He sits down clutching a cushion as I tell him how I was hopeful that after my master’s degree, I’d be invited to teach. How I could have gone far in an academic career if not that nobody knew me and I did not know anybody who knew somebody at Nsukka to offer me a job. How, after several months of futile waiting, roaming the harmattan-laden streets of Nsukka, and yet nothing, I almost killed the idea of teaching, embittered, and then began to write about all the things wrong with this country.
“It was why I had made out time to come,” I say.
He says he had to do some research about me after he read my beautiful email and that he found and read some of my intelligent publications.
“Don’t worry further,” he says. “I’ll speak to the director of the public communication department about this and see what happens then. I think the department will give you the opportunity to inform Nigerians about government actions and policies.”
Afterward, we chat about our long-ago days at Nsukka: how time has gone so fast and how nothing much has changed about us over the years. When he sees my wedding ring, he says my husband must be a very lucky man. I think he is going to say something about his wife, perhaps the woman, but he does not. So I assume that he has never been married. He is just returning from the presidential villa, he says, where he and his fellow ministers were meeting with the Chinese and Benin envoys, which came visiting to discuss trade with Nigeria. “For hours! To serve Naija no easy o,” he says in Pidgin. “But politics is sweet, Ruby. E sweet die.”
He was doing very well back in Canada, he tells me, before he decided to engage himself in politics. How he came to join Nigerian politics has never been a subject of wonder to me. Who will not suppose that his uncle, a top, old-generation politician, had whisked him into it?
After catching up, he asks me to feel comfortable. “Let me attend to the ministers who came home with me, I’ll rejoin you soon.” At the door, he turns around and says he will ask Innocent to quickly arrange dinner for me.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to them?” I blurt, not knowing what came over me.
A sudden confusion appears on his face. It is as if he isn’t sure what next to do or say. “Oh, that’s right,” he finally says. “I’ll do that at the dining hall, but that means we’ll have dinner together.”
“Better.”
“Good.”
*
I take my time changing into my party dress. By the time I hear the singing of “Happy Birthday,” the party has begun in the small dining hall, with the clashing of cutleries against ceramic plates.
When I get into the hall, I see only two cabinet ministers, aside from Fide Okolo, seated at the table—the corpulent labor minister, Honorable Onwurah, and the controversial smallish agriculture minister, Chief Chris Elugbe—and I wonder who came in the twenty more jeeps parked outside.
This extravagant lifestyle of politicians, I think, is worth blogging about.
“It is immoral and heartbreaking,” I will say to my husband, “that there are no jobs in this country; that salaries are not paid; that hunger is in the land. Yet these kola-nut heads masquerading as our leaders are living large.”
A few months ago, we all hoped that this government, made up of energetic young people, would hurry up the business of building a vibrant economy. Now, it appears that some unscrupulous leaders have emerged on the scene. What does the President do? He luxuriates flying from country to country to gain international recognition. Hence, it is not the issue of old-generation politicians being in power. It is clearly the lack of will to lead.
“You’re always complaining and complaining about how unfair everything is,” my husband had told me a million times. But now, he will say, “Tell me what you can do about it.”
“At least I’m writing about it,” is what I will say to him.
On the table are bowls of fried chicken, jollof rice, salad with enough leaves of excited-looking strips of lettuce, and assorted bottles of wine I have never tasted before.
Also seated at the table, beside Fide Okolo, is the woman. Her eyes follow me as Innocent ushers me to the seat beside Honorable Onwurah.
I greet everyone.
Chief Elugbe lifts his glass to me. The glass glitters in the refracted lights of the chandeliers hanging over the dining table. Honorable Onwurah extends his palm to me. His stomach protrudes to touch the edge of the heavy glass table. I imagine two babies inside his stomach struggling to break free as I offer him my hand. His hand feels like yam pounded so soft I fear my hand will crush his, but he squeezes my hand, smiling as he squeezes, and kisses it before letting go. I settle down close to him, close enough that our shoulders touch.
Innocent brings in the birthday cake. It is not the cake I brought. I stare at the cake and wonder where mine is, why Innocent has not brought it in, too. My cake is a sponge cake, but this is a chocolate cake with layers of butter-cream frosting, decorated with colorful sprinkles, like multicolored toothpaste spread on a brush. Although my sponge cake is custard-colored and has tiny brownish spots, naturally, it is nowhere close to Fide Okolo’s rich cake. I suddenly wish I gave Fide Okolo something else as a birthday present. A painting would have just been right. Perhaps I should have done a large and imposing painting of his face—bespectacled, although I know he does not always wear glasses as my husband whose eyes are the swollen eyes of frozen fish.
