Relax, the Denuder Has Not Finished

By Okey Ikechukwu

To denude something is to remove the covering over it. In geography, that is physical geography, it refers to the natural process of weathering. Now, “what is weathering?” you might ask.

A piece of soft rock is likely to suffer much damage if you leave it in the open and rain beats it all day. The smooth surface will then not be so smooth anymore. Further exposure to rain, especially very long exposure, will see the stone getting smaller still. If this goes on throughout the rainy season, the stone will keep getting smaller, until it disappears altogether.

But what if there is some tough substance inside the stone which the rain cannot break down by its continuous impact? That substance is all that would be left after the rain has done its worst.

But lest we forget, it is not only water that is considered an agent of denudation in geography. Chemicals and abrasive objects and substances, too, have a hand in the matter; but our business here today is not geography; whether physical, human, or regional geography, no! but the subject matter of denudation comes in here because we are thinking of the denudation of values, the denudation of national character, and the denudation of any sense of shame and dignity in national affairs.

And this is now about the Federal Government, no! It is about us as a people today.

Just look around you today. Everyone, and everything is shocking you, is that not so? Are you not also shocking yourself, perhaps by some views you now express and also by some formally forbidden things you now do? Be honest about it, at least to yourself, no one is watching.

It is as if a barber is seriously at work, scraping everyone’s fine crop of hair and revealing the type of misshapen skull beneath the false reality. You are looking for men and women of integrity, right? You can’t find them, can you? But are you a person of integrity yourself? That is usually the unasked question.

The admirable miracle that the barber and hairdresser has made out of many coconut-shaped skulls is coming sunder. The head that would ordinarily put a lousy-looking calabash to shame because of its dreadful shape, but which got away with false pretensions at aesthetic appeal because of the barber and hairdresser, is now shorn of all frippery.

Every false reality will always have its duration and lifespan. The worshippers of fads, and of temporarily great men and women who will also eventually fall into oblivion, eventually run out of what to worship. That is when their true identity, their inner wretchedness, finally dawns on them; by which time it is often too late. Yes, they would then not be the right material for building a new order. Because, in truth, they never really believed in anything.

Most of the noisy twaddle of public office and imaginary invulnerability always eventually falls into inevitable oblivion. Those beholden to them are then confronted with something like the story of Ozymandias, for students of history and literature. The most venturesome political posturing are unravelling progressively everywhere. Even the most afflicted today, as well as the winners of the moment, will not believe it if someone walks up to them and says: “More woes are headed your way yet”.

The triumphalism of many will yet unravel. Intimations of contrived political dominance will yet face further denudation. Because the shearer is here!

Every Shearer is actually nothing more than a barber. But his calling is the shaving of sheep wool in the field of animal husbandry. His capacity for unravelling the, sometimes scrawny, creature wielding a massive plume of hairy covering is an old and valued profession. As he is shaving, shearing, or crutching wool off a sheep, the object animal cannot escape having the true condition of its skin exposed.

The creature may have a sore or two beneath the plume of hair, or wool. It may have some rather untidy little bumps here and there. No one sees, or notices, any of these until the shearer gets involved. It is after the shearer’s job that the once impressive-looking creature turns out to be some scruffy piece of work in real terms.

And it is the same with the polity and politics today. The anonymity conferred by all manner of alliances, and tiles, all of which are coverings, has created a false reality that is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. An illusion, plain chimera. Nothing more!

A neuter that struts about with an identity that it actually does not possess. Untruth dressed up as something that has a name! Every sheep’s skin condition is progressively revealed for what it is, as soon as the shearer lays hands on it, takes it to the appropriate corner and puts his shears to work. Forthwith the unravelling comes in technicolor!

Because some animals with hidden defects usually get exposed and diminished after the shearer’s intervention, some sheep merchants, especially those with sheep of questionable doubtful credentials, would prefer that the shearing job will not be done in public if they had their way. Because once the shearer’s skills leads to the discovery of some irremediable deformity, endemic skin blemish or some underlying condition that was hitherto concealed by the mass of well-kept hair, it undermines the commercial value of its wool.

That is why the shearing, or barbing, season for woolen sheep keepers is also the season of cheap-value wool on the side and of cheap sheep meat. So, look around you, all over Nigeria, again today. Can you see the great unmasking everywhere? What is it that dominating elite thinking today? Is it the suffering of the people?

If you take a close look at the growing misfortunes of people in public office, the increasing calls for change by people who cannot change anything, you must begin to suspect that all is not well on all fronts. The youths are under pressure, as they are further inundated by wrong role models.

Now some people are talking about a new political order. Really? To be delivered to us by the very people who do not know that they expired long ago? People who have betrayed each other several times will come together, work together and then give us a better Nigeria? How old is every one of them? Which one of them would agree for the other to be president? Which of them is looking for a younger person to support and project? Just asking.

And the religious and economic elite, two major drivers of iniquity in the land, do not seem to be concerned at all. They see nothing, do nothing and say something; except when patronage for their members is the issue.  Many religious leaders, in particular, are caught up with faith racketeering. They pray, and are regular, at the events of the worst among the people. They bless the dishonest and thank The Lord for their wealth. They applaud huge spending and compulsive celebrations, as long as they are not left out of it. That is how far we have come as a people.

That is also why it is only those in the thick of all the scramble and other beneficiaries of other fallouts, that are still ecstatic in every sense of the word. They are all moving around accompanied by massive security paraphernalia in a fundamentally insecure environment. Their contrived security infrastructure gives them the illusion of safety amidst bandits, terrorists and bombs.

We are on a slow and painful climb to a new day. The climb will get faster shortly. as the winnowing proceeds apace.

The Shearer is at work here. Make no mistakes about that! He is quietly, mercilessly, unrelentingly and meticulously shaving off the headful of hair that has been concealing the true driving spirit behind the orientation of many members of political elite today. We are seeing what fellow phenomenological ontologist and existentialist, Martin Heidegger, called the “progressive un-concealment of the profanity and sham wisdom that has been cloaked in solemnity.”

The Shearer, which is actually Providence by another name, still has much work to do here. We are being given many opportunities to learn and change through sufferings and recognitions. It is all part of a Relentless Unmasking. We are heading for the chilling un-concealment of the hitherto familiar. We are also seeing that the familiar is sometimes not really known for what it is. We are heading for the midday of frightening insights. No more heroes, no role models and no moral exemplars. The reality of the real is the issue now!

The barber is at work. More shocks are heading this way, especially given the reflexes of those who are at different levels of responsibility over the lives of others. We are now like recalcitrant students. That is, students who can only learn the hard way.

The events in Rivers State are as real as the Midday Sun. the denuder has not yet finished. Many may not recover again politically from the current events. Many who recover will hold ashes in their hands, instead of victory.

The barber is still here and still very busy. So, we are clearly on course. A bumpy ride is still a ride. The shearer is not yet done here. Enough said.

Quote

Just look around you today. Everyone, and everything is shocking you, is that not so? Are you not also shocking yourself, perhaps by some views you now express and also by some formally forbidden things you now do? Be honest about it, at least to yourself, no one is watching.

It is as if a barber is seriously at work, scraping everyone’s fine crop of hair and revealing the type of misshapen skull beneath the false reality. You are looking for men and women of integrity, right? You can’t find them, can you? But are you a person of integrity yourself? That is usually the unasked question.