Dear Editor, NatGeo,

I am a great fan of your magazine, National Geographic, and your sister platform, National Geo Wild, and your coverage of natural history, particularly the behaviour of animals in the wild.  I must commend you and your organization for the high level of commitment, attentiveness to details and professionalism consistently and habitually displayed in your various reports both in print and the broadcast form.  As a journalist of many years standing myself, I will like to suggest to you and your various channels, a story idea that you may probably find interesting, for professional reasons and for reasons of corporate social responsibility. Kindly pardon my presumptuousness in this regard, but I crave your understanding. Knowing how busy your schedule is likely to be, I will try to be quick and as specific as possible.

This is about my country, Nigeria, a land of over 900, 000 sq. kms., with rich biodiversity and ecosystem, and definitely the largest market for both human and natural resources in Africa.  Since May 2015, when a new government took over power at the centre in our country, I have observed a curious and intriguing change in the behaviour of animals in Nigeria, suggestive of a certain transmutation, or perhaps transformation within the animal ecosystem, resulting in patterns of behaviour and interaction that may be of interest to your readers and viewers.

The most recent incident in this regard and the trigger for this letter is the current news in Nigeria about how a snake, described as a mysterious snake, has reportedly swallowed a sum of N36 million ($100k) belonging to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). JAMB is the national regulatory body in charge of admissions into tertiary institutions, very much like UCAS in the United Kingdom. This incident occurred we are told, in the process of the attempt by JAMB to audit the accounts of its zonal headquarters. In Makurdi, one Ms. Philomena Chieshe who has now been suspended, allegedly could not account for the said N36 million, being part-proceeds from the sale of forms for students seeking university admissions. When interrogated, she reportedly said her maid had confessed to the missing money having been taken by a mystery snake.

As a media channel that reports animal behaviour, this must be of great interest to you.  I don’t know whether this happens in other parts of the world, but here in Nigeria, we now seem to have a variety of snakes that are attracted by the smell of raw cash, and which feed on vaults and bags of money.  A documentary on this new variety of snakes, and a proper documentation of the genus and peculiarities would be good for filming. What exactly does the smell of national currency do to snakes? How nutritious is paper currency to snakes? The JAMB Registrar,  Professor Isi-aq Oloyede who has turned JAMB, for the first time in its existence, into a revenue generating body by plugging all loopholes within the system, and without increasing any fees, is insisting that this is a case of corruption and that he will get to the root of it. The Professor probably may not understand the way of snakes and the new variety in Nigeria.  He is a good man and I like him. I wouldn’t want him to be bitten by snakes.

Your investigative intervention should assist him. Your experts and investigators can deploy the tools of science and investigative journalism to seek out these snakes and catch them in action, and document for your numerous patrons, this new scientific development. Right now in Nigeria, we are preparing for the general elections scheduled for 2019. We need information and knowledge because if the Makurdi snake gets away with the N36 million, the same snake and its family could return in 2019 to swallow ballot boxes and papers and thus compromise Nigerian democracy.

I am, however, tempted to believe that the snakes in Makurdi may have become quite audacious, in reaction to a recent declaration, under this same political administration, by a high-ranking state official, that he bought two houses in Dubai from the sale of snakes!  Are snakes vengeful? Is this nemesis? Do they resent being sold for profit? Do snakes have the capacity to feel and settle scores? Could the sale of snakes, with the profit of houses in the UAE by a senior official, have motivated some snakes in Benue state to swallow money meant for the national treasury? What does the process of swallowing, and the digesting of money by snakes entail? Many young Nigerians and I believe other persons across the world will learn a lot from this.

I therefore hope you will consider this a very urgent subject for your consideration and editorial intervention.  Sir, the truth is that animals all over Nigeria are growing and becoming wild. They have no respect anymore for Nigeria’s constituted authority. We could wake up one of these days to hear that elephants have invaded the Central Bank of Nigeria, and swallowed all the bank’s vaults, leaving the entire country impoverished. The way things are, nobody will be surprised. I am sure you would not want that to happen, considering Nigeria’s strategic importance and population. If that were to happen, neither Africa nor the West would be able to handle the natural and humanitarian crisis that would ensue.  And if that were to happen, I am sure you will not want to miss the story.