Fide Okolo rises, makes a wish, and cuts the cake. We all cheer. Then he gives me an awkward look and announces to everyone that I’m his excellent friend and that he is abundantly indebted to me for all my love. The woman rolls her eyes at me. I wish her eyeballs would just sink into their sockets. I feel that Fide Okolo should have first introduced me properly as his classmate, instead of just mentioning that I’m his “excellent” friend. I understand that the rest of the table thinks I’m his lover.
The woman continues to stare at me. I hope she looks away as I try to figure out how I should open the bottle of wine in front of me. But each time I lift my eyes, I meet her gaze. My irritation at her stare begins to grow. I feel like shouting at her, this woman, why are you staring at me? Have some bolts come loose in your head?
Perhaps sensing my anxiety, Innocent comes and opens the wine for me, then whispers to me that the woman is Stella Ojukwu, Fide Okolo’s ex-girlfriend. My anger suddenly leaves me. I look at Stella Ojukwu and stretch my lips into a smile to let her know that Innocent has ruined the moment for her. I stare back at her, my eyes staring her down, commanding her to look away. When she sees that I won’t waver, she drops her eyes and never looks in my direction again.
The ministers start to joke about their meeting at the presidential villa. Chief Elugbe says something that baffles me. He boasts about telling the Benin Government that he will not allow even a grain of their rice into Nigeria again.
They all laugh at this. I do not find it funny. The policy on agricultural imports has unleashed a squall of protests in the media. Has he not read the opinions in newspapers about what that policy implies? I watch him as he goes on about his powers and marvel at the pomposity in his voice, how effortlessly the threats roll out of his mouth, like stones gushing from a tap instead of water.
He sounds as though he has uttered the threats many times in private, confidential circumstances, but never in public. “I can impose a tax on every imported grain to discourage the importers,” he continues so boldly I’m tempted to interrupt him.
I have downed four glasses of wine, but I’m certain I’m not intoxicated. By my fifth glass, I think of what it will be like to ask the minister to shut up. This thought frightens me.
My husband will say, “It is not everything you see that you say, I tell you.”
“If you see something,” I will tell him, “say something.”
The minister is still speaking when I say,
“So what are you waiting for?”
The air in the room stands still for a moment. The silence is so delicate I start to quiver.
Fide Okolo stares at me, puzzled.
“What do you mean?” asks Honorable Onwurah, addressing me but looking at Fide Okolo who then looks away from me and refills his glass.
Stella Ojukwu seems amused.
“I don’t think it makes sense to shut down imports,” I say, “when you have not provided the enabling environment for farmers and investors.”
Honorable Onwurah nods, as though in agreement with me. I glance at him as he struggles to cut the chicken on his plate. I visualize a puppy trying to scoop up a full-blown balloon from the ground. That is how Honorable Onwurah is battling with the light-brown chicken lap.
“If you are planning for the public,” I continue, “I have no doubt that you know exactly what you’re in for, no doubt at all, but the real challenge lies in the best way to go about it.”
Chief Elugbe pushes at his glass as I speak.
I ask him,
“Will the policy be effective in alleviating the sufferings of the ordinary people? Or will it as usual serve only a few people?”
He ignores me as if I haven’t spoken, as though I’m not even there. I’m not sure if his silence is deliberate, but I can see the indifference on his face. He reaches out for the bottle of wine before him to top up his glass.
“You see, that is the fundamental problem with this country,” I say, referring to no one specifically. “Has the time not come for a change? Would you prefer to do little or nothing for the people who have given you their mandate?”
I understand that there will be no response, that although they all seem to be listening to me, they really might not be following. The effect of this on me is instant. I feel stupid, asking them these things when they seem not to follow.
Yet, I carry on,
“It is wrong to think that it is business as usual and to feel that you can trade the mandate given to you by the people for nothing.”
Chief Elugbe glances at Fide Okolo, perhaps to exhort him to ask me to shut up. Fide Okolo gives me a drunken look, and for half a second a message goes between us. His eyes seem to be saying, that’s enough now, Ruby, that’s enough. But I press my glass to my chest and in my eyes I say, what?
Fide Okolo tries to steer the conversation away by asking Innocent, who has been standing behind him, all the while waiting on him, to get him the bottle of special wine he kept in the refrigerator. Still, I want to point out to Chief Elugbe his disloyalty to the people, that it is not only immoral but also unacceptable for him to do whatever pleases him with his office. So before anyone has any chance to say anything else, without thinking about what can come after, I tell Chief Elugbe that he is only about erecting impotent policies that will still collapse. “But I believe you can correct this.”
Honorable Onwurah proposes a toast after Innocent brings the wine. I pass my glass to Innocent and he serves me the drink from the sweating bottle of special wine.
Chief Elugbe fixes his eyes on me. I see the anger building up in his eyes, which are now the red of a ripe watermelon sliced into equal halves.
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