My Dad Called Politics “Manafiki” by Austin Isikhuemen
He called it manafiki. That’s what he called politics. I was too young to understand at the time. That manafiki is not an English word. How could it be when my father, and some of his wise friends, used it after quaffing palm wine and sharing a joint of galleon – that filter-less cigarette that came in soft green packaging?
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He, my dad, Isikhuemen the son of Inegbedion, the son of Iluobe. You see, in my family, we also have the ‘and Iluobe begat Inegbedion who begat Isikhuemen who begat Augustine, the father of Ose’.
By the time I checked in my Michael West dictionary and realized manafiki was not there the old man had repudiated galleon and its smoke. Yet I found that it had fiddle diddie which said meant foolishness and nonsense!
Not quite sure it is the same as the one now called fiddle daddle in contemporary dictionaries and Google as that one’s definition can make the female folk ogle…
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My dad’s use of manafiki correlated with discussions of the political kind. There were things they just could not understand or farthom about the ways of the politicians and the game they played. It was so full of subterfuge.
Of feints and frauds. Of dribbles of the JJ Okocha style. Point with left and kick deftly with the right foot leaving opponents wishing they had not played that day. And didn’t Argentina give us Maradona which a wily gap-toothed militrician eventually acquired as his beloved sobriquet?
He dribbled so much and so effectively that before he realized it he had dribbled himself from Aso Rock in Abuja to the Hill-Top of Minna! Yet the crowd he thought he had cowed kept yelling ‘own goalllllll”. Such impudence. Such a reversal of roles.
The current foreplay in political masturbation brought that manafiki word to my memory. The politicians are at it again. How did 2Face who has metamorphosed into 2Baba put it? In his evergreen song that remains the most political of his great songs titled ‘E Be Like Say’, he sang, inter alia,
Looking back through all the years
That you and I have spent together
It seems like you’ve been playing me all the while
So many times, you asked to put the whole of my trust in you
So many times, you betrayed and played me for a fool
Why don’t we work together so the future would be brighter
Cos, ebe like you and I
We dey need each other all the time
All the time
Another year has come
And now you want my trust once more
Oh no
Chorus
Ebe, like say you want me to tell me another story again oh
(ebe like say)
Ebe like say you want to act another movie again oh
(ebe like say)
Ebe like say you want to code another coding again oh
(ebe like say)
Ebe like say you want to dance
Galala, na di new dnace
Again ni o
You want to sing another song again
(ebe like say)
Ebe like say you want to code
You want to code
See, all I want to say is that
They don’t really care about us
Because all they want to do is to get in touch with big bucks
Because they think the money gives them the power
But the power is nothing
If your people cannot get quality education
The power is nothing
If your people keep on dying of disease and starvation
The power is nothing
If your people have no peace (no peace)
The power is nothing
If your people cannot live in unity (yeah)
See, why do you keep deceiving the people, my brother, my sister
See, why do you make all this people to dey fight one another
Only God can judge you now (4x)
Another year has come
And now you want my vote once more
Oh no
Chorus
Ebe, like say they want to tell me another story again oh
(ebe like say)
Ebe like say they want to act another movie again oh
(ebe like say)
Ebe like say they want to do another deceiving again oh
Ebe like say you want to dance
Galala, na di new dnace
Again ni o
They want to sing another song again
They want to sing (2x)
Ebe like say they want to code
They want to dance
I dedicate this one to all of the shady politicians
Wey go promise and fail and make the people live in harsh conditions
I dedicate this one to all of the shady politicians
Why don’t you change your ways
Change your ways now
Make the people live the way they are supposed to live
E no be small thing o repeat
As you see me so
I no send, I no send you oh
All of the shady politicians
As you see me so
I no send, I no send you oh
All of the shady politicians
This 2Baba dictionary finally explained manafiki to me. After listening to those lyrics, I finally understood what my dad (who transited in 2010, God bless his soul) saw that could only be described as manafiki – a play on the word magic.
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Now manafiki is not only being played, but also alive and well. Even Professor Nwosu then as Chair of NEC, called it wuru and mago mago. Manafiki has evolved, in quantity and mutant variances as the players changed but the policy, remaining basically the same or worse after the change was promised, and the more we looked the less we saw! Should 2Baba not be paid royalties and crowned a prophet?
What are signs of manafiki manifestations as we prepare for the Nigerian 2023 general elections? They are many and so confusing. Even stupefying and leaving folks hopelessly unsure of a new deal docking on our shores soon. The same ailment yet the same prescriptions that never worked.
What is more, all those 2Face called ‘shady politicians’ are back in the trenches, plotting ‘open-dentially’ to deploy the same crude tools of yesteryears that have left the Nigerian voter pauperized. And do you know who is clapping and the most ardent cheerleaders in this manafiki? The serial victims themselves! How can it be manafiki without such contradictions?
