Honeymoon is over?... More like an unconsummated marriage
Elizabeth Ohene
Even Zsa Zsa Garbo averages better than three months and yet there was Chief Nzeribe actually saying the honeymoon was over at the solidarity carnival which was supposed to celebrate the union between the FMG and the people of Nigeria. How can you say the honeymoon is over at the nuptial ceremony?"PERHAPS Nigerians in Britain failed to express their support for the Buhari regime because the new military rulers are not as popular now as they were on the morning of the coup that brought them into power" page 21, National Concord 14th March 1984. Strange, very strange indeed.
The front page of the same issue carried a report that Dele Giwa, the hard- hitting Editor/columnist of the Sunday Concord had been promoted upstairs. According to Chief M. A. Abiola the Chief Executive of the Concord, Dele Giwa's move has no sensational overtones, it is simply an executive exercise. It obviously had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that, the move coincided with Chief Abiola's first public meeting with the Chief of Staff, Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon nor even with the fact that Dele Giwa himself had been called to meet Brigadier Idiagbon, the same morning.
As Chief Abiola put it most succinctly, when a member of government calls you, it is only right that you extend him the courtesy and go. What was not immediately clear was whether Dele Giwa had the courtesy of being invited or was ordered. But then of course, it is inconceivable that Giwa would appreciate any sympathy from the likes of the present writer.
His undoubtedly well-deserved promotion had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that in the past few weeks, he has been finding critical themes in his column and been pointing out flaws in the actions and pronouncements of the new military rulers.
In much the same way as it will be naive to suggest that his questioning of the methods by which the editor of The Tribune had been invited to pay a social call on the authorities could have remotely contributed to his promotion. After all, what could be wrong with armed soldiers descending on the home of the editor of The Tribune at dawn and so discovering that he was absent, turning their attentions on to his wife and trying gentle persuasion to get her to go with them to pay the visit on behalf of her absent husband? That will teach the unchivalrous man of an editor to sleep away from home and leave his wife and small baby to the tender mercies of armed dawn visitors!
One has heard of short-lived honey-moons and in some cases, divorces have been filed even before the expiry of the honeymoon period but surely it is preposterous to suggest that the honeymoon between General Buhari and his friends and the people of Nigeria represented by the media is over already?
Even Zsa Zsa Garbo averages better than that and yet there was Chief Francis Nzeribe actually saying so last weekend in London at the solidarity carnival which was supposed to celeb- rate the union between the Federal Military Government and the people of Nigeria. How can you say the honeymoon is over at the nuptial ceremony? And yet there was the National Concord report, quite calmly saying that "the new military rulers are not as popular as they were on the morning of the coup".
It is sounding increasingly as an example of the type of marriage that annoys the Roman Catholic Church no end; the type that if the church has any reasons to suspect, she would refuse to sanction in the first place and ensure it does not take place - unconsummated marriage. If the priest has reason to suspect that the two parties cannot consummate their marriage, the church. will refuse to conduct the ceremony.
Recently in London, there was a great to-do about a case in which the church was said to have refused to conduct a church wedding to a couple because the priest felt that the marriage could not be consummated - the groom was crippled from the waist down. No point in going into the details of the hullabaloo now, except to say that the couple finally did get their church wedding even if an entirely titillated public never got to know how the couple managed to convince the priest that the marriage could be consummated. The church statement that a health certificate had helped in changing their mind served only to confuse people even more.
The only reason for mentioning this is to illustrate that bizarre though the ways of the church might seem at times, there is some point to some of their rules.
Seeing the church frowns on divorces, what is the point in entering into a marriage where the honeymoon will be over even before the flowers in the bouquet wilt?
In the attempt to demonstrate just how ideal a partnership there could be between the military and the people, many commentators have gone to great lengths to accentuate what they see as the positive and sweep the negative under the carpet.
Nigerians have dealt with the mili tary for years and the Western nations were urged to make a distinction be tween their idea of murderous military dictatorships and the Nigerian version of military regimes.
The battles against the military in the 1970s that finally led to their 'handing over' power in 1979 were conveniently forgotten. 'Corrupt politicians' replaced 'corrupt men in uniform' as the targets of popular contempt.
It is said that when a man or a woman, for that matter, wants to get married, there is no stratagem he/she will not resort to, for, all is fair in love as in war. How many women have not lived to rue the day when they were taken in flower, bearing, music loving, attentive and passionate young men who swore never to leave them for a day hing courted only to find as grass-widows that spend their nights waiting for the sound of footsteps.
The military will put order in public life and put an end to ostentatious and extravagant consumption of wealth - guaranteed to woo over the most reluctant maiden, especially one in the dire straits that Nigeria has been. No wonder the bride was in such unseemly haste and was willing to dispense with like. the publication of banns and all. Infact she did not even feel outraged that her swashbuckling groom had violated her without as much as asking for her hand.
But here comes the Chief of Staff Brig. Tunde Idiagbon paying what is termed as a 'working visit' to his state of origin - Kwara.
A Mercedes Benz saloon car (the primary symbol of conspicuous consumption) with registration number SHQ I (Supreme headquarters 1) is FLOWN from Lagos to Ilorin especially for the visit of the Brigadier. One wonders whether SHQ II was otherwise engaged or whether there is a special significance to the SHQ I being sent for the 'number two man'.
How very soon people forget the vows they make when they are courting. Whatever can one say now about the civilians and their ways.
It is not just a case of one part not living up to his promised role, it is a case of both sides not having a clear idea of what their partners really are
In the first heady days, the military rulers did not seem to be able to have enough of the adulation from the press or maybe they made the mistake of taking the virtuperations being poured on the ousted Shagari regime as praises for them, and the press assumed that the politicians in uniform will not dare treat them like new recruits.
But both sides were sadly wrong, soldiers cannot change in much the same way as journalists dare not change, if both are to live up to their expectations. The Victorian age editor, Frederick Greenwood has not been improved upon: "to suppose that in any country, the influence of the press was ever a delight to the government would be a complete mistake. It is a rival influence. Its natural basis is no respecter of persons. Its business is criticism. Its natural sphere of operation lies between government and people with bearings upon both and a particular solicitude to please and benefit the latter.
The press is sometimes a nuisance to ministers and because it preaches triumphantly from imperfect information, at other times, because it discovers too much of the truth and makes in convenient exposures of neglect, error, fraudulent pretence and false principle. How then should it be loved by those who suffer from the operations?”
And some people actually were thinking of a blissful marriage? More like a case of incompatibility.
