Johnnie MacViban
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE HARDWAY
Garba Mallam Dogo whose profile curved at a certain angle, was at the helm of the ship of state. He was the Gaulists’ little Macaque who led a simulation of a government whose foundation was based on the super-structure of fear. Authenticity of all things was the national religion while the cult of mediocrity had become the median for national survival. Presidentialism, whatever the HEXAGONE uncles meant by it was a terminal illness that left political pundits searching for a vaccine.
It was a crying shame that such things only occurred in the tropics. Intrigue was by then a social obligation, as popular will or legitimacy was absent. Nepotism and cronyism turned out to be the government’s closest allies. The strongman’s minions conducted government business on an ad hoc basis. Reality was being shadowed and dissent crushed with impunity. The pamphleteering crowd had all but gone underground. There was no compromise at hand.
Only the government newspaper “The Salongo” was authorized to circulate. Its columns had the notorious practice of Afghanistanism – the deliberate shying away from domestic hotbeds only to capitalize on far-off misfortunes.
The money grabbing gang had roiled things up by going one step ahead of potentiality. The world of graft had turned the populations into nothing more than pinioned captives. Many questions began to haunt their minds as a group of young patriots who had an ulterior motive, decided to come in from the cold. They wanted their own piece of the pie, right here and right now. Calling themselves the Class of ’74, their proposed future actions were expected to be boy’s fun. The quest for freedom was now therefore not just a point of view. Stating the obvious, they insisted, was the painful process of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.
End of year had come by in a cacophony of colour and style, only to be characterized by yet empty promises. The yoke of the old was still a psychological scar by New Year. A meeting to be addressed by Mayor Eearnshaw Munudi Mana ended before any monotonous podium pounding could be effected.
An explosion rocked the grandstand and the east wing of the city hall, injuring three people and causing considerable damage. After the incident, the visibly touched fat-necked and sweaty mayor made a hurried radio statement, denouncing that show of force with tiger-like words. To the predominantly illiterate citizens now encased in long ingrained obedience, his pronouncements like “acts of insanity and savagery perpetrated and metted out by a nexus of malefactors” only seemed to increase the hate. Speculations as to the wherefore of the act was easy conversation for many days. A real paean of hate was soon sung everywhere. Violence was therefore breeding more violence.
THE AUTHOR
Mwalimu Johnnie MacViban is a Senior Journalist and News Analyst with the Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV). A Ripple From Abakwa is his second novel. He has also published a collection of poems-An Anecdoted View - and is working on a collection of essays, The Mwalimu’s Reader.
BOOK INFORMATION
A Ripple From Abakwa
Mwalimu Johnnie MacViban
ISBN 9956-11-062-0
Patron Publishing House, Bamenda, Cameroon
108 pages
March 2009
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