The field is awash with all manner of aspirants many of whom deserve to be aspirated and thrown to a beautiful correction centre where their connections will cease to work. But that’s if the warder, not sure of his new title now, will stop legally allowing illegality in his domain?
Why would they when they notice the impunity of the ruling party which has been condemning PDP for 7 years and probably counting that as an achievement! Who is the National Chair of this touted anti-corruption party?
I hear it is someone who had been battling charges not unrelated to that mantra and the 7 figures quoted are too heavy for this small write-up by an amateur journalist of the social media hue.
One humorous but historically fecund mind has posted on the social media the epitome of what one can call a juxtaposition of incongruities. He demonstrated that almost all of the newly selected party office holders in the ruling APC are ex-PDP bigwigs!
Was this a coup de grace wrought through the Saraki Senate Presidency maneuver or a deliberate choice because those chosen hold the aces to election abada bidi? The second scenario seems more plausible and follows the 2Baba assertion that he dedicated the song to all the shady politicians.
I am sure you know that we all know he didn’t mean that they stay in the shade of trees! The party is using them and they are using the party to stay in the PMB line to avoid invitations to that high-rise office block at Lugbe in Abuja or the Awolowo Road, Ikoyi in Lagos.
APC knows they are scoundrels but useful ones all the same. They are practicing management by objectives. That is the way of manafiki. I also hear the PDP big shot is a long-term decamped! Only that he didn’t have issues with the anti-corruption czar.
How do you explain that a governor who has failed and couldn’t even pay salaries, the most basic of all mundane governor duties that even the holy books support, now running around on consultations after the declaration to run for President of this beleaguered country?
Failure as a qualifying criterion for running for President? That can only be in Nigeria. It worked last time. Surely, it could work if you stay in Abuja enough, abandoning your state to chase an Aso Rock damsel.
Getting footballers to be seen at the scene can be a vote-winning strategy here even though a similar youth maneuver with giggling and star-struck music star of de cocolet fame yielded the wrong result the last time it was deployed. Manafiki.
The new trend in town is hiring social media influencers, not to bring your qualifying characteristics and pedigree to the fore, but to do the most damage to your opponent’s character no matter how genuinely such was earned.
You should not be surprised to find the most rabid and vociferous of this group jumping ship as soon as his oga loses at the primaries. He could even join in sticking in the dagger deeper if he is a delegate and got a midnight “consultation visit’ by his protégé’s opponent. I will rather rename this class of social media abusers, using manafiki nomenclature as SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENZAS.
Part of the manafiki calculus is what makes a Wike to visit a Ganduje on his consultation tours to Arewadom. He was told point blank and to his face, by the under-fila dollar bullion van whom he had called out in the past that he would be a GOOD LOSER! Chai. Chai. That must hurt.
Not Wike, but his aides who know their jobs end soon, and another job for the Iroko of Niger Delta surely would be a huge respite. Wike is settled. And Ee Eff Sisi will leave him alone post office for several reasons. He has done well for his people; he can make uncomfortable and loud noises above permissible decibels if you touch or even contemplate touching him.
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You saw what he did to my amiable governor and deputy and how silence is suddenly golden at Osadebe Avenue? Then there are the empowered lords of the creeks waiting in the wings for any ‘baga’, in Waffi lingo, that is foolhardy to cross Wike.
Have you heard the other abracadabra of all? Where those who killed a victim are begging the same to graciously allow them to do his internment at a time and cemetery of their choosing! That GEJ that they told all of us in broad daylight using huge megaphones that he is clueless, should join them and be their presidential candidate! Lai Lai.
Lai must be saying, that this is the figment of the imagination of the opposition. But he forgets that he will be hiding himself behind one finger and using fig leaves to cover his nakedness because when a powerful delegation of the APC first visited GEJ, it was public knowledge. Which kain manafiki be dis?
I think they want to prove that their calling him clueless in 2014 was merited. Let us wait and see if they are right.
I could go on and on. Former serial decampees are deciding primary modes and outcomes in the two major parties. Former serial decampees are deciding primary modes and likely outcomes. But the politicians will not read this my intervention to the end.
Some are too busy plotting or scheming for relevance and that’s all there is to their manafiki ambition. Others do not even read at all. Dad was right about manafiki. It is alive and well. So, I will sign off using part of 2Face’s lyrics from his ‘E be like say’ song:
I dedicate this one to all of the shady politicians
Why don’t you change your ways
Change your ways now
Make the people live the way they are supposed to live
E no be small thing o
As you see me so
I no send, I no send you o
Campos Square – Lagos Island, 1st May 2022 – Austin Isikhuemen
Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.
