Anthills of the Savannah (3 page)

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 truckpushers of Gelegele Market marching up here tomorrow to see me. They are just as loyal. Or the very loyal marketwomen’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 everyone 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.

W
HAT 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.