I made the point that Nigeria has become such a wild zoo where the animals no longer respect constituted authority, and where there seems to be a conflict of roles between animals and human beings.  Let me elaborate a little.  Every year, Nigeria holds what is called Armed Forces Remembrance Day on January 15. One of the highlights of the event is the release of pigeons by the President at the end of the ceremony to symbolise the release of peace upon the land. I became really worried about the Nigerian animal kingdom when in the last three years, the pigeons released by the President simply refused to fly. Government officials shouted at the pigeons to fly. Some waved their hands and even tried sign language. Some professional sycophants flapped their arms like birds to guide the pigeons. But no way! The pigeons just jumped onto the floor and behaved as if they were having an evening-time promenade.

When you focus on birds on NatGeo Wild, the birds are shown flying. What’s going on here then? Why are some birds in Nigeria refusing to fly? The President of Nigeria is the most powerful man in the land. When he asks human beings to jump, they actually do more than jump; they make an effort to somersault. But birds, common birds, are defying Presidential orders. What kind of birds are these? A deaf and dumb specie? Or are they resisting being used as symbols of peace? Is it possible that birds have witchcraft? – because since those birds refused to fly, Nigeria has not known peace.

I began to suspect that something was indeed terribly wrong with the animal kingdom in Nigeria when sometime in 2017 rats invaded the President of Nigeria’s office! These criminal rats chased the President out of his office for more than a month. They tore the furniture in his office apart, littered the place with their droppings and disrupted Presidential work.  I am not making this up. The Nigerian Presidency issued an official statement to this effect.  Your publication and the Nat Geo Wild Channel missed the story, quite unfortunately.  But you have a second chance. You can do a good story, investigating the furniture-eating rats in Nigeria’s Presidential Villa. The President has since returned to his office, but what if the fangled-teeth rats are still around the place? What else will they eat? Having eaten up the President’s furniture without consequences, or implications, they may most certainly, just decide to munch the country’s security vote and foreign reserves! This then, is a matter of national security. If your cameras can just unmask these disrespectful rats, that will be the story of the decade.

I believe you will also get good stories and footages from covering the story of cows in Nigeria. I must tell you, cows have become far more important in my country today than human beings. Whereas many Nigerians have become homeless and defenceless, cows have bodyguards wielding AK-47 guns, bodyguards who insist that the life of cattle is more important than that of human beings.  In your experience, you may have heard about cattle ranches and modern ways of processing cattle, but in Nigeria’s animal kingdom, there has been much talk about creating colonies for cattle in Nigeria: as in plans to take land from human beings and give to cattle!  Many Governors in the country have resisted this, even the President has said that he has no constitutional powers to seize anybody’s land, but one young Governor, the one in Kogi state, has donated 15, 000 hectares of his people’s land, as cattle colony.  This must make a good story for your National Geo Wild Channel. Why would any state Governor prefer cattle to human beings? What kind of behaviour is that? What is it really that attracts human beings to animals?

My knowledge of the Bible tells me that the battle between herdsmen and farmers is an old, original battle. Of the two sons of our father Adam, and our mother, Eve, one was a farmer – Cain, the other was a herdsman – Abel.  Cain killed Abel. Since then, the world has not known peace. Their descendants have been at each other’s throats for as long as antiquity. I sincerely hope that it is not this original battle of vengeance that is now being re-enacted in Nigeria today over the battle of the cows and the farmlands. Herdsmen are killing farmers and vice versa and many of us are scared. Some people are even now saying they will create a Third Force to put an end to the drift. But nobody is sure of what tomorrow will bring. You have expert photographers and cameramen; they should be able to tease out the finest strands of this story.

Should you decide to take on this story, and do a documentary on how Nigeria has been turned into a wild zoo, within three years, I must advise that your reporters and experts should also be prepared for the shock of hearing some prominent Nigerians making references to animals all the time. One of our more outspoken Senators who should be a good interview subject about ten months ago actually told Nigerians that the seat of power, that is the Presidency of Nigeria, had been taken over by hyenas, wolves, and jackals in the absence of the lion-king. He also drew attention to a mortal combat between crocodiles and fishes. This remains a great puzzle.

The wife of the President would later reply that the hyenas and jackals would soon be expelled from the Kingdom. I am not sure this has happened, and I do not intend to go near the place to find out the truth. I can tell you why in a private conversation. But the other day, a prominent government official, a Professor of Law, who should know what he is talking about, but who has been sounding like one of the hyenas the Senator complained about, gave a lecture in which he himself complained about how Nigeria has become an animal kingdom! This same Professor not too long ago, also announced that the ruling party of which he is a member, is led by “rogue-elephants.”

I have a confession to make. I worked in government until recently but I am frightened by the manner in which wild animals are now all over the place. When public officials talk, they see animals. When events occur, they blame animals. When things get missing, animals creep into the picture. Fela, the musician once warned us about animals but I didn’t take him serious. As a responsible media house, interested in the life and times of animals in the wild, please hurry up and investigate how Nigeria has become a country of snakes, fishes, hyenas, crocodiles, cows, lions, wolves and jackals in just three years! Your audience will be supremely enriched by the effort.

I also assure you that there are many knowledgeable persons on ground who can assist you to do a good story or a series of excellent reports. Incidentally, we have a former President who once wrote a book titled: This Animal called Man, and who is a famous chicken farmer to boot. We have another former President who has a Ph.D in Zoology and was once described as a fisherman. We also have a sitting President who before becoming President, a second time, owned 150 cattle (I don’t know how many he has now) and who is a life patron of the herdsmen association of Nigeria. We even have a Nobel Prize winner, who enjoys hunting in the forest of a thousand animals. And you have me here, waiting, expectantly, who can serve as your consultant (my charges are modest) – as you write the story of how Nigeria, suddenly, before our very eyes, became a country of wild animals.

Thank you very much for your time and attention. Please don’t delay until rogue elephants swallow the Central Bank or wolves eat up the NNPC – our treasure trove. Best regards.  [myad]

The Igala of Kogi state in north central Nigeria have a proverb that succinctly explicates an exception to what is generally seen or thought to be the conventional.  While the young people may decide to do all manner of acrobatic displays in the open field or in the farm, they say it is not in the character of old people to so behave.  According to them, “An old man does not run in-between ridges in the farm for nothing; it is either he is chasing something or something is chasing him.” This provides the context within which I want to analyse the recent intervention in the state of the nation by the former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (popularly referred to as IBB).

My preoccupation is not to deconstruct the general and specific messages contained in the February 4, 2018 press statement in which he shared his thoughts with fellow compatriots on the need to infuse fresh blood or enthrone younger leaders in the mainstream of the nation’s political leadership in 2019; rather, the enterprise is to interrogate the likely circumstances that might have led the former military president to take to the popular media, against his style, to offer advice, pro bono publico, on the 2019 presidential race.

IBB has been characteristically prudent in matters of presidential power.  But, suddenly, he has unusually acted out of character, intrepidly lending his avuncular voice to the growing corpus of interventions on the modus of dealing with the nation’s seeming incompetent leadership that has brought about unimaginable pains on Nigerians.   I think very seriously that he should be allowed to reinvent himself in the light of the cumulative hunger and anguish in the land, having stoically related with and acted in seeming condonation of the nation’s successive governments since he stepped aside on August 27, 1993.

Apart from the coup of August 27, 1985 that produced him as head of state, consequent upon the overthrow of General Muhammadu Buhari during which he pilloried the governance style of his predecessor in his takeover speech, IBB has never been openly critical of any of his successors in office until presently. His refrain, anytime the media place a demand on him to assess the performance of any government in power, has been that there are open channels of communication through which he advises the president.

For the records, he never criticised Chief Ernest Shonekan’s Interim National Government (ING) to which he handed over power on August 27, 1993 nor did he take on the regime of General Sani Abacha that took over from Shonekan, even when the regime unleashed a reign of terror on the nation.  IBB also did not chastise General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s regime that came after the Abacha regime, not to talk of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s eight-year administration with all its imperfections and malfeasance.

