an athlete would an Olympic gold medal. And so once thereafter when Abati went epigrammatic and wrote a humorous piece titled, ‘The Grammatologist’ (The Guardian 04/02/93) –making a jest of a self-styled ‘professor’ whose highfalutin use of the English language tormented neighbors-, I felt a compelling obligation (now a proud Concord’s Abuja Correspondent) to share in Abati’s laughter by replying with the title: ‘The Grammatologist Revisited’ (The Guardian, 04/26/93.). In it I offered even more laughable jargons and some gobble-de-gook strictly to titillate the linguistic fancy of our readers.

ABATI’S WHITEHOUSE

Four years later (1997) after I had become African Concord Magazine’s Abuja Bureau Chief, Abati, after a trip to the U.S., wrote a piece titled: ‘At the White House’ (The Guardian, 06/27/97) in which he celebrated a visit to that country’s seat of power, narrating how he was pleasantly surprised that it required only obtaining a ticket and a little patience on the queue for ‘tourists’, ‘voyeurs’ and ‘fun seekers’ to visit the White House. Apparently it was Abati’s first visit to a ‘democratic seat of power’, where the President, being truly the ‘lengthening shadow’ of the people who elected him, has no reason to be wary of them. And for my literary icon Abati who said that all his life he had “never been inside any executive mansion”, and that coming from where a jackbooted Abacha  held sway in Aso Rock guarded by guns, canons and mortars, his experience at the White House was a ‘breath of fresh air’.

Abati said that while at the White House he saw neither soldiers nor hidden cameras “peering” or “preening” and that over there in America the President, being “merely a tenant” put there by the people, is public-spiritedly obligated to be modest even in the all-important duty of filling the proportions of his own defense. My literary living legend, Abati lamented the disgusting situation back home in his country –Nigeria- where the “Chief Occupant” of Aso Rock then, Abacha lived virtually “behind walls and barricades”. In fact Abati radically sermonized about the measure of modesty and the well-nigh servile humility expected from those who are privileged to occupy democratic seats of power.

And you bet, in my usual apish limp –often merely in reverent but base imitation of my literary idol, I soon did a satiric reply to Abati’s piece which I titled: ‘On Reuben Abati’s White House’ (The Guardian, 07/21/97) –in which I lent my senior colleague a couple of Ali-jabs –if you like- at the effigy of our common enemy, Abacha. The Tiv people have a phrase which they use as a rallying call to brotherhood: ‘amgbian gbegha’ they would say, meaning: “brother never falls” or “brother is never wrong”. The good Tiv will defend a brother to the hilt against foes and he needs not have to know if the brother was right or wrong in the first place. But my fraternity was of the pen! And so I rallied to help a colleague ‘Abati’ to pummel a brother ‘Abacha’ because I believed that ‘ink’ was thicker than ‘blood’.

And so in a caustic, satiric tone of voice intended to deride Abacha I said: “If the U.S. makes a pennyworth of the White House by allowing tourists, voyeurs and fun seekers” go in, Abati should get it right into his inky journalist head that Abacha’s Aso Rock was “for serious business” and for serious-minded occupants. And that since the ‘serious’ cannot go hand in hand with the ‘ludicrous”, Abati should perish the thought that where “geniuses and thinkers brainstorm” should be let cheaply ajar for the routine visitation of every Adamu, Jegede and Chibuzo or Eka’ite! And I said that what Abati should be suggesting was the mounting of four signboards at each of the four approaches to Aso Rock -one warning: ‘GENIUSES AT WORK! DO NOT DISTURB!’; another informing: ‘YOU LIVE BECAUSE WE THINK!’; a third pledging: ‘FOR YOUR TOMORROW WE GIVE OUR TODAY’; and then the last one at the main entrance warning: ‘NO ADMITTANCE TO INSANITY BEYOND THIS GATE!’

I told Abati in no uncertain terms that as “geniuses meditating in solemn and serene solitude”, making “the pleasure of their countrymen their chief pursuit”, members of the ‘Vigil of thinkers’ inside Abacha’s Aso Rock could ill-afford the unnecessary distraction Abati was suggesting; and that in fact the reason America could “afford cheaply to open the gates of the White House for the visiting whims of scum buckets” was that “over there that is exactly what government is all about: namely public relations”; -and which is why “nothing works domestically in the U.S. except the management of queues at public relics whenever the Reubens of this world go visiting!

But in retrospect, the irony was that my satire lampooning Abacha –a “mere tenant” of Aso Rock bent on being ‘landlord’, seemed after all to be a laugh more at Reuben Abati’s ‘democratically elected’ Jonathan who in addition to living behind thicker “walls and barricades”, was guarded by more ‘guns, canons and mortars’. And I said that Jonathan, in addition to not ever opening the ‘democratic seat of power’ for the visiting pleasure of  ‘tourists’, ‘voyeurs’ and ‘fun seekers’, had in fact once declared publicly that there was ‘no vacancy’ in Aso Rock. I shudder to think that this same Administration –Jonathan’s- was served mind, body and soul by my idol Abati, who, for four years had not the slightest scruple playing the Devil’s advocate and the agent provocateur for the most corrupt, regressive, anti-people government Nigeria has ever had.

POSTSCRIPT

And  because in spite of Abati’s weightless fall, I am still enamored of his iconic past, I still find myself rummaging even in the garbage heap of history’s moral devils, for reasons to justify Abati. In fact I thought that may be Rueben had found logic at last in the advocacy of Huey Long who said that “The time has come for all good men to rise above principles”. And that Reuben Abati had willfully decided to rise above principle by accepting to justify Jonathan. So that everything that once went around suddenly now came around; -proving again that those who forget history are most definitely condemned to repeat it. But for Abati, the situation is even worse than being part of ‘repeated history’. Rather it is being on the wrong side of that history –especially now that the roll is called, of those strictly un-sullied of hands, to lend their goodness in molding for Nigeria, a great future.

Now how can your phone ring Abati, when the call is neither to ‘good men’ who have risen ‘above principles’, nor to yesterday’s ‘heroes’ who suddenly have become bores?

RE- ‘MUSDAPHER: THE VOICE NOT HEEDED’

+2348035660353:- Since the illegal and unconstitutional invasion of our respected judges’ homes, many columnists, including those who were staunch supporters of this government without a human face, have condemned  this illegal affront on the Judiciary, -which is one of a tripod on which democracy stands. PMB is gradually undermining this revered institution. I am surprised that you seem to be justifying this dictatorial action by your tacit support  in your first and second articles on this subject. From Jacob Benin City.

+2348023032899:- Just read your article on Justice Musdapher. He was a jurist per excellence. He was passionate about the judiciary; but time was not on his side. When our best judges who are still fit have to retire, credibility, dignity, standard and quality are lost. These are what our Judiciary lacks at the moment. –Bar. J. Akande