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“No no no! I d
on’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.
WHAT 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.
“Fine. What would you make of such intelligence?”
The Attorney-General was perched on the edge of his chair, his left elbow on the table, his neck craning forward to catch his Excellency’s words which he had chosen to speak with unusual softness as if deliberately to put his hearer at a disadvantage; or on full alert on pain of missing a life and death password. As he watched his victim straining to catch the vital message he felt again that glow of quiet jubilation that had become a frequent companion especially when as now he was disposing with consummate ease of some of those troublesome people he had thought so formidable in his apprentice days in power. It takes a lion to tame a leopard, say our people. How right they are!
As he savoured this wonderful sense of achievement gained in so short a time spreading over and soaking into the core of his thinking and his being like fresh-red tasty palm-oil melting and diffusing itself over piping hot roast yam he withdrew his voice still further into his throat and, for good measure, threw his head back on his huge, black, leather chair so that he seemed to address his words at the high, indifferent ceiling rather than the solicitous listener across the table.
Suddenly suspicious like a quarry sniffing death in the air but uncertain in what quarter it might lurk the Attorney-General decided to stall. For a whole minute almost, he stood on one spot, making no move, offering no reply.
“Well?” His Excellency was stung into loudness by the other’s delay and silence. He was also now sitting bolt upright. “Did you hear what I said or should I repeat?”
“No need to repeat, Your Excellency. I heard you perfectly. You see, Your Excellency, your humble servant is a lawyer. My profession enjoins me to trust only hard evidence and to distrust personal feeling and mere suspicion.”
“Attorney-General, I sent for you not to read me a lecture but to answer my question. You may be the Attorney but don’t forget I am the General.”
The Attorney-General exploded into peals of laughter, uncontrollable and beer-bellied. Through it he repeated again and again whenever he could: “That’s a good one, Your Excellency, that’s a good one!” His Excellency, no doubt pleased with the dramatic result his wit had produced but not deigning to show it, merely fixed a pair of immobile but somewhat indulgent eyes on his Attorney-General, patiently waiting for his mirth to run its course. Finally it began to as he took the neatly-folded silk handkerchief out of his breast-pocket and dabbed his eyes daintily like a fat clown.
“You will now answer my question?” said His Excellency in a slightly amused tone.
“I am sorry, Your Excellency. Don’t blame me; blame Your Excellency’s inimitable sense of humour… To speak the truth, Your Excellency, I have no evidence of disloyalty on the part of my honourable colleague.” He paused for effect. But nothing showed on His Excellency’s face. “But lawyers are also human. I have a personal feeling which may not stand up in court, I agree, but I hold it very strongly and if Chris were here I would say it to his face. I don’t think Chris is one hundred percent behind you.”