There was speculation that Obasanjo breached a gentleman’s agreement to rule for a term of four years after which power would be guided to IBB, one of his sponsors to power. The gap-toothed general did not cause ruckus when Obasanjo forcefully retained power in 2003.  He had maintained a deep sense of equanimity and statesmanlike disposition.  In 2007, after the failure of Obasanjo to manipulate the constitution amendment to provide for his third term in office, his presidency had moved against IBB’s presidential bid.

Again, IBB did not impudently fight back or insist on having his way.  He quietly eased out of the race, explaining in a letter to Obasanjo as president and leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that he took the decision because his friend, General Aliyu Gusau, and his younger brother, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (then governor of Katsina state), were already in the race and would  not want to be seen to be competing with them for power.

The fact that Obasanjo imposed Yar’Adua on the PDP as the presidential candidate might not have rankled IBB as he did not do anything subsequently to undermine the Yar’Adua presidency.  At the most critical time in the presidency in 2009, when Yar’Adua was sick, it was Obasanjo who, surprisingly, championed the call for his resignation.  When Goodluck Jonathan, another stooge of Obasanjo, who was then vice president, stepped in following Yar’Adua’s death, Obasanjo characteristically did not support him to the end.

To demonstrate his public rejection of Jonathan and his government, Obasanjo had to publicly tear his PDP membership card. He had earlier written an open letter to the Ijaw-born leader titled: “Before it is too late”. Obasanjo did not leave anyone in doubt that he was supporting General Muhammadu Buhari for the presidency.   His anti-Jonathan sentiments were so deep-seated that he made up his mind to vote for anybody but Jonathan.  That predisposed him to glossing over, for instance, the weakness of Buhari in the area of the economy.

For IBB, who has been a PDP leader from the outset, it was a time to remain steadfast, not a time to jump on the bandwagon just because the entire north was gravitating towards Buhari.  He did not speak against the candidature of Buhari.  But for perceptive watchers of the nation’s presidential politics, IBB’s body language was unambiguous.  Nothing has changed or even mitigated his 1985 verdict about Buhari, with which he justified the overthrow of the Daura-born general as head of state.

Methinks IBB just decided to live quietly and painfully with his apparent minority view about a Buhari presidency in 2015.  It was clear he could do nothing to avert it.  About three years in the saddle, Buhari has unraveled to the chagrin of a vast majority of Nigerians.  Obasanjo’s January 23, 2018 intervention was just a confirmation of the pan-Nigerian sentiments about the incompetence and cluelessness of the administration that feed egregiously on nepotism and ethno-religious chauvinism.

IBB possibly realised that his strategic diplomacy prelude to 2015 presidential election had not helped the nation when it mattered most.  If there was anybody who could have spoken magisterially to Buhari’s capacity to rule, it was IBB.  But he probably chose to watch with subtle amazement the mass hysteria about the garb of Messianism with which propagandists had clad Buhari.  It was only a matter of time and the entire saga about a “redemptive mission” by Buhari has turned into a historic scam.

Is IBB now trying to atone for his sin of seeming conspiratorial silence by which he left Nigerians to the task of construing or misconstruing his body language at a critical juncture when his voice was most needed to help chart a trajectory in the quest for a president with capacity to redeem our nation?  I think this is the reason he has now taken up the gauntlet in the face of the economic ruins, growing misery, unconscionable divisiveness and rudderless leadership in our nation presently to stand up to be counted on the popular side.

Otherwise, it is not in IBB’s character to lampoon and criticize his successors in office. He must have advised himself to earn his badge as a statesman, who has seen it all and sacrificed so much for the country; a statesman committed to the survival of Nigeria; a statesman like some influential others who are in the night of their lives, quietly waiting in the departure lounge for the ultimate “beatification and canonization” of their respective legacies.

IBB would be consigning himself to the wrong side of history as a timid and confused leader if he failed to act.  This is why he has acted.  Yet, the Yoruba have a proverb that “a hunter who has only one arrow does not shoot with careless aim.”  That is the vital summation of IBB’s latest and, possibly, last act in the search for a digital president for our beleaguered nation.  I just hope this act enjoys endorsement by a vast majority of Nigerian electorate for the actualization of his advocacy.

• Ojeifo, editor-in-chief of The Congresswatch magazine sent this piece via ojwonderngr@yahoo.com