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(Continued from last Monday)
Next, Law Number Four: Study the art of praise-singing. Politics Nigeriana being a complex art, there’s no need trying to decode it. It doesn’t even comprehend itself. It isn’t the eighth wonder of the world for nothing.
In it, nothing adds up. One plus one is eleven; two plus two, twenty two. In Nigeria, no two political players/formulae are identical. One formula can work now and a nano second later, fall flat in a similar situation.
Ditto, the players. They’re here with you now, all-drums, all-smiles, all-assured. The next nanosecond, they move on in droves, having only seen a writing of your imminent dethronement on the wall. The guys think a rumour or a likelihood is reality.
Politics outspeeds light. Both the game and its players seem permanently in haste. Don’t waste time wondering how to fix the abracadabra game. Rather, think up ways of survival because self is alpha and omega.
Survival is key. And, mind you, you cannot survive, politically, if you do not constantly up your game. It’s the only way to keep pace with the stakes which are raised by the minute. Enlist in NOUS no matter what.
Apart from Course 101, earlier discussed, there are a handful of other compulsory and elective courses you must take. Some of the compulsory courses are fundamental. Don’t play politics with them. Don’t only study them attentively, also do all and give all (plus including sorting) to score an A!
On that inevitable list is Course 102: The art of praise-singing. With far too much involved here, the preliminary step is to convince yourself with long hours of pep talk. Is politics what you really need? Are you sure to go through this particular course of study with its concomitant self-demeaning scheme of work, name-calling and attacks even on your family?
Success in sycophancy is crucial, as you can achieve in days what excellence, degree and honesty put together cannot fetch you in a tenure or two or even a lifetime. The ability to sweet-talk smoothly sets you apart and ahead of other aides. Power-holder will crave your presence, twenty four seven. (S)he will entrust you with responsibilities way beyond your core competence and job description.
Remember, the praise-singer never applies euphemisms. The praise-singer damns it all, has no sense of shame or decency, and pleases only power-holder. The praise-singer always says, ‘don’t mind them; they are jealous of you,’ to douse the worries or fears of power-holder when criticised. The praise-singer is ever ready to say or write something to negate reality, and such words are toneful music in the ears of power-holder.
Now, Law Number Five: Adopt blackmail as a compulsory tool. I need to point something out before we make progress. In this game, you must have super-retentive memory; you know, the uncanny ability of seeing or hearing or witnessing a thing once but remembering it for eternity. That’s what gives Nigerian political players their notorious staying power.
They don’t travel one path the same manner twice nor unlie a lie that easily. They are forever upwardly mobile. They’re sharp enough not only to commit but also to leave no trace. That’s the head you need as a blackmailer!
Time we expatiated on Course 103 -the science of blackmail. Blackmail is one of the numerous real-life vices that had since metamorphosed into a political virtue in my country. With Nigerian politicians, blackmail is a win win political tool. You can never lose if you are good at it.
Worse case scenario (as its users say) it is the victim who sweats to come clean/free. You, the ‘preyer,’ only have to idle mischievously nearby to see how to finetune it in case. Be warned: never be too holy; if you don’t apply the tool, someone will apply it against you. That is the real tragedy of blackmail.
If you don’t use it; it will use you. So, use it anyhow. Very few have ever recovered from political blackmail. The power-holder must be superhuman (there are not upto three, nationwide) to ignore political blackmail even against own blood.
That’s how hypertalismanic the tool is. At NOUS, learn the witchcraft science with all of you. It’s the political magic you need to hold anyone to ransom. Your blackmailability can tie the most feared power-holder to your apron strings.
With it, you can liquidate an enemy or someone you envy/suspect/perceive to be contending for the position/portfolio you eye or plan to eye. Blackmail is a wonder-working tool that concocts instant result at the wee stages or the last minute. Because I know you’d need it, I advise you go over this law again this instant. Thank me later!
Law Number Six: Interest is everything. Considering that political players in my country pooh pooh education, I think we should not over-dwell on NOUS or the many other laws framed around learning. So, let’s move from those pedagogic laws. Politics is as homourously-absurd as it is monstrously-exciting.
Those may not be universally-acknowledged adjectives for politics. They are apt though, for the Nigerian brand. Yes, in my homeland, politics is peculiar. It has a life and a style of its own.
Politics Nigeriana has maimed or destroyed or condemned or killed and buried a generation of our finest, whose sole undoing might have been insisting on the game being played according to the rule. Alas, we have been laughing it off. We laugh out of our frustrating helplessness or human-nature crass stupidity. Let’s laugh on but truth is: plying this political trade the way we do can never el Doradise our country!
I apologise for the deviation. Sermonising is neither part of our politics nor the brief of this series. Going forward with Law Number Six, treat your personal interest as everything and everything as your personal interest. Never negotiate that.
Never just walk away from deals/plans not built around your interest, also stay around to frustrate, strangulate, kill and ensure their burial. Otherwise, if they succeed without your signature, you are forever demystified.
(Continued next Monday)
