Every Village 4

In every village in Igboland there is at least one person who is an enigma. He has been in the village from birth. He probably has dared exposure and fallen and returned to the village with a hidden tag of a never-do-well. This sets his mind in motion to create a niche which education and exposure denied him. He is quick to present himself at all events in the village such that he could aptly be described as ubiquitous. His parentage is apocryphal being surely from concubinage between a widow and a man from next hamlet. It was acceptable in days gone by to have concubines who were widows. Contraceptives did not feature in our consciousness. It was even permissible for women to philander when their husbands outgrow their capacity to fulfill a woman’s desires, especially where such women were much younger than their husbands. In one village this was real. A son materialized after a husband joined our ancestors. There are multiples of this scenario in every village.

The visible socialite usually has no qualifications to brandish in his real name. His First School Leaving Certificate was stolen when its owner was temporarily inadvertent. It was coincidental that the certificate holder died young. A surname of his matched the surname of a charlatan. Rather than deliver the lost certificate to its owner the socialite ceased the advantage with his warped mind to claim the certificate. He had to change his first name and assume the middle name which the initials of a dead man bore. He could not make the grade to reach the examination in standard two of the forties and early fifties. But socialite is knowledgeable about all members of the community and their antecedents. He is versed in social rites of passage and the bits and pieces of ingredients in any and every ceremony. He knows what is taboo or abomination when it concerned third parties. But his homestead is rotten.

His sons are criminals. They have a craving to steal since their father thought nothing of stealing a certificate. One of his sons is a cross border criminal with a record of multiple exploits into neighbouring countries to target foreigners and bump them off when they have been tracked for a time as possible prey after studying foreigner’s banking habits. Socialite’s son would kill and cart away the loot and fly home to the village. His father, the socialite would receive the blood money with visible exultation. Projects would presently commence. Borehole is sunk. House is rebuilt with encroachment on communal property. Other peoples’ lands are ceased and used before awareness dawns on the expropriated. A fence renders complaint too tame to embark upon. Neighbours sulk in silence since the socialite is wont to shout invectives with in-depth knowledge of weaknesses of everyone. No one would want to enter a quarrel with someone privy of more facts that denigrate a challenger than is communally tolerable. Silence is only resort for the aggrieved as the socialite boasts of invincibility in the community.

Socialite is quick to buy title to enhance his image. The Eze of the autonomous community names his price and the socialite pays. What he could not get through education lands on his laps through lucre. Now with a higher perch, he rides rough shod on all the weak. With resources he persuades youth that there is no virtue in poverty. In the assembly of the people he rubs it in that nothing can work without the influence of money. He goes on buying out criminals from police detention to extend his sphere of influence. Nothing positive can issue from what is negative. Deliberate effort at achieving relevance without positive inputs into society cannot lead a subject to betterment. It must lead ultimately to damnation. It is not worth contemplating how wrong human spirits can be on account of lack of knowledge of the essence of life. The essence of life is love. Anything that detracts from love in any act is of evil. Anyone who steals the good name or property of anyone falls foul of Eternal Law. Anyone who pollutes creation with unwholesome volitions that tend to reduce the flow of joy and happiness is evil. Anyone who deliberately seeks undeserved relevance by hoodwinking others and coveting the property or good name of others is evil. Nothing good can issue from an evil volition.

Every village has Peoples Democratic Party members in large numbers. The party has acquisition of power as their main plank. Meetings do not discuss programmes and policies for betterment of the people. There is no discussion about failures of the system. The main issue in all meetings of the party is how to keep power or win it foul and fair. Usually the foul approach is adopted. Socialite in every village usually steps forward for consideration. He is the obvious choice in a milieu in which morality is beyond the radar of the party top-shots. Socialite moves into to be trusted with funds. His standing his community is negative for the wise but positive for the knit wits and the base and common thieves. The deviants and miscreants swell the ranks for the socialite and a semblance of relevance is acknowledged by party faithful. They in PDP are birds of a feather. They outwit one another and the wilier comes away smiling. People they are meant to serve pine away in drudgery, penury, want and disease and death. They are not one jot bothered about these. Socialite hoodwinks the party big wigs and corners some handsome some meant for purchasing voters and regards that sum as his share of spoils for which he had laid snares for a long time and got nothing. He buys no votes for his party. The party loses to a governor who paid nothing to his waiting electorate possessed of his credentials for caring for the common man. The party looses and socialite starts a building project with funds cornered from party tomfoolery.

Socialite opens a bar after hurried construction on a site expropriated by bailing criminals out of crime custody. Village folk have only land not cash. He finds land more worthwhile than cash. He quickly finds the site appealing and converts the land for the bail bond he signed on behalf of a member of family nabbed for a crime. He shares benefits of his intervention with police personnel and they rely on him to create the problems for them to make arrests and share some more. The drum beat repeats and our socialite continues to smile to his bank from day to day.

Soon he over-reaches himself and tramples upon a human spirit pleasantly aware of his density. He is stopped in his tracks and kept in his disgraceful corner of irrelevance. He shouts to high heavens about what he is going to do the silence his assailant and better and resorts to searching for flaws in his assailant’s character. Finding none he peddles rumours that fall flat on their faces. Impeccable credentials deny him followership or support. He pines away forlorn and defeated into his new bar to continue to preach his negative doctrines about path to affluence and influence. Youths improperly bred are his listeners. Occasionally one strays too far for redemption. One is hot by colleagues cheated out of proceeds from a kidnapping operation. The dead man issues from a family with a tradition of stealing by tricks. Inheritance of wrong traits becomes real. Volitions that are similar bring human spirits together here and in the beyond. A snake will for all time hatch some animal that is longer than its girth.

Socialite moves sharp to take positions in organizations in the village and angles for treasurer positions by remote control of key members. He knows no accounting and cannot keep records. He spends association money like it would go out of fashion were he to do otherwise. He maneuvers all attempts to bring him to account for funds left in his care. He sets people against themselves tactfully whenever accounting is on the cards. Years roll bye and the association descends into oblivion. He is quick to form another for the flimsiest of reasons usually bothering on diminishing relevance. Nothing good can issue from a premeditated intention to steal. 

The joy in this story is that every village has well formed people who could call a halt to this kind of socialite. Socialites hate to be deflated. When their image starts leaking through their fingers upon being deflated, they vanish out of view and operate in familiar haunts where their secrets are kept.  But it is only a matter of time before their cup is full and their false edifices come crashing. Their habitations are bound to become desolate in less than three generations. But their string of evil remains connected with them through eons of time as they grope in self-imposed darkness for some light which is for a long time denied them in the darkest places in hell meant for those who hurt humanity most with every hour of their lives on earth. Vermin with the names of socialites should be purged in all Igbo society if we are to make progress in replanting love to replace greed and avarice. It shall come to pass sooner than socialites think.