FEBRUARY 16 AND THE CYPHER
Chuks Iloegbunam writes why the Cypher is not electable
The Cypher is said to wish that his “cold and iron” dispensation is revalidated on Saturday February 16, 2019. It cannot be realistically stated that, deep down, he really and truly yearns reelection. He is not there. It can only be repeated what those behind the Mask have put out: that the Cypher covets a second term of office! This is the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English’s third ordinary meaning of Cypher (also spelt as Cipher): Zero.
Two questions are apposite: One, why does the epitome of Nothingness seek continued “leadership” over a country of nearly 200 million people? Two, why is there this insistent spectacle of a multitude salaaming Zero, positing him as the Mostest, and threatening that without his continued tenancy of Aso Rock, they would scatter the ground? The answers are blowing in the wind. But, before spelling things out for general benefit, another sentence or two on the theme of definitions.
The Cypher had a grand ride in 2015 because there was an avalanche of propaganda that blighted the sensory perceptions of those deserving of being exposed to the truth. The national swindle was orchestrated by a motley collection of the deceitful hypocrites. Things since changed. The taste of the pudding is in the eating. Or, as Nigerians put it in marriage register, after a sampling of spouses one is placed in an unimpeachable position to determine the better husband or better wife. Or, again, as Stephen Osita Osadebe, the late, great Highlife music superstar sang it, “You step forward, you retreat. You repeat the going forth and coming back. Then you decide for yourself which, between moving forward and backwards is the better option.”
The verdict is out there. People are fed up to the hairline with a government that is inchoate in character, nebulous in policy, callous in relating to the masses and encased in a veritable tissue of lies. People with conscience will never stop asking why more than 300 Shiites were massacred under the Cypher’s watch. This is a crime against humanity. People with conscience will never stop asking why IPOB agitators were buried by the hundreds in mire or put down by automatic gunfire. That is another crime against humanity. Are there not people today that consider themselves high but are liable to be docked at the International Criminal Court in the foreseeable future?
The greatest lament, though, is that the nation hurtles at a speed dangerously conjured by the force of Zero. Even Cypher’s wife went public to announce that the husband was not in charge. What could be more damning? What other testament could hold better accord with veracity, even if that truth currently appears only latent in certain quarters? In creative and serious settings someone mostly unaware of their circumstances cannot possibly be entrusted with the responsibility of climbing up or down a flight of stairs. People who put such a mentally disarticulated person up for national leadership do incalculable harm to humankind because the contingency of their success is not of their candidate stumbling to a broken neck, but one of reducing the entity to a tinderbox.
That is why the Cypher is not electable. That is why he is certain to lose the February 16 ballot.
To return to the two questions in paragraph two. The Cypher is not the one insisting on continued direction of the nation’s affairs. Incongruous Faces behind the Mask are responsible for the clearly avoidable calamity. If the Cypher stays, the Incongruous Faces get a fresh “mandate” for even wilder political excesses and further propagation of their ideological dubieties. Some of those shouting themselves hoarse at campaign stops and others restless with posting mendacity on the Internet cannot realistically believe themselves. Shame reduced a broad swathe of their kind to self-inflicted anonymity. Many of them are in it for the coins, reeling as they are from the remorseless pummeling of the prevailing hard times. One of them boasted that his family lived abroad and he owned an American passport that he always carried about. If a conflagration resulted from a terrible choice, he would hit the nearest airport and hop on the first available aircraft!
Some from the educated but uncritical fringe cite the prophecy that Cypher was incapable of lasting another four years, for which reason he should be retained on a post more complex than his faculties since he would sooner peg off for their own man to mount the saddle. Apart from being irreligious, their attitude is as senseless as hoping that an unserviceable aircraft with a drunk at the controls would make a trans-Pacific flight to deliver Eldorado. Besides, the proponents have not reckoned with the fact that senility is not the same thing as imminent demise. Cypher could outlive most of those expecting him to drop dead almost anytime.
At the last word, the fear is not the outcome of the presidential ballot. That one is settled. The mind-numbing fear is whether the umpire will not turn out to be wilful and, thus, announce other than the people’s verdict.