Expensive gas - The witchcraft alternative

I remember, as though yester­day, the release of Fela Ran­some-Kuti and Africa 70’s 12th album titled Expensive Shit in 1975. Arguably, it served a lot in the creation of the Fela aura that was to grip Nigeria in a bear hug ever after. Notably, that was be­fore the persona involved became an Anikulakpo and his band be­came Egypt 80. Though they ap­pear not to matter as much as that the flip side of the vinyl re­cord was the evergreen Water No Get Enemy. How instructive in­deed, that nowadays no one talks of the controversial other side as much as the flip. This, though, is just by the way.

Yes, because way back then it did appear as if Fela’s faeces was the most expensive by-product in town. Fuel, for instance, was no­where in the list, nay near its top. Not when all that the oil com­panies had to do was to literally ‘scratch ground small’ and crude would find its way to nearby refin­eries and fuel will full yakataa in fuel tanks. The staggering differ­ence they share in today’s quotient was indeed unimaginable then. In fact, to rephrase a former United States’ Vice-president, Spiro Ag­new, if Fela were to be alive today, he will turn around in his grave!
Talk about Agnew, if nothing else, brings to the fore his great­est critics – those he termed ‘the nattering nabobs of negativism’ in his life time. Without as much as daring to offer them the invalua­ble honour of the much besotted United States citizenship, I daresay that many of them are around and about us here. These girls and guys that I always rue about will never see anything good coming out of Africa. Indeed, were they to have made it to America – via Mexico, may be – they would be counted among the lot surprised by the af­fluence exhibited by Eddie Mur­phy’s celluloid father in the film Coming to America.
This lot that I have in mouth are among the many that are not thinking about original African solutions to African problems. Not unlike Fela, the agent pro­vocateur of this piece, advocated while he yet existed on this side of eternity. Of him – Anikulak­po, of course – I can swear that he would not have taken the ri­valry of the pricing of petroleum products with his dung lying low. He would have sought out an al­ternative African mean of loco­motion, that will be more fuel ef­ficient than combustion engines.
The bicycle would have come in handy since for fuel it would rath­er use the blood of its rider; but then it is hardly African. It would still have meant patronising those that caused all our problems, don’t you say? And this is where the ul­timate African solution comes in handy – witchcraft. Not too long ago in the eyes of the elders, a for­mer head of our state had called that we employed means like it to fight apartheid in South Afri­ca and we had all demurred. But it was not until he used it – whatev­er else – to return and rule us once more all over again that the South Africans were converted.
Well before us, they had seen that but for the introduction of that plan by the sage, Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and Wal­ter Sisulu would still have been in Robben Island awaiting bail. Like boasted by their current ruler, un­known by Boers, he was using that unsung power of our gods on their hapless citizens while they still reigned, having his way at will. Just like the very mention of it en­sured that he had his way at the elections via today’s votes at the mere promise of a slaughtering of cows to their ancestors upon re­ceipt of nothing less than 90 per­cent of their thumbprints.
And today, still ahead of us, the South Africans have advertised their wish to introduce the study of witchcraft in their universities. O yes, not too long from now, be­fore you can say Oliver Tambo, there will be a Zulu in front of you with a Bachelors’ in Witch­craft from Witwatersrand. Al­ready their minister of Advanced Education and Training has start­ed touting the great deal they stand to gain were they to discov­er the aptitude as soon as possible. ‘It will annihilate car influxes and everybody will simply get in their crate (winnowing wickers) and fly,’ like he enthused at a recent press briefing. According to him, ‘it ad­ditionally implies we won’t import fuel any longer.’
I needn’t say more, lest Fela turned around in his grave!