Dr. Ugorji Okechukwu and his Analysis on Gwo Gwo Gwo Ngwo

Life is full of many sides and narratives. There is no silver bullet to things and nothing has the attribute of omnipotence or omniscience. Things come in dimensions, very irredescent with no one stop shop approach. Nothing is too perfect not to have other sides of imperfection except it has not been subjected to critical thinking and analysis. 

Weeks ago an article Gwo gwo gwo ngwo: A dance of deception was written by me which many pirated. Several I tried to correct the mistaken attribution to Rufai Oseni  all to no avail. Even Rufai Oseni himself had to  put out a disclaimer to that effect, but those mischievous characters wouldn’t listen for whatever reasons they had up their sleeves. Why bother yourself with social media mischief maker one would reason.  But keeping mum over it, enlivens them and of course makes me an accessory  after the fact.

We should as a duty, at all times discourage piracy and plagiarism in whatever form or shape. These are deadly tools with which people’s intellectual properties are stolen barefacedly.

Listening to late Onyeka Onwenu on the negative impact of piracy on people’s intellectual properties I couldn’t but shade tears. It was that bad.

Dr. Ugorji in your piece on  “Gwo Gwo Ngwo: Jarlath Opara tried but missed the mark”, you tried to describe the four characters in that folklore, 1)The King’s Daughter 2)The King 3)The Totoise 4) The Elephant 5)The people.

I would with every sense of responsibility say,  you too missed the mark the more, trying to explain those characters. I intentionally circumvented those two characters in my former piece. I saw them as not  too important  characters to water dawn the perceptive of the story if they were not captured.

However, I admire your courage and  your mastery trying to use words to weave sense around their personalities .Unfortunately,  there were a lot of  storms that made the safe landing of your “gwo gwo gwo ngwo” flight not to land smoothly, though the crash wasn’t a terrible  one

KING’ DAUGHTER 

First, you described the King’s daughter as a price, linking her to the societal  notion of women being some sort of  bait for men’ supremacy tussle. I see that description however, innocuous your intention could be, not friendly to  the  image  of womanhood. Women are much more than a piece of price to be won by the male folks.

ELEPHANT

Your description of Elephant as our political class  unconsciously induced in me some comic reactions.  How can  the Elephant represents the political class? Deceived by the Tortoise under the guise of becoming the chairman of a big festival? When the intention of both the King’s daughter, the  King and the Tortoise were all known.

In  our  political history  our political class never played such a demeaning role of a  stooge, an object of public means of fun and recreation as was the intention of the King’s daughter ab -intio for requesting an Elephant. The Elephant wouldn’t been the political class.

THE KING 

For you the king was our electoral institution. In your words you asked:

“Who is the king in this context? Who, in the current reality of Nigeria, is in a position to confer power – political power? The answer is the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). You would think that the people would be the ones to confer power, but INEC is ultimately the entity that confers power” Dr. You will agree with me that it is not INEC rather the  Supreme Court. The Supreme Court inadvertently has usurped that role. So the King couldn’t have been the INEC.

TORTOISE

For you,  the tortoise was the master strategist,  who comes up with all manner of lies, tricks, intrigues etc to achieve its selfish intentions. You perfectly described it, but missed it when you attributed  his personality to that of journalists. Both in my piece and yours , who in Nigeria system has in relation to the  masses such deceptive character coloration? Certainly not the journalists. The Politicians of course. 

The on going protest of #Endbadgovernace was as a result of the deception of the political class and their habitual taking the masses for granted.

CONCLUSION

In my former piece I didn’t interpret the characters of the King’ Daughter,  the King and the voice re-echoing the Nnam enyi n’ aga anyi so gi n azu  gwo gwo gwo ngwo.

Now that you raised it, my thought on that gwo gwo gwo ngwo A deceptive dance  has not changed. I still maintain that descriptions I  made of both the Elephant and the Tortoise. The analogy remains  the closest to the deceptive nature of our political class to the masses.

The King is the rule of law, seeking for the best interest of all. The Daughter is the Nigeria system from the religious, cultural,  tribal, democracy, nepotic  etc dimensions, which of course can be as  complex as  the King’s daughter in being  selective and discriminative in selecting suitors according to the folklore.

See the kind of complex situations religious fanaticism, tribal bigotry,  nepotism etc have caused us, putting us in a fix, just like the King’s daughter put him.

The voice amplifying the “Enyi na aga anyi so gi n’ azu gwo gwo gwo ngwo” were  the political tugs of the  political class (Tortoise) already on the gullible  masses’ back,  driving  them to slavery of using religious fanaticism and tribal sentiments to hold them perpetually under them.

SIMPLY PUT IN CONTEXT

The King’s Daughter who represents  systems (religious,  tribal, cultural, nepotism etc)  After series of failures in selecting a suitor that would manage her nature without problems asked to have an Elephant ( The Masses) as a pet to ride on with good intentions anyway.

She saw the inalienable connection between the  people and her attributes. Without the masses there wouldn’t be tribe, religion and culture etc.  Who would get the masses? The Totoise ( Politicians) with their lies ,gimmicks, deceit etc it convinced the Elephant ( Masses) cashing in on their gullibility.

With such tricks,  it rode on the back of the masses to stardom,  influence,  affluence and fame, using the King’s daughter (Religion,  tribal sentiments/ bigotry, nepotism etc) To continue to hold unto the masses who become  slaves to him since him the Tortoise and the King’s daughter are now husband and wife.

Isn’t that what we experience in our  political space? When politicians after using us to get power, use religion, tribes etc to divide us so that we continue being at their beck and call. What happened during the last election if not exactly what played out between the Tortoise, the Elephant, the King’s daughter and the King himself.

Thanks Dr.ugorji for making me go this route, I never initially wanted to go. The power of engagement and critical thinking.

Jarlath Uche Opara Jarlathuche@gmail